Rock & Roll at Dealy Plaza

Rock & Roll at DP 

By William Kelly

On the morning of the assassination of President Kennedy a young man later identified as Lee Harvey Oswald - the accused assassin, was waiting for the Top Ten Record store in Oak Cliff to open on. He bought a ticket to Dick Clark’s Rock & Roll show, and left, by bus, but then returned later that day and purchased another ticket, this time, when Dallas Police officer J.D. Tippit was in the store, though they didn’t talk or interact.

If it was Oswald or someone impersonating him, why would he purchase tickets to Dick Clark show? It would certainly seem to indicate he had an accomplice, though it is more likely that it was simply a case of mistaken identity.

If it was a case of mistaken identity though, then maybe the identification of Oswald as the Tippit’s killer was also a case of mistaken identity.  

Dick Clark was said to have had a keen interest in the assassination and was himself a “conspiracy buff.”

When they were in Dallas, Bob Dylan, the Beatles and David Crosby all went to Dealey Plaza to see where President Kennedy was killed. The Beatles ducked in the back of their limo as they drove past the Texas School Book Depository Building and Grassy Knoll and then retired to their rooms at the Dallas Cabana Hotel, where some of the witnesses and suspects had famously stayed on the weekend of the assassination.

When Dylan was looking for Dealey Plaza and the first few Dallas pedestrians couldn’t direct him to the spot, Dylan was perplexed, and then the one that finally could said, “You mean where they killed that son-of-a-bitch?”

Dylan then accused all of Dallas for being responsible for killing Kennedy, but then, in a rambling speech accepting the Tom Paine Award, Dylan sympathized with Oswald, questioned whether he killed Kennedy and discounted the idea we are all responsible for the assassination, as Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones would famously sing, “after all, it was you and me.”

David Crosby was busted for pot in Dallas, and apparently had to go through the same legal rigermorall as Jack Ruby’s girl Candy Barr ? -

Robbie Robertson, the guitarist of the Band, in the course of being interviewed by Martin Scorrsase in “The Last Waltz,” recalled performing at one of Jack Ruby’s joints in Dallas, and while there were only a few patrons, a fight broke out.

The assassination of President Kennedy inspired numerous song writers including Dick Hollar, whose “Abraham, Martin and John,” was a 1968 hit for Dion, better known for his rock n’ roll songs like “Runaround Sue,” sang it live on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour TV show. In introducing it Tommy Brothers said, "We first heard this next song on the radio and we thought so much of it and thought it was such a great song we thought we'd like to have it on the show so that more people could hear it and see it performed."

“One of the most notable versions of this song was an audio collage assembled by Tom Clay, combining ‘What the World Needs Now Is Love’ with ‘Abraham, Martin and John’ along with sound clips associated with the Vietnam War, and the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Bookending this recording is an adult asking a small child the meaning of segregation, bigotry, hatred and prejudice. Tom Clay's recording, released in 1971, broadened the theme of these songs to address the turmoil of the times, suggesting that the war in Vietnam, the urban rioting and the assassinations of the 1960s were fueled by hatred and bigotry.”

Abraham, Martin & John  - By Dick Hollar

Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?

Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lotta people but it seems the good they die young
You know I just looked around and he's gone

Anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lotta people but it seems the good they die young
I just looked around and he's gone

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed lotta people but it seems the good they die young
I just looked around and he's gone

Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free some day soon

It's gonna be one day

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?

I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John

Dick Hollar also performed with Johnny Rivers, Jimmy Clanton, Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), Bobby Darin, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis and was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2007. Hollar also wrote, ‘Snoopy vs. The Red Baron,’ The Bellamy Brothers’ ‘Crossfire,’ ‘The Greatest Song I Ever Heard,’ by Cher and ‘Mama Where Will The Love Come From’ by Glenn Yarbrough

Phil Ochs wrote “Crucifixion,” in which he compares JFK with Jesus Christ, and when Ochs ran into JFK on an airplane, he sang the song for RFK, which made him cry.

