Biography
Peter Fonda achieved his greatest renown through cinema, where he worked as performer, filmmaker, producer, and writer while embodying a defiant stance against established power. Far less recognized is his activity as a performer and recording artist, limited to a single little-known 45 issued in 1967, “November Night,” penned by the then-obscure Gram Parsons. Though he never concentrated on music, his connections within the rock world proved unusually consequential: he maintained close ties with the Byrds and other leading figures, supplied partial inspiration for a Beatles composition, and, alongside Dennis Hopper, originated the core vision of Easy Rider, an early instance of a film whose atmosphere depended on a carefully chosen contemporary rock soundtrack.
Social contact between performers from separate fields has long been routine, and Fonda participated in such exchanges as soon as he entered professional acting. What distinguished him from earlier Hollywood figures was his early and public identification with the emerging rock counterculture. While the movement was still in its infancy, he became an avid supporter and personal friend of the Byrds; by mid-decade the association was already established. When the Beatles performed in Los Angeles in 1965, Fonda and the Byrds joined them at their temporary residence. During an LSD session that evening Fonda recounted having once hovered near death on an operating table as a child and declared he therefore understood what death felt like. John Lennon, overhearing the remark, found it deeply irritating and later transformed the phrase—reversing the speaker’s gender—into the central line of the Beatles’ 1966 recording “She Said, She Said.”
Although Fonda played guitar and sang, he never contemplated abandoning film for a musical career and never attempted songwriting. At a gathering in 1966 he performed informally; jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela was present, was impressed, and soon proposed a recording collaboration. The two booked studio time and cut sixteen tracks, assisted by the Byrds’ David Crosby and Roger McGuinn. Fonda ultimately declined to issue the results, later explaining in his autobiography that “it wasn’t there.”
He did, however, release one 45 on the small Chisa label in 1967, pairing “November Night” with a Donovan composition on the flip side (identified in his autobiography as “Colors,” though Sid Griffin’s Parsons biography lists it as “Catch the Wind”). The A-side is a gently swaying folk-rock number carrying a faint Caribbean inflection, unlike the country material for which Parsons later became known; Fonda’s vocal delivery is competent yet undistinctive. Trumpet parts audible on the recording may be Masekela’s, though the autobiography leaves the point unresolved. Such participation would be consistent with Masekela’s documented friendship with Fonda, their joint unreleased album, and his earlier trumpet contribution to the Byrds’ “So You Want to Be a Rock’n’Roll Star.” Roughly twenty-five years afterward, Masekela introduced Fonda to an audience by remarking, according to the autobiography, “I had given him everything he ever needed to know about Hollywood, 25 years earlier.” The single later appeared on a scarce bootleg EP of International Submarine Band and Gram Parsons material titled The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, an item now comparable in rarity to the original Chisa pressing.
Fonda also described an unrealized 1967 album concept titled Got to Get You into My Life, named after the Beatles track that shared an LP with “She Said, She Said.” He envisioned spoken interludes in which people would offer compliments such as “I really love your sister’s last movie; I think your father’s one of the greatest,” and so on. Dennis Hopper arrived at Fonda’s home insisting he be allowed to direct the project. The ensuing quarrel ended when Fonda shattered a Sony reel-to-reel machine and challenged Hopper to repair it before he could participate; Hopper departed in shock. Because the autobiography never mentions the album again, it is reasonable to conclude that the project never advanced beyond the planning stage.
Fonda and Hopper did, however, collaborate closely on the landmark 1969 film Easy Rider, with Fonda starring, producing, and co-writing while Hopper co-starred and directed. The picture offered one of Hollywood’s first accurate reflections of late-1960s counterculture values and contradictions. Its commercial and artistic success relied heavily on a soundtrack drawn from the period’s rock catalog, juxtaposing well-known tracks such as Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”—used to accompany motorcycle sequences—with less familiar selections by the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, the Electric Prunes, Fraternity of Man, and the Holy Modal Rounders. Although Crosby, Stills & Nash were initially considered, the temporary music assembled during post-production proved so effective that it was retained. The choices were taken directly from the filmmakers’ personal collections, underscoring their independence from studio advisors. Further evidence of their engagement with the music scene was the casting of Phil Spector in a brief role as the buyer of their opening-scene cocaine shipment.
The soundtrack album reached the Top Ten. Several anecdotes surround its assembly. Bob Dylan withheld permission for “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,” yet after an early screening he wrote “Ballad of Easy Rider,” which Roger McGuinn finished and which closes the film. Fonda asked Robbie Robertson to compose a score in autumn 1968; Robertson initially declined but, after viewing a rough cut, reversed himself and sought to create an entirely new score despite the two-day deadline. Persistent rumors held that the film’s protagonists were modeled on McGuinn and Crosby respectively. Earlier, Fonda’s The Trip had already employed an Electric Flag rock score and had briefly shown Gram Parsons’ International Submarine Band onscreen, although the music heard was actually performed by the Electric Flag.
