Kiss of the Mudman (both the album and the song) made Parallax instant (if fleeting) icons. Their two previous albums (both of which had done okay but not great) were re-issued and sold like crazy, giving them two gold and one platinum album the same year, 1978.

And then Alan Shaw, the bassist, died of a heroin overdose, and Tracy Jacobs, the drummer, was killed in an auto accident (it was later determined that he’d been drunk at the time). Byron Knight recorded a terrific solo album that just bombed, and then he dropped off the radar. Some college stations still dusted off “Mudman” from time to time when the DJs felt like making fun of it (or needed a leisurely piss break), and it, like the band who recorded it, was now nothing more than a curiosity piece.

Still, if you were a fan, (like I’d been) to hear the man who’d written and sang the song mumble the word “…mudman…” was, well…still kind of a thrill, and I couldn’t help but remember the verse that had been all the rage for a few months back when I was a teenager:

“You wonder where it all went wrong and why you feel so dead

why it seems that every day you’re hanging by a thread

Are you still who you were and not what you’ve become?

Is this the taste of failure that lingers on your tongue?

Your dreams are ending in a place

far from where they began

Because what’s on your lips

Is the memory of the kiss

Of the mudman…”

Okay, “Blowin’ in the Wind” it wasn’t, but as a soul-sick cry of loneliness and alienation, it works—and that’s what “Mudman” was, an 18-minute musical suicide note, chronicling the last minutes of a dying rock star’s life as he looks back on all the people he’s hurt and left behind, knowing that none of it—the fame, the money, the women and riches—was worth it, that all he’d ever wanted he’d pissed away, and now had to die alone, and deserved his fate.

I’d always wondered just who or what the Mudman was (as did all the fans of the piece), but Knight would never say.

“…sonofabitch,” he slurred from the cot as he attempted to sit up. I went over and helped him, got him a glass of water, and watched as he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket and popped two of them into his mouth. “For the pain,” he said, taking a deep drink of the water. Setting down the glass, he wiped his mouth, rubbed his eyes, and looked at me. “Was I dreaming, or did you say something about an ulceration?” I shook my head. “That was someone else, the Reverend, the man who runs this shelter.” “Ah.” He blinked, coughed a few times, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m kinda sick, I’m afraid.” “Cancer.” It was not a question. He looked at me. “Seen it before, have you?” “Yes.” “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna flip out on you. I just needed to get a little shut-eye in a warm place.” “You’re Byron Knight.”

He paled at the mention of his name. “I was Byron Knight. Now I’m just a sick transient who’s come back to his hometown to die. Think the Reverend would have any objection to my doing it here?”

“We’ve had people pass away before. The Reverend never forces anyone to leave if they don’t want to.”

“That’s good, because I don’t want to. Don’t have anywhere to go, anyway.” He ran his fingers through his hair, then stuck out his hand. “You are?” “Sam,” I said, shaking his hand. “What the fuck happened to that ear of yours?” I touched it, as I always do whenever someone asks me about it. “Frostbite.” “You hear out of it? No, huh?” “Nope.” “So I guess it was a dumb question.” “Not really.” He sniffed, then looked around the room. “Your Reverend, he wouldn’t have any booze stashed around here by chance, would he?” I knew the Reverend kept a bottle of brandy in his desk. I got it out and poured Knight a short one. “Is that a good idea?” I asked him as I handed the glass to him. “I mean, on top of the pain pills?”

He laughed but there was no humor in it. “Sam, I think I’m way past worrying about the effects this’ll have on my health.” He lifted the glass in a toast. “To your health, then.” He downed it in one gulp. “Oh, that’s nice.” He held out the glass. “One more? I promise that’ll be it.” I poured him another, this one a little higher than the last. This time he sipped at it. “I wish you’d stop looking at me like that.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that…I was a big fan.” “That’s nice.” He sounded as if he really meant it. “It’s nice to know that someone remembers.” “You guys were good.”

“No, we could have been good. Fuck—we could’ve been great, but it just got too easy to hear everyone else tell us how great we were. ‘Better the illusion exalts us than ten thousand truths.’ Alexander Pushkin said that. Don’ ask me who he was, I couldn’t tell you. I read that line in a book of quotes somewhere. Always stayed with me.” He dug around in his pocket and produced a hand-rolled cigarette. “Yes, Sam, this is grass, and I’m gonna light up. I can do it in here or we can step outside, it’s up to you.”

I nodded at the joint. “That for the pain, too?”

“Everything’s for the pain these days, Sam.”

“There’s a sheriff out in the shelter.”

“So? Here or a jail cell, at least I’ll be inside when I buy the farm.” He fired up a match and inhaled on the joint. The room was instantly filled with the too-sweet aroma.

“Want a hit?” he said, offering the joint.

“No. Go ahead and bogart it, my friend.”

He laughed. “I’ll bet the first time you heard that song, it was in Easy Rider. Am I right? Tell me I’m right.”

“You’re right.”

“Thought so.” He took a couple of more hits, then licked his fingers and doused the business end. “No need to use it all at once.”

The smoke lingered. A lot.

No, wait—lingered isn’t quite the right word. What this smoke did was remain. It didn’t drift off, didn’t start to break apart and dissipate, it just hung in the air, a semi-solid cloud that didn’t appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere. “That must be some strong stuff,” I said. “It does the trick, if used in combination with the right ingredients.” “Like brandy and pain pills?” “Give that man a cigar.” “Can I get you anything else?” He pointed to something beside the door. “You can bring me my ax, if you don’t mind.”

Turning, I saw the beat-up guitar case leaning against the wall. I picked up the case, noted that the handle was about to come off (the duct tape used to re-attach was just about shot), and carried it over to Knight. He opened the case and removed the guitar, a gorgeous, new-looking Takamine 12-string with a dreadnought-sized cutaway white-bound body, solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides, a mahogany neck with white-bound rosewood fretboard, a rosewood bridge, and a black pick-guard.

It was one of the most beautiful instruments I’d ever seen.

“Yeah,” said Knight, seeing the expression on my face, “she’s a beauty. I’ve had this baby for most of my life. Half the time—shit, most of the time—I took better care of her than I did of myself.” He gave it a light strum, and the room filled with that rich, clear sound that only a perfectly-tuned guitar can produce.

“So, Sam…any requests?”

“You should play what you want.”

“Hmm.” He began playing a series of warm-up riffs, nothing spectacular, then slowly eased into a standard blues riff, then the same with variations, something he described as the Blues Minor Pentatonic Scale, consisting of the root, the minor third, the fourth, the fifth and the minor seventh.

“Something to hear, if you know how to listen,” he said. “You know, it never occurred to me before how frighteningly easy it is to re-shape a single note or scale into its own ghost. For example, E-major, C, G, to D will all fit in one scale— the Aeolian minor, or natural minor of a G-major scale. Now, if you add an A-major chord, all you have to do is change the C natural of your scale to a C-sharp for the time you're on the A-major. Music is phrases and feeling, so learning the scales doesn't get you ‘Limehouse Blues’ any more than buying tubes of oil paints gets you a ‘Starry Night,’ but you have to respect the craft enough to realize, no matter how good you are, you’ll never master it. Music will always have the final word.”