Interview #9: John Allen Cassady

Rock and the Beat Generation speaks to one of the legends of the next generation who followed in the wake of the Beats. The only son of Neal and Carolyn Cassady talks family, life, music & Kerouac

DURING THE later 1940s and 1950s, Neal Cassady was the bosom buddy of Jack Kerouac. After meeting initially in New York City in 1946, their travels across America in the years that followed became the model for Kerouac’s most famous novel On the Road.

But Cassady, who lived a roving life always seeking opportunities for excitement, was more than just the latterday Western hero Dean Moriarty portrayed in the book. In 1950, he wrote what became known as the ‘Joan Anderson letter’, an extraordinary missive running to more than 15,000 words, which, it is now felt, was the inspiration for Kerouac to pen subsequent work in a rolling wave of text erupting with his so-called spontaneous prose.

Cassady’s epic novella of a letter was long-thought lost, but its fortuitous recovery, more than 60 years later, led finally to the publication, in 2020, of The Joan Anderson Letter: The Holy Grail of the Beat Generation between hard covers.

Yet Cassady, for all of his peripatetic journeying, also established a family with his wife Carolyn, with whom he had three children – Cathleen Joanne Cassady (born 1948), Jami Cassady Ratto (born 1950) and John Allen Cassady (born 1951).

John Allen Cassady, 70, is a singer-songwriter, musician and author, son of a man who achieved legendary status as a key figure in the Beat and psychedelic movements before his premature death in 1968.

His mother, who passed in 2013, was an award-winning artist and writer. Her book Off the Road, about her life with Neal and Kerouac, is regarded as one of the most significant autobiographical histories of that vibrant literary era.

With Beat Museum owner Jerry Cimino, John Cassady travelled in the Beat Museum on Wheels, a mobile version of the famed San Francisco institution which celebrates the lives and art of Kerouac and Cassady, Ginsberg and Burroughs, and the other novelists and poets of that influential community.

After working as a computer engineer in Silicon Valley for more than 20 years, John is currently writing a book about his father.

Rock and the Beat Generation caught up with him last month…

What are your earliest memories of your family?

My earliest memory of my family was when I was a baby, just like most kids.

How did you see your father when you were growing up?

I saw my father as a magic man – always funny and entertaining – and smart! Well read.

Pictured above: Little Johnny with Neal Cassady

How did you regard your mother?

I loved my mother just as much. She was the matriarch who had to be in control and discipline us kids when required because Dad was such a softy. She was the catalyst for this whole Beat Generation thing, which some people don't know. After meeting Neal in Denver, she moved to San Francisco and Neal soon followed her. Then Jack and Allen did as well.

I used to tease her, saying that ‘You know, this is all your fault!’ She said, ‘Hey, I'm not taking responsibility for the hippies and anti-war people.’ I would reply with, ‘Sorry, too late. It's all your fault.’ Then we would laugh about it.

Do you have recollections of Jack Kerouac when you were a boy?

Yes, Jack was at our house in Los Gatos pretty often. Carolyn would offer him the living room couch to sleep on, but he preferred to camp in the backyard. He was in his outdoor phase – Gary Snyder, Desolation Peak, etc. He had a sleeping bag way out in the corner of the 1/4 acre lot where he would read and write by the light of a kerosene railroad lamp which he hung from the branch of a young oak tree. Dad got him a job as a brakeman on the Southern Pacific railroad where Dad worked. Dad later said that Jack was a lousy brakeman.

Mom eventually had to sell the house for lack of funds, and the new owners, a nice couple, pretended that they didn't know the history of the place. Yeah, right! One day I was in the neighbourhood for some reason, so I thought I would stop by and say hello. I asked if I could look in the backyard for old time’s sake, and they said, ‘Sure, go ahead’.

Well, lo and behold, there was Jack's railroad lantern still on the tree branch! Of course the bark had long since grown over the wire handle, so I needed a knife to get the lantern off the branch. I wasn't about to ask the owners for a knife, but I managed to get it free and put it in my car before going back to thank the owners. So I still have Jack Kerouac's railroad lantern. That could be worth 50 cents on eBay!

