Harvey Matusow: The Biggest Snitch in American History (MP3s)

So how did the "most hated man in America" relax after destroying the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans, giving LSD to Robert F. Kennedy, tangling with Roy Cohn and becoming prison buddies with Wilhelm Reich? By moving to England and recording a psychedelic Jews Harp record, of course. Here's the 1969 LP by Harvey Matusow's Jews Harp Band, War Between Fats and Thins:

Wet Socks   |   War Between Fats and Thins   |   Clootch Hunt

Eighteen Nuns   |   Velvet Tooth Paste   |   Carroll   |   Afghan Red   

Poo Children on Mountain   |   Scat Rat   |     The Officials

Motherhood Is No Accident   |   Margie Swiss Cheese

As unusual as this LP is, it pales in comparison to Marshall "Harvey" Matusow's life, which intersected every major artery of post-war America. Born in the Bronx in 1926, Matusow was a Jewish street hustler who was picking pockets by age ten, and went on to work throughout his life as a Spy, DJ, Thief, Broadway Agent, Gambler, Stand Up Comic, Actor, Author, Musician, Professional Red Baiter, Filmmaker, Impresario, TV Clown and Social Activist. He was married twelve times, and palled around with Billie Holiday, Norman Mailer, Jason Robards, Steve McQueen, Emile de Antonio, Yoko Ono, Art Carney and Genovese mob boss Frank Costello. Ladybird Johnson invited him to the White House, and he invented the myth that smoking banana peels would get you high (as an ill conceived plot to extract geopolitical revenge on the United Fruit Company, aka Chiquita Banana).

In his later days he replaced LSD with LDS, converting to Mormonism and rechristening himself as Job Matusow. In his final years, he worked as a tireless advocate for the homeless, runaway teenagers and prostitutes while he made ends meet by establishing a successful children's theater / TV show starring himself as Cockyboo the Clown.

He tried his whole life to live down his reputation as the most hated man in America for his work with Joseph McCarthy and the House Unamerican Affairs Committee (HUAC), fleeing to self-imposed exile in England in the Sixties, where he immersed himself in the worlds of avant garde art, music and film. While in Britain, he produced the largest festival of avant garde music ever, the ICES 72 concert. He invited his pal Yoko Ono and her husband to London for the gallery show where Yoko met John, making him partially responsible for breaking up The Beatles. (He was fully responsible for breaking up The Weavers, accusing Pete Seeger and other band members of being communists.) And of course, while in the UK, he took lots of acid and recorded his Jews Harp record.

Matusow enlisted in the US Army in 1943 in order to secure a high school diploma he never otherwise would've received. Back in New York after the war, he worked various jobs (including as an agent for Dean Martin) while he drifted towards Greenwich Village hootenannies, the folk music revival and the American Communist Party. He set a party record (and won a trip to Puerto Rico) for selling subscriptions to their newspaper, The Daily Worker. But by 1950, he either sensed an opportunity for money and fame, or (according to him) needed to protect his own ass, so he contacted the FBI and began his four year long career as a paid informer for anyone in need of an anti-Communist accuser with bona fide red street cred.

He approached this endeavor with the same gusto he had shown months earlier selling subscriptions to The Daily Worker, and ultimately destroyed the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans, communists and non-communists alike. In 1952 he went to work for Senator Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn who put him on their payroll and encouraged his tendency to create lists of communists out of thin air. Among Matusow's targets during this period of time were The New York Times and The Girl Scouts. He even went so far as to seduce and marry (twice!) McCarthy's wealthiest backer, Arvilla Peterson Bentley, moving into her Washington DC mansion (now the German Embassy). Matusow, a high school dropout, had been running a floating craps game a few years earlier, and now he was the darling of the national anti-communist community and living in a mansion with butlers and servants at his beck and call.

In 1954, either because he felt remorse over the destruction he caused, or because he sensed another quick buck, he came clean on his years of lying and perjury with his book False Witness. In it, he truthfully accused Cohn and McCarthy of keeping him on the payroll as a paid witness and a professional liar. For once, Matusow was telling the truth, but Roy Cohn didn't see it that way. Cohn accused him of lying in the book, and in the ensuing trial, Matusow was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years in prison. As a professional liar, Matusow had been the toast of the town, but for finally telling the truth, he was imprisoned. It was then that he was dubbed "The Most Hated Man in America" by The National Enquirer, The Baltimore Sun and other papers. Billie Holiday threw him a going-to-jail party, and once in the slammer, he had the cell next to Wilhelm Reich, who died with Matusow just a few feet away.