More recently a hip-hop recording artist was arrested for streaking naked across the Grassy Knoll as a publicity stunt for a music video.

Most peculiar was the guy, and Oswald look-a-like, imposter or impersonator, who, early on the morning of Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, walked into a store on Jefferson Blvd. in Oak Cliff and bought a ticket to the Dick Clark Rock & Roll show. He left “by bus,” but then  returned later on and bought another ticket while J. D. Tippit was also in the store.

An hour later a man identified as Lee Harvey Oswald entered a Jiffy Store on Industrial Blvd. and purchased some candy and two beers, using a drivers license to prove how old he was to buy the beer - a driver’s license for Lee H. Oswald (or O. H. Lee)

7:30 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) J. W. “Dub” Stark, owner of the Top Ten Record Shop at 338 W. Jefferson Blvd. in Oak Cliff says that LHO is waiting at his store when Stark arrives. Stark says that LHO buys a ticket to the Dick Clark Show and leaves by bus.

Dub Stark says that LHO returns a short time later and buys another ticket to the Dick Clark Show. This time, Officer J.D. Tippit is in the store, but does not speak with LHO.

J.D. Tippit will return to this same store at 1:11 PM, makes a phone call and then leaves hurriedly.

8:30 AM (Nov. 22, 1963) LHO enters a Jiffy store located at 310 S. Industrial Blvd. Fred Moore, the store clerk says “identification of this individual arose when he asked him for identification as to proof of age for purchase of two bottles of beer. Moore said he figured the man was over 21 but the store frequently requires proof by reason of past difficulties with local authorities for serving beer to minors. This customer said, sure I got ID and pulled a Texas drivers license from his billfold. Moore said that he noted the name appeared as Lee Oswald or possibly as H. Lee Oswald. As Moore recalled, the birth date on the license was 1939 and he thought it to have been the 10th month.”

9:00 (Nov. 22, 1963) LHO reportedly returns to the Jiffy Store. Oswald returns to buy two pieces of Peco Brittle at five cents each which he consumes on the premises. Moore remarks to him (Oswald) in the form of a question, Candy and beer? as he considers this to be an odd combination. The man seems to be nervous while in the store pacing the aisles as he eats the candy. (Interview of Fred Moore by SA David Barry 12/2/63)

All of which comes into play later that afternoon when, in the same neighborhood, the real Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested just down the street at the Texas Theater, and others, later identified as Oswald, were seen shooting Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit, dropping a jacket under a car, ducking into a shoestore and entering a theater without buying a ticket.

If Oswald is credited with killing the President, Officer Tippit and sneaking into the Texas Theater without buying a ticket, and was known to be riding in a car to work when the Oswald-Look-a-like-Impersonator was buying a ticket to the Dick Clark Rock & Roll Show, WHO WAS THAT GUY? - the guy who bought the Dick Clark tickets and was he the same guy who bought the candy and beer with a Texas drivers license with Oswald’s name and date of birth on it?

Another witness to see Oswald’s drivers license, or a Texas drivers license with Oswald’s name on it, was the insurance guy whose office was right across the street from Oswald’s rooming house, who said Oswald inquired about auto insurance for a car he was going to buy. The insurance agent believes Oswald showed him a driver’s license with the name “O. H. Lee,” which is the name he used in signing in to the hotel in Mexico City and the name he gave to rent the room in Oak Cliff.

There were many - possibly dozens of cases of mistaken identity involving Oswald, especially after the assassination, but there are also a number of clear cases of intentional impersonation of Oswald - some of the most peculiar include a foreign women like Marina and two children, one recently born, and other peculiar characteristics.

What was the purpose of these impersonations? There had to be a purpose, what was it?

The cases of mistaken identity and possible intentional impersonation of Oswald in Oak Cliff on the day of the assassination is especially troublesome in light of the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit. 

Who killed Tippit? Oswald or one of those mistaken for him, or one of those who intentionally impersonated him?