Another story was when Jack would sit in what we called ‘Jack's chair’ in the living room and tell young Johnny how the universe works. Man, I wish I had a cassette recorder on the coffee table between us! One night he was cleaning pot in a shoebox top (remember when weed came with seeds and stems? After Humboldt County sensimilla, they grow it in labs now!)

Anyway, there was a knock on the door, and Jack freaked out, put the box top under his chair, and said, ‘Carolyn, it's the cops! They must know I'm here!’ Mom came out of the kitchen, patted Jack on the shoulder, and said, ‘Don't be silly. It's probably just one of Johnny's friends.’ She opened the door, and there stood two cops! She gasped and looked at Jack. I was thinking, ‘Wow, this should be good!’ They asked her if she had seen a missing neighbour kid, and she asked me, ‘Have you seen Billy today?’ No, which was true, so they left.

Bill's alcoholic father would always beat him up because Bill was the result of his wife's previous marriage, so Bill would run away a lot. So the next morning I went into our garage to get some books out of the car, or something, and there was Bill in only his briefs shivering between the 2x4s in the wall! I said, ‘Holy shit, Bill, your dad needs to be reported or arrested!’ He said, ‘Naw, he'd kill me.’ Fine! I'm still in touch with Bill – he lives in Santa Cruz. Of course his dad is long gone.

Pictured above: John Cassady with Garrett Hedlund who portrayed his father’s character in the 2012 movie version of On the Road

You were called after both Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Was that an inspiring or heavy legacy?

I was honoured! Those names have served me well through the years. Ginzy used to introduce me as ‘Allen’ at events. Everyone knew my name was John, but they just laughed.

Although Neal named me after his two best friends at the time, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, he changed the name from ‘Jack’ to ‘John’ at the last minute. It was close enough, kind of like ‘Hank’ and ‘Henry’. I asked my mom Carolyn why he changed it, and she said, ‘I asked your father the same question soon after you arrived.’

He said, 'Well, I thought about it, and if you say it fast, it sounds like JackAssady, and nobody is going to call my son a jackass all his life! Kids at school? It would be embarrassing. So I changed it to John.' Mom's all, ‘Whatever!’ So that's why my name is John instead of Jack. Thanks again, Dad!

Did you go to the literature of Beat to help you understand your father's and your own life?

No, I lived it! I didn't even read the books until, like, high school!

What did you make of Neal's new life in the 1960s with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters? Did you stay in touch? 

I wasn't ‘on the bus’ in 1964, but I would visit Ken and Faye often in Oregon after that. Kesey and I did several road trips in ‘Further II’: once, when it was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and a month-long tour of the UK with [Ken] Babbs, ‘MG’ [Mountain Girl], [George] Walker, and everybody. It was fun.

This website is very much about the links between music and the Beat Generation. Do you recall Neal's attitude to music and the artists and songs he most enjoyed?

One word: jazz. Mom, Dad and their friends would play Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis over and over, every night – it kept me awake (I know every note to this day). But it was a good influence. Mom bought an old piano for me to jam on, but I liked guitar because of the Beatles coming along.

Then I played in about a dozen rock bands in Santa Cruz, and I still have about a dozen guitars and two keyboards, but I don't play that much anymore. I'm old and lazy, but I found an old cassette tape in a box the other day, and I wrote some good stuff! Mostly funky tunes like James Brown and Tower of Power, but the dance floor was packed every night. I would be blown back against the amps. Wow!

Have you yourself had a passion for music as a teenage and adult? Do you see connecting energy between the music you enjoy and the spirit of Beat?

I played rock and roll guitar and piano since about age 12. I was a Beatles fan, of course, actually saw them live in San Francisco, August 18th, 1964, not that I remember these things. I didn't know that father Neal was in the ‘Furthur’ bus in the parking lot at the Cow Palace that night – he never came in!

Anyway, I played a lot of Chuck Berry songs. I thought that every tune was about Dad, virtually. For example, ‘Maybelline’: ‘As I was motorvatin' over the hill, I saw Maybelline in a Coupe de Ville, the Cadillac goin' about a hundred and five...’, etc. Pure Neal!

Note: For more background, visit John Cassady’s website: johnallencassady.net