Gary Revel: My music career and investigation into the killing of Martin Luther King | 16/05/2009

By Gary Revel, musician and MLK asassination researcher -

As negotiations for the making of a movie about my investigation of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. proceed I have taken a moment to do some reflection. I ask myself, 'How did I get entangled in this highly controversial and emotionally impacting subject?'.

When I was a teenager my primary goal in life was to write songs and play music for other's entertainment. I had written my first song when I was ten years old, my divorced mother bought me a guitar when I was fifteen, I taught myself to play it and formed my first rock and roll band when I was sixteen. With two brothers serving in the United States Navy and our nation at war, I also enlisted in the Navy after graduating high school. I had no idea at the time where life would take me or about the dangerous journey I would take.

I was singing in a night club in San Diego, California one night and during a break a man approached me and began a conversation. He ended it by handing me his business card and asking me to come to see him when I got out of the Navy. I looked at the card and he was with a big talent agency in Hollywood, California.

After I was honorably discharged from the Navy I went to Hollywood and lived with a friend. One night we were walking to an audition that I had read about in The Hollywood Reporter, when a Rolls Royce pulled over and the man in the driver's seat said, "Do you need a ride?" I was running late so I quickly accepted the ride and told the driver that I was going to an audition and I was running late. There were two men in the car, one was a Vice President of a major movie studio and the other was an entertainment attorney. I played them a song on the way to the audition and they told me that I was going to be a star. I didn't go to that audition, instead we all went to a party at the Vice President's huge mansion in the Hollywood hills where the VP asked me to play some more songs for everyone.

A few days later my first recording session was in the famed Capitol Records studios on Hollywood and Vine in the midst of the glamor and excitement of the movie capital of the world.

My music was a hybrid of rock, pop, funk, country and things in between that I still have trouble describing. I recorded a lot of songs, but when I was offered a contract with Capitol Records I did not go through with it. We have all heard about the sex, drugs, and rock & roll associated with the music industry and Hollywood. It was very true and at that time it was just so much a part of that lifestyle that I could not see how anyone got their job done. So, Instead of taking their offer, I released my own singles on small independent labels. I also wrote and recorded songs for a soundtrack album for a movie called ,"The Last of the American Hobos".

A few years later I was offered a job in New York City to collaborate on some songs and I took it. While there a friend of mine, Jud Phillips, asked me to come to Memphis, Tennessee. I soon found myself writing songs for the number one country music publisher of that time, Acuff-Rose Music, in Nashville, Tennessee.

It was there that I began an association with a lawyer, Jack Kershaw, that would change my life and the lives of my wife and children. He was hired by James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of Martin Luther King Jr. to be his legal counsel during the US Government House Select Committee on Assassination Investigations. I had done some private investigative work for him and he asked me to help him with the investigation. It was agreed that my work on the case would be top secret and when I met with HSCA Chief Counsel Richard Sprague he agreed that the government would never release information on my role in the case. Later I would learn that the government didn't stand by it's duty to keep my job confidential.

As far as the public was to know I was a singer/songwriter who happened to be a friend of James Earl Ray's attorney Jack Kershaw and that was all. Still it became clear that great risk to myself and my family had developed because of my work on the case.

It didn't take very long for me to attain secret documents that proved to me the innocence of James Earl Ray. I wrote a song titled, "They Slew the Dreamer" released it as a single on a small independent label. The song told the story of how they slew the dreamer instead of he slew the dreamer. I had come to believe that a great injustice had been done to Martin Luther King Jr. and James Earl Ray also the truth was covered up and hidden from the American people. Disturbing events began to take place in my life that I had never experienced or ever imagined could happen.

At that point my chances of ever having a successful music career were very slim. I had gotten entangled in a big political controversial mess. I had stood up for something I believed in and tried to bring attention to it with my song only to be knocked down and trampled over by the powers that existed at that time. They wanted to hide the truth and bury it, but I survived the cover-up and I think the time is right to bring this to light. I have met many people that even to this very day want to know the truth about MLK's murder; who did it, how they did it, and why. The Government does not want to say that they had any part in it, they would rather blame rogue CIA or FBI agents who conspired with the Mafia. The best chance they had was to blame it on a convict and torture him with psychological pressure to make him confess. However, James Earl Ray never confessed and never had a fair trial. Supposedly in our country one is innocent until proven guilty, but James Earl Ray died in prison trying to prove his innocence.

I disentangled myself from the investigation and moved back to Hollywood California to continue my music career without the complication of dangerous part-time jobs. Now a movie about the story of my investigation is being developed for film and my music is finally distributed around the world through iTunes, Rhapsody, Emusic and other distributors. I feel like times are changing in a good way, controversial subjects are talked about in the media and debated more today than before. If they are not talked about they are easier to hide and easier to forget. I think the US Government owes it to everyone to confess to their role in this cover up. That will give new hope that tragedies like this will never happen again and it will restore trust in the US Government. The most important thing about my story is that it is true. Unfortunately, young people can t read about it in their history books, but I hope someday it will be brought to light.