Bon Jovi: Music of substance: As rock grows up, rockers have reached out

A nice article on the benefit Bon Jovi will be playing this week.

The event has a really nice poster too.  I like all the guitars in the shape of a pine tree.

Music of substance: As rock grows up, rockers have reached out

By John Wenzel

The Denver Post

POSTED: 01/16/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

Jon Bon Jovi and his band will play a benefit here Friday.
( Robert Cianflone, Getty Images )

Music of substance: Same destination, new (drug) trip, through electonica

Bon Jovi raked in more than $100 million on the road last year, placing the New Jersey group ahead of Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and Dave Matthews Band as the top touring act of 2010.

So why is the multiplatinum rock act — which handily sold out the Pepsi Center the last two times it came through town — flying in to play for fewer than 1,200 people at the Colorado Convention Center on Friday?

For a good cause, naturally. Several of them.

"It came together because I have a long history with (frontman Jon Bon Jovi)," said Chuck Morris, the Denver promoter who booked the show benefiting the University of Colorado Hospital's 5-year-old Center for Dependency, Addiction and Rehabilitation, or CEDAR.

Denver promoter Chuck Morris pictured with Colorado Governor Bill Ritter. (Denver Post file )

Morris approached Jon Bon Jovi and his management three months ago on the long shot that the band would be interested in playing the benefit. Attendees will pay $2,500 to $50,000 per table to raise funds for the state-of-the-art, $14 million CEDAR facility in Aurora, which treats over 200 people per year.

"We sent him some stuff on CEDAR and the University of Colorado Hospital, and within 24 hours he said yes," Morris said.

As president of AEG Live Rocky Mountains, Morris also has special pull with the band: CEDAR is on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, and Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz owns AEG Live, the company that books Bon Jovi's dates worldwide.

So is it more kind-hearted deed or business favor?

It's both. Morris is known for his successful nonprofit and political fundraisers, and Jon Bon Jovi (whose guitarist, Richie Sambora, publicly struggled with alcoholism two years ago) has a reputation for being a sober, family-oriented guy.

It's also a subject with particular resonance for Morris. Not only has he booked some of the biggest names in music for benefits in Colorado — including a Red Rocks concert with Dave Matthews Band that raised $1.5 million in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — he's on board with CEDAR's mission.

"I have been clean and sober for 22 years, and very proud of it," he said. "I've seen what it's done for some of my friends, and believe me, I've had a lot of friends who have gone through it."

History of abuse

The mythologized — at times romanticized — relationship between drugs and creative types goes back centuries, from painters, writers and intellectuals quaffing the (supposedly hallucinogenic) absinthe in the late 19th century to jazz musicians and '90s grunge rockers shooting heroin before climbing on stage.

But drug and alcohol abuse was practically institutionalized in rock 'n' roll culture in the '60s and '70s as a seemingly endless string of brilliant (and not so brilliant) artists prematurely succumbed to its ravages.

It was grisly stuff: Overdoses and asphyxiations garnered a lot of attention — including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and John Bonham — but conditions brought on by sustained abuse were just as lethal (see Elvis Presley).

As drugs became tied up in music culture they perpetuated the notion that they led to artistic impulses, instead of being a product of an addictive personality or other factors.

"I think that's one of the great myths of people that have addictive personalities like myself: that you have to get high to be creative," Morris said.

He cited former James Gang and Deep Purple guitarist Tommy Bolin, who died from a heroin overdose in 1976, as an example of the ravages.

"I was really great friends with Tommy, and he died tragically at 25 years old. I think that was a wake-up call to some people — especially around here, since he lived in Boulder. It was less of a business and more of a party in early rock 'n' roll days, and I was as bad as anybody."

Morris, who has been in the business for 40 years, said he "did and tried everything" in those days, but that alcohol was his drug of choice.

"I woke up one day when I hit 40 and realized my body wasn't what it was when I was 30," said Morris, 65. "I was the number two guy at Feyline (the concert company he worked at with promoter Barry Fey) for many years, and I'd be coming into work at 11:30 because I was too hung over."

And Morris wasn't alone. Drugs and booze have been a fixture of both the creative and industry side of the larger entertainment world for decades.

"Entertainers lead a very fast life," said Frank Lisnow, director of CEDAR. "The two most dangerous things for any addict is time and money, and that's what entertainers have — and lot of it."

Too much at stake

Things are different in 2011. The digital revolution has remade the recording industry, and everyone in music has been forced to focus on the bottom line.

"It's really changed dramatically in the last 10 or 15 years," Morris said, surveying his office walls covered in gold records, posters and photos of himself with acts like the Eagles and Dave Matthews Band. "It's too competitive these days and there's too much at stake. That's not to say there's still not abuse, but it's nothing like it used to be."

He cited local acts such as the Fray and Big Head Todd and the Monsters — the latter of which he managed for 11 years — as examples of musicians who have avoided the perils of drugs.

"I remember going on the road with (Big Head Todd) when their first record broke, and they were the antithesis in some ways of rock stars. Todd was more interested in reading a book on the bus after a show than going out and getting drunk and meeting girls."

CEDAR, which aims to treat addiction holistically by addressing other mental health problems, is benefiting from the overall cultural shift.

"When it was prevalent in the '60s, '70s and '80s, addiction as a whole disease was pushed under the table," director Lisnow said. "Now it's more accepted as a disease and people have stepped up."

And ticket packages are still availible. Check out this site for details: http://www.uch.edu/conditions/addictions/Events/cedar.aspx