Remember the song 'Dolly Dagger'? I wonder if that was about Doris Atkinson (AKA Dana Stevens) I lived at Dana's pad around 1983 in Santa Rosa Ca. on Clover Court. I had free rent in exchange for odd jobs she had me do. She is one of the daughters of the American Concrete contractor Lynn Atkinson. He was instrumental in building some famous damns early in the 20th century in the USA and as Dana told me, even poured alot of 'crete' in the Panama canal! I never knew what to believe she told me. But after a few months of looking at the stuff in her 'pack-rat' garage I found many photo's that proved she was telling me true stories, along with a rather large bag of this chocolatey powder that kicked my butt. Then a brother of mine verified it WAS Mescaline AFTER he stole it from me. (That story was related to this same house on Bella Dr.) She told me she bought this place, along with a mirror image mansion across the street in the early 60's and gave the house across the street to her sister. (Gotta love those Hollywood inheritences!) Anyways, Dana (Maybe still going by 'Doris' at the time) started a music production company about the same time she bought these mansions and wanted to create a broadway rock musical she called 'Nut Rocker Suite' and was doing then what she did when I met her. She told me she put an ad in an LA newspaper looking for musicians for this musical and James Hendrix was one of those who was hired for the job. (Along with a very sick Cher who I forget was either alone or already with Sonny. I just remember she told me she was very sick when she showed up.) But back to Jimi, she told me he was high all the time. Probably drunk, and always begging for musical equipment. She told me she told Jimi to do more work around the house, but instead he would slip out and hide out at the music studio. After a few unauthorized musical instrument reciepts she recieved from some music stores she told me she got rid of him. He showed up stoned out of his mind with some girl and she had his stuff at the door. (Same thing she did to me!!!) Interesting thing is that in the garage I found a cardboard box with guitar stuff in it, mostly junk, like rusty strings and stripped screws and such, but also there was an Electro-Harmonix LPB-1 booster and about three dirty bandana's. I kept the LPB-1 because it had loose wires that needed to be soldered and that is what I like to do. I never put it back in the box though :P If this WAS Jimi's it was one of the earliest examples as I believe the guy who started EH (Forget his name, dang it, Doug?) had the first LPB-1 made in an accident. He hired a guy from IBM to make him a guitar compressor/distortion box that was too week, and the dude made a simple signal booster that became the LPB-1. (The compressor was moth-balled!) Then he made that 'Muff' thing, and the rest is history. Interesting thing about this LPB-1 is that it is positive ground but still uses an NPN transistor. Anyways, I would like to hear from others that know for SURE who owned this mansion when Hendrix lived there as when I saw this story today in a google search, I just about pooped my pants! This sounds EXACTLY like the pad (as she called it) she told me about because the name of the street rang my brain and I remember she told me the 'pad' had a 'dancer' (lover baby?) past. (The Mescaline originally belonged to some dancer dude she was sleeping with and told him if she ever found him doing drugs, he'd be gone. Well, according to her story to me, she found his 'stash' in a bathroom cabinet and proceeded to RIP that cabinet OFF the wall!!!.......and guess what I found in her garage in Santa Rosa? ;-)

Now I am very upset at myself that I didn't keep that whole box that the LPB-1 was in. I'm confident those hankerchiefs and strings were rusted with Jimi's sweat! Those headbands (hankerchiefs) were really crusty and I didn't even want to touch them at the time. Being a Jimi admirer I feel sick to my stomach because I'm sure that box was thrown away when Dana died. Her pictures can be seen at the Berkely, Ca. Museium in person with appointment.

Back to the Hendrix song 'Dolly Dagger'. Dana always called the guys working for her 'Lover Baby' and other bizzare names. She liked to be called 'Dragon Lady' or 'Dragon Woman'. Sounds wierd but I got used to it. Anyways, when I hear that song I can't help but believe that song was about her. If anyone has a better scoop about that song please chime in. But I tell you, Dana Stevens/Doris Atkinson is Dolly Dagger from the Falcons Lair on Bella Drive!