After the 1960s Fonda maintained friendships with rock musicians without exerting comparable influence on the presentation of their work. He nevertheless enlisted Bruce Langhorne—best known for his contributions to several mid-1960s Bob Dylan sessions—to compose the score for the 1971 film The Hired Hand, which Fonda directed and in which he starred. He also served as narrator on the 1972 Tribute to Woody Guthrie album. In his autobiography he recounts writing a song around 1990 titled “The in Between” and presents the act of songwriting as a lifelong ambition, implying that this may have been his first original composition and that none of the 1966–67 recordings were self-written, though definitive confirmation is unavailable.
Social contact between performers from separate fields has long been routine, and Fonda participated in such exchanges as soon as he entered professional acting. What distinguished him from earlier Hollywood figures was his early and public identification with the emerging rock counterculture. While the movement was still in its infancy, he became an avid supporter and personal friend of the Byrds; by mid-decade the association was already established. When the Beatles performed in Los Angeles in 1965, Fonda and the Byrds joined them at their temporary residence. During an LSD session that evening Fonda recounted having once hovered near death on an operating table as a child and declared he therefore understood what death felt like. John Lennon, overhearing the remark, found it deeply irritating and later transformed the phrase—reversing the speaker’s gender—into the central line of the Beatles’ 1966 recording “She Said, She Said.”
Although Fonda played guitar and sang, he never contemplated abandoning film for a musical career and never attempted songwriting. At a gathering in 1966 he performed informally; jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela was present, was impressed, and soon proposed a recording collaboration. The two booked studio time and cut sixteen tracks, assisted by the Byrds’ David Crosby and Roger McGuinn. Fonda ultimately declined to issue the results, later explaining in his autobiography that “it wasn’t there.”
He did, however, release one 45 on the small Chisa label in 1967, pairing “November Night” with a Donovan composition on the flip side (identified in his autobiography as “Colors,” though Sid Griffin’s Parsons biography lists it as “Catch the Wind”). The A-side is a gently swaying folk-rock number carrying a faint Caribbean inflection, unlike the country material for which Parsons later became known; Fonda’s vocal delivery is competent yet undistinctive. Trumpet parts audible on the recording may be Masekela’s, though the autobiography leaves the point unresolved. Such participation would be consistent with Masekela’s documented friendship with Fonda, their joint unreleased album, and his earlier trumpet contribution to the Byrds’ “So You Want to Be a Rock’n’Roll Star.” Roughly twenty-five years afterward, Masekela introduced Fonda to an audience by remarking, according to the autobiography, “I had given him everything he ever needed to know about Hollywood, 25 years earlier.” The single later appeared on a scarce bootleg EP of International Submarine Band and Gram Parsons material titled The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, an item now comparable in rarity to the original Chisa pressing.
Fonda also described an unrealized 1967 album concept titled Got to Get You into My Life, named after the Beatles track that shared an LP with “She Said, She Said.” He envisioned spoken interludes in which people would offer compliments such as “I really love your sister’s last movie; I think your father’s one of the greatest,” and so on. Dennis Hopper arrived at Fonda’s home insisting he be allowed to direct the project. The ensuing quarrel ended when Fonda shattered a Sony reel-to-reel machine and challenged Hopper to repair it before he could participate; Hopper departed in shock. Because the autobiography never mentions the album again, it is reasonable to conclude that the project never advanced beyond the planning stage.
Fonda and Hopper did, however, collaborate closely on the landmark 1969 film Easy Rider, with Fonda starring, producing, and co-writing while Hopper co-starred and directed. The picture offered one of Hollywood’s first accurate reflections of late-1960s counterculture values and contradictions. Its commercial and artistic success relied heavily on a soundtrack drawn from the period’s rock catalog, juxtaposing well-known tracks such as Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”—used to accompany motorcycle sequences—with less familiar selections by the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, the Electric Prunes, Fraternity of Man, and the Holy Modal Rounders. Although Crosby, Stills & Nash were initially considered, the temporary music assembled during post-production proved so effective that it was retained. The choices were taken directly from the filmmakers’ personal collections, underscoring their independence from studio advisors. Further evidence of their engagement with the music scene was the casting of Phil Spector in a brief role as the buyer of their opening-scene cocaine shipment.
The soundtrack album reached the Top Ten. Several anecdotes surround its assembly. Bob Dylan withheld permission for “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,” yet after an early screening he wrote “Ballad of Easy Rider,” which Roger McGuinn finished and which closes the film. Fonda asked Robbie Robertson to compose a score in autumn 1968; Robertson initially declined but, after viewing a rough cut, reversed himself and sought to create an entirely new score despite the two-day deadline. Persistent rumors held that the film’s protagonists were modeled on McGuinn and Crosby respectively. Earlier, Fonda’s The Trip had already employed an Electric Flag rock score and had briefly shown Gram Parsons’ International Submarine Band onscreen, although the music heard was actually performed by the Electric Flag.
After the 1960s Fonda maintained friendships with rock musicians without exerting comparable influence on the presentation of their work. He nevertheless enlisted Bruce Langhorne—best known for his contributions to several mid-1960s Bob Dylan sessions—to compose the score for the 1971 film The Hired Hand, which Fonda directed and in which he starred. He also served as narrator on the 1972 Tribute to Woody Guthrie album. In his autobiography he recounts writing a song around 1990 titled “The in Between” and presents the act of songwriting as a lifelong ambition, implying that this may have been his first original composition and that none of the 1966–67 recordings were self-written, though definitive confirmation is unavailable.