Sonny Barger blew through Chicago on Memorial Day.
His name doesn’t do anything for you?
Then try the Hell’s Angels, because Ralph “Sonny” Barger created what you know as the Hell’s Angels in 1957 and remains the group’s maximum leader at age 61. Sonny (he hates “Mr. Barger”) was promoting his memoir: “Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club” (William Morrow), and kicking off an old-fashioned Angels run from Chicago to Phoenix on Route 66.
Barger’s the hombre who gave you motorcycle culture, so every time a gaggle of tattooed, Sunday morning commandoes roll by on duded-up Harley Sportsters, remember Barger, because their black muscle shirts, leather vests and chin whiskers didn’t drop out of the sky from Oz. Nor did the cruiser class Honda Shadows and Kawasaki Vulcans you see puttering up St. Charles Road after church.
Check out Barger’s book. Go to Page 48 and see the old boy in November of 1959 as a greasy kid astride a custom 1946 Harley stroker. Observe the long hair and sideburns, the goatee and tattoos. Drop that same lad on a new Heritage Softail Classic, then walk him around the showroom of Illinois Harley Davidson in Berwyn. He wouldn’t rate a second look.
Like it or not, the biker style Barger originated remains timeless.
But what about his Hell’s Angels?
Are they timeless? Or even still around?
Barger seems amused.
“The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club has 190 chapters worldwide,” he says, “though I’d rather not give an exact membership figure. Let the law-enforcement organizations supply those numbers if you like. They always get them wrong anyway. We have young guys 20 years old, then it goes up to Norm Green in the Sonoma (California) Chapter who’s 74. Norm was in the San Francisco Chapter at the beginning.”
The FBI was not much more help with estimates ranging from “no comment” out of Washington, to “The Hells Angels have no presence here,” from Chicago office Special Agent Virginia Wright. But Barger’s attorney, Fritz Clapp, offered this: “Figure each chapter has 10-20 members. Some a few more. Do the math yourself.” That would mean there are 4,000 to 5,000 Angels worldwide.
The FBI attitude regarding the Hell’s Angels is mirrored at Harley-Davidson, which Angels have come to expect.
“Harley still refuses to admit we exist. Don’t misunderstand me, I make a good living fixing their junk and I should be thankful for the business, but given a choice I would have switched to Honda years ago.
“The reason I didn’t is that Hell’s Angels are patriotic. We feel it’s important for us to ride an American motorcycle, and I have to admit the new Harley Twin Cam motor is the best they’ve ever had. I bought mine in March, and I’ve managed to get 100 horsepower from it (stock is 88 h.p.).”
Barger remembers the early 1960s, when Harley dealerships refused to service Angel bikes or sell spare parts to club members.
The Angels, most of whom are expert self-taught mechanics, had to send their “old ladies”–wives and girlfriends–in for pistons and clutch cables.
“I can’t comment on Mr. Barger’s book, since I have not seen or read it,” said Harley-Davidson spokesman Paul Young. “Harley-Davidson sells its products to a wide variety of customers, some of whom may choose to affiliate themselves with a gang. However, this is not a statement of support by our company. While news stories on biker gangs tend to catch people’s attention, the fact is only a small number of motorcycle riders have an affiliation with a gang.”
Make that “club,” Mr. Young, the Angels ask.
In the 1950s, the American Motorcyclist Association claimed only 1 percent of motorcyclists were bad seeds. And so the term “One-Percenter” was coined for club members like the Angels.
And there never really were any Hell’s Angels around these parts.
Everyone saw “Hell’s Angels on Wheels” and “Hell’s Angel’s ’69.” Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe wrote about the Angels. Barger and his pals mixed it up with anti-war protesters in Berkeley, and there was Altamont, where the Rolling Stones used Angels as security and a concertgoer was killed. But to most of us, the Hell’s Angels were footage on the nightly news, spooky-looking guys named Terry the Tramp, Animal and Charlie Magoo.
Chicago never was a Hell’s Angels stronghold. Indeed, the city and most of Illinois, Wisconsin and Northwest Indiana are territory of another old-line motorcycle “club,” The Outlaws, which was formed in McCook in 1935 and has chapters throughout the Midwest, southeast and into Canada.
Even now, Barger and company tread carefully in Chicago. Clapp says: “We’re a little concerned. We’ve heard there might be a presence” of Outlaws. But Barger’s May appearance at the Michigan Avenue Border’s went off without incident.
“Do the Hell’s Angels care when others imitate the way they dress and ride?” asks Clapp, a Harley clone rider. “Of course, not. Does a great chef mind when someone uses one of his recipes? Members of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club generally regard rich urban bikers as chumps. Their attitude is `who cares?’
“The motorcyclist rides occasionally and gets a little thrill and keeps his motorcycle in the garage. A biker’s motorcycle becomes an extension of his personality. He’s more apt to store that bike in his living room.”
But what about their dark side? Barger offers no excuses.
In the book Barger acknowledges transgressions–run-ins with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency and a RICO (Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization) conviction. He discusses hard time in the slammer for conspiracy to commit murder. He gets into old feuds and questionable moves, and in each case circles back to his twin themes of club loyalty and devotion to the biker lifestyle.
Sonny Barger loves motorcycles, anything to do with them. He’s happiest when tearing down a bike at Sonny Barger’s Cave Creek Cycle’s in Phoenix, Ariz.
Barger beat throat cancer in 1982 and speaks today in a bit of a hoarse croak, due to a laryngectomy that left him breathing through his neck. He was riding three weeks after surgery.
Brock Yates, author of the 1999 book “Outlaw Machine,” places Barger in historic perspective when he says, “The clubs, the outlaw bikers, altered totally our perception of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Harleys were gentleman motorcycles until Barger and the clubs re-invented them with their modifications and radical customizing.
“Sonny Barger had as much influence on Harley-Davidson as any member of the company’s board of directors, because renewed interest in these motorcycles radiated outward from motorcycle clubs such as the Hell’s Angels. The clubs created this movement of wannabe bikers we see today. They created the chopper theme with their back-shop customizing, and that theme is carried through in Harley-Davidson to this day.
“The most interesting part about these guys? Everyone writes them off as ignorant Bozos, and they’re anything but ignorant Bozos.”
James “Fuzzy” Neal could hardly be considered a Bozo. Neal, a security consultant for film companies working in the San Francisco area, was a founding member of the Angels’ New York City Chapter in 1969.
“We have a camaraderie that most people wouldn’t understand,” said Neal, who initially declined to comment but later agreed to answer a few general questions. “I’m from a family of 10 and family is very important to me. The Hell’s Angels are my family, too.
“The law always thinks we’re together only for financial gain. To them that’s the only reason the Hell’s Angels exist and that’s wrong. It’s all about having a brotherhood and riding together. There’s a feeling you get riding own the road together that’s . . . indescribable.”
And what about all those wannabes?
Barger looks at the practical side of the boom in Harley sales. He sees a fad with potential benefits for clubs such as the Angels at the end of the party.
“I have a friend who works for Merrill Lynch,” he says, “who rides a 3-year-old Harley he paid $22,000 for, and now he’s talking about selling because it has 1,000 miles. That tells me there are low-mileage Harleys out there, and when their owners go back to their Monteros and boats and golf, we’ll get all those motorcycles for next to nothing.”
