Roky's recovery started with medication and therapy and a move out of the section 8 housing , where he lived like a hermit except for daily visits from his mother. Sumner took him up to his home in Pittsburgh for a year and when Roky came back down to Austin he had new teeth and a smile, though he clearly still had mental issues.

For decades, Erickson wouldn't let anyone touch him, but on recent tours of Europe and North America, he hugged fans back, signed autographs and posed for photos after shows. But it's not like Roky could appear on a talk show. His words and thoughts don't follow usual patterns.

"Where Roky's concerned, 'normal' is just a setting on a washing machine," said tour manager Troy Campbell. "He just comes out of left field sometimes, like the other day we had pizza and I asked if he'd had enough to eat and he said 'I'm full as a ghoul.'"

"His musicianship, his voice is 100% back," said Clementine Hall, the queen of the acid ball when the Elevators were the house band. "But I don't know if he has the same wit and intellect. He didn't say a thing at dinner." Her and ex-husband Tommy Hall, the Elevators' jug player and LSD guru, met with Roky after his San Francisco return in March 2007. The Roky she met in 1965, when Tommy poached the hellfire singer from his high school band, the Spades, and put him in front of an adventurous combo from Kerrville called the Lingsmen, was funny, unpredictable, full of offbeat energy.