Ted Nugent, The mere name conjures up images of outlaw rock and roll. Ted’s music has been around for years, He hails from my home state of Michigan, and from my native city of Detroit. Although, conversely, He is not from the city of Detroit proper, He was, by all accounts, a suburbanite kid, from a well-privileged family.
Ted took it upon himself to write an Op-Ed piece on the Wall Street Journal Editorial website called, “Opinion Journal”, which I personally believe should be aptly renamed the “Politically Biased Journal”. Mr. Nugent writes a piece called “Summer of Drugs” (http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010291) in which Mr. Nugent proceeds to launch into a full bore, right wing, pious, pharisaical rant about the misgivings of the psychedelic late 1960’s. In of which, he attempts to paint himself as the superior alter boy of this time. My friends do not buy the hype, nor the distortions of truth painted in this rather simple-minded article.
Ted Nugent is not a perfect person, nor is he the Rock and Roll superstar that he likes to believe that he is. It is well known that Ted Nugent was quite the Ladies man back in the 1970’s. It is also a somewhat well known fact that Mr. Nugent led a very naughty relationship with an under aged woman, who was about 15-20 years his junior, and also became her legal guardian, with the consent of her parents of course. Although, confidentially I am told that Ted intimidated her parents into signing the consent forms. The relationship was not a very happy one, however, once this beautiful young woman realized that she was nothing more than an on call sex slave and caretaker of Ted’s Children and house. She finally became fed up with his womanizing ways and left. I will give Mr. Nugent credit; he did marry and have children. His first wife, Sandra Jezowski, was killed in a car accident in 1982. Ted blamed drugs, although, friends of mine who live in the area in which this happened, tell me that Sandra was suicidal because Ted was more interested in being mister rock and roll star than being a loving husband and father to their two children. The couple was divorced when the accident happened.
In the business world, Ted has not faired much better, His outdoorsman store that he opened in Jackson, Michigan in the late 1980’s went bust back in the mid 1990’s, and he was forced to close the store. This was because, I’m told, that the products he was offering, could have been bought for half the price Ted was asking in any big retail sporting good’s chain store. I am also told that Ted did not give any of his employee’s notice that he was closing up shop. Just showed up one day and said, “The Party’s over” and laid off 25 workers and several managers. Somewhere in the mid 1990’s, Ted got a wild hair up his rear end to buy a radio station. 102.7 “The Bear” was what it was called. The tag line was “Classic Rock, that really rocks”, although, while the station was large on hype, it lacked much in substance. When rival radio stations saw the Ted Nugent was getting his own station, they blacklisted him and stopped playing Nugent’s records. In retaliation, Nugent starting slandering the other two classic rock stations in Detroit, WCSX and WRIF, both of which played his records regularly to help bolster his career. The other stations began a secret campaign of contacting Ted’s sponsors and asking them to pull their ads from his station. Around this time, Ted Nugent decided that he was bored, and went back out on tour. Leaving Steve Black and a host of other DJ’s to run his station. However the damage was done, Ted’s station was losing money and sponsors were dropping like flies. Moreover, Ted, not wanting to loose his shirt, quickly sold the station and moved on to the next project.
Another note of interest is that Ted was more interested in winning the latest sexual intercourse conquest, than he was interested in managing his finances. He became of victim of a much-kept secret financial disaster, which almost cleared out his back account. In his trademark Republican way, he blamed his managers, instead of accepting the responsibility himself. No wonder George W. Bush is such a large fan.
Musically Nugent has done fairly well, if think writing songs about physically abusing women are hallmarks of a successful musical career. Nugent started with the Amboy Dukes, of which several songs are to be noted, “Journey to the center of the mind”, which was a blatant reference to drugs. Nugent played dumb, swears he had no idea what its underlining meanings were. Ted is not known for his scholarly intelligence. Another one of his songs, “Baby, Please don’t go”, which was a “Cover Tune”, features a guitar lick that was stolen from a real and successful guitar player and rock star, Jimi Hendrix. Does anyone remember, “Third Stone from the Sun”? As far as Ted’s personality goes, ask Derek St. Holmes how wonderful it was to work with Ted and ask Derek why he left Ted’s band. The answer he will give might shock you.
In closing, I wrote this article, because I felt that Ted Nugent was being a bit dishonest in his article and I felt that he had some nerve to trash the very people that helped him become what he is today, whatever that is. Ted Nugent truly is a disgrace, A disgrace to Michigan and the Detroit area, a over blown, under talented, Charlatan, Opportunist Extraordinaire. Ted Nugent is truly a legend in his own mind.
-Chuck Adkins
Editor and Publisher
The Populist
http://thepopulistblog.com
Lincoln Park, Michigan USA