Released from prison in 1960, Matusow dived into the worlds of art and publishing, but found himself unable to live down his years of redbaiting, an invitation to the White House from Ladybird Johnson notwithstanding (she enjoyed his Art Collector's Almanac). He helped found the underground newspaper The East Village Other, met Timothy Leary, tripped a lot, helped runaway hippies in New York, did lots of standup comedy, pulled off phone pranks with Andy Warhol, and helped organize Norman Mailer's mayoral run, even getting Christine Keeler to auction off her bra for the cause. Yet there were always people around who detested him for his 1950's resume, and at a 1966 fundraiser  (where he apologized to Pete Seeger for having him blacklisted), he was so vilified by the crowd that he decided to quit the US for England. Once in the UK, he married experimetal musician Anna Lockwood and recovered within London's vibrant counterculture.

Matusow returned to the US in 1973 and spent the last 30 years of his life living on communes, helping the homeless, pursuing Mormonism and making ends meet by bumming money from old friends and working with his Magic Mouse Theater Troupe and TV show. He died in 2002 as he was working on his autobiography, Stringless Yo Yo,  excerpts of which can be found online here. For more insight on Harvey Job Matusow, here is an interview with Matusow's friend Emile de Antonio done shortly after Matusow's death. The University of Sussex in England has a collection of Harvey's writings, films and other works.

Thanks to Play It Again Max for putting up the Jews Harp files.

Comments

[Dan Willems]

The mp3 file for cut# 6 Carroll is the same as cut# 7 Afghan Red. So there are two Afghan Reds and no Carroll file. Thanks for the very interesting/enlightening post.

Dan

[Station Manager Ken]

Thanks for the alert, Dan. I fixed that link - track six (Carroll)can now be downloaded.

-ken

[squarefan]

the section from 0:30 - 1:15 in the second track sounds a lot like a squarepusher acid line .... wild! check it out, seriously, its rad!

[squarefan]

sorry, that :30 - 1:15 selection is actually in the third track, clootch hunt/ very cool! check the tweak at 1:05!

[davo]

HarveeeeeEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I lived in wendell depot masssachusetts in the 70zzz--"job"was my landlord for a while-
at that time,he was married to Elwood Babbit's(the psychic,my neighbor) ex wife,Emily-and he had a scam cult
going-"ammal's Garden"(he said Ammal was the saint for beggars and thieves)-
I helped him re-open the drive in theatre in amherst,where we showed Zappa's 200 motels on
opening week----
he and emily took off around 78/79,and i never heard from him again.
you can imagine my interest reading this blog post:)
thanks,Ken,and greetings from oregon:)
Davo

[Jeff]

What I want to know-- and I'm sure I speak for pretty much everybody here-- is just how many of those 12 marriages took place AFTER Harv became a Mormon, and what was the greatest number of wives he had at one time?

For some reason I'm picturing Kevin Pollack in the film version of The Harvey Matusow Story. Or maybe Dick Miller. Possibly rotoscoped, like in "A Scanner Darkly."

[Jeff]

And by the way-- is "Poo Children on Mountain" a typo for "Poor Children"? (I hope not!)

[Steve D]

Amazing. this takes me back to a wild night in 1971, when I heard this album for the first and only time. Yet weirdly 18 nuns has stuck with me for all those years, and I never, ever, ever thought I would hear it again.

What a treat!!!!!!!!!!!

[jim]

thanks for the artical
i have a copy of the album and damb fine it is to.
some years back i tracked harvey down over the early internet he was working on some local cable show.
i wanted to find out who was on the cover of fats and thins, turns out it was him and a roadie he forgot the name of.
any how
nice artical
jim
england

[David Suisman]

A minor correction: It was not "Anna" Lockwood but "Annea," a fluxus artist known in the 1960s and 70s for burning and drowning pianos and more recently for her recorded soundscapes of, first, the Hudson River, and, since then, the Danube. Many 'FMU DJ's have played her work (including me), and Bethany had a lengthy interview with her in 2006:
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/20664

[Michael]

Does anyone know where to find jew's harp music on vinyl? I'm thinking of the potentials of a dj mix.

[Eloise Clark]

Job was only married to one women at A time . When they found out that he was a conartist and would leave him . He was always playing on peoples kindness . Very big ego . The charity thing was a front . To get money from people . I know . I was married to the man at one time . He smoked pot and was trying to get it legalized .

[Jim Hardy]

Yes, I met Harvey Job Matusow in 1992. He was running a run down motel, just outside of Tucson, Arizona,USA. He had set up a scheme as the Ghandi Peace Center. He used to collect food for his unfortunate collection of people in need. He collected money from the Mormon's to suport his cause. I had fallen on very bad times, and became one of his tenants.

He stocked his own larder, and fridge first. When the food began to spoil, then he passed it out freely. I had a computer at the time, and he wanted me to do his financial records for him, which I did. His records consited of falsified documents.
He and some of his close associates stole receipt books from legal businesses, and made up there own paid receipts for sevices. It didn't take long to discover his cover ups. He had keys to all the mail boxes, and was stealing Federal Food Stamps from the tenants, and selling them for extra cash. And yes, he went to church every Sunday.

He knew a lot of the local politicans, and other arostcricy, and many thought he was a Saint. But I will tell you, he was a DEVIL.