Video: ‘They’re Trying to Tear Old Greystone Down,’ sings Grover Kemble

Grover Kemble sings 'They're Trying to Tear Ol' Greystone Down.' Photo by Kevin Coughlin
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Video: ‘They’re Trying to Tear Old Greystone Down’ by Grover Kemble

Years ago, Woody Guthrie sang powerful songs with a sign stuck to his guitar: “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

On Sunday, Grover Kemble’s guitar bore a message, too: “Don’t Tear It Down.”

Grover Kemble sings 'They're Trying to Tear Ol' Greystone Down.' Photo by Kevin Coughlin
Grover Kemble sings ‘They’re Trying to Tear Ol’ Greystone Down.’ Photo by Kevin Coughlin

Kemble, formerly of Za Zu Zaz and Sha Na Na,  joined more than 300 others who protested the state-approved demolition of the 139-year-old Kirkbride Building at the former Greystone Park State Psychiatric Hospital, bordering Morris Plains and Parsippany.

In this video, Kemble performs an original song, They’re Trying to Tear Ol’ Greystone Down.

He and Guthrie both are part of Greystone lore.  Kemble volunteered at the asylum during his college days — one of his duties was taking patients to shock therapy. Later, as recreation supervisor, he organized an annual holiday show and patient sing-alongs.

“I must have sung Jingle Bells a thousand times each holiday season,” he told Morristown Green in 2011.  Multiplied by 25 years working at Greystone, “that’s 25,000 times I sang that song.”

"Woody Guthrie 2" by Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and the Sun, from the United States Library of Congress.
“Woody Guthrie 2” by Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and the Sun, from the United States Library of Congress.

Guthrie, whose many compositions included This Land Is Your Land, was a patient in the Kirkbride Building in the late 1950s and early ’60s. His Huntington’s disease was mistaken for mental illness.

Before Guthrie’s condition deteriorated, he wrote a play and a song for some nurses, according to Phil Buehler, author of Woody Guthrie’s Wardy Forty, Greystone Park Hospital Revisited.

“This is where Bob Dylan first met Woody Guthrie. The torch was symbolically passed,” Buehler added.

A 1934 pinup by Enoch Bolles. Source: ThePinupFiles.com
A 1934 pinup by Enoch Bolles. Source: ThePinupFiles.com

The mother of poet  Allen Ginsberg also was treated at Greystone; Ginsberg learned photography during his visits as a teenager, Buehler said.  A young Dionne Warwick  worked at the hospital as a nurse’s aide, he said.

“I heard she was disciplined a lot because she’d be late because she was out in New York City doing her gigs,” he said.

Another well known patient was Enoch Bolles, a pinup artist from the 1920s and ’30s.

“The nurses were his models, and he had a studio here, and his agent would come and meet him and he would pass off his artwork,” said Buehler, citing an oral history of Greystone.

MORE ABOUT PRESERVE GREYSTONE

MORE ABOUT GROVER KEMBLE

Photos by Berit Ollestad for MorristownGreen.com.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Over a decade ago I visited Greystone Hospital with Enoch Bolles’ grandson, as part of research I was conducting for a book I’m writing on his life and art. I’m sorry to see that this beautiful building is in peril. Mr. Kemble has been a big help to me in my research on Greystone and I hope he is successful in his quest to preserve Greystone.
    Jack Raglin

  2. What a great tribute!

    It’s really disturbing that our elected officials have decided it’s acceptable to deliberately betray the public trust by hiding behind their manufactured veil of autonomy. Such behaviors lack the strength of character and integrity we should expect from our representatives. If they truly believe in their position, they should overtly stand behind it and defend it in the spirit of the democratic process.

    Kudos in advance to the representatives who have the courage to take a stand against their colleagues and drive this issue through the process of open debate.

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