Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Really, Rik? I've seen little transfer of groupies into publicists.
Wives and girlfriends into publicists (or managers, agents, etc.), yes.
My experience is that groupies like the chase and variety and the
musicians prefer the groupies to be outside their personal lives and
not part of their professional lives. I am speaking of the "average"
groupies I knew and consider Pamela Des Barres and Pennie Lane to be
exceptions. 
  

    
Really.  Remember that my heyday, the 70s, was far looser sexually than it
is today.  In the era between the widespread adoption of the pill as safe,
effective contraception, and the rise of STD's that got their own covers of
Time and Newsweek, sex lost its SIGNIFICANCE and was just something you did
with people you liked.   Hell, you didn't even have to like them.

I may also be using the term, "groupie", a bit more loosely than you.
There was an almost professional gang in the major urban areas, like the
girls in "Almost Famous" - the Pamela des Barres/Pennie Lane types - but to
me that was a small piece of the sexual
banquet available in the world of touring.   The first one of those I met, a
woman who just liked to rack up rock stars, was Jeannie the Tailor, who got
access to bands by making artful clothes for them.  This was in the late
60s.  A few years later this type was exemplified by Connie from Little
Rock, an Arkansas school teacher who had the local franchise nailed down.
She only went with members of the headline acts.

Being in a second-tier outfit, most of what we saw were women who used us as
an excuse to break free from their normal lives for a night.  Or that girl
from the record company who was there to arrange and manage the local radio
interviews.   And yes, several budding publicists.   One of the better known
publicists, and someone I still know, had a regular thing going with our
equipment manager.

I'm told things changed in the mid eighties, which is when I came in from
the cold.
  

    
I do hope you do a book someday, <rik>.
  

    
yeah, me too!
  

    
In the letters sent in to Rolling Stone following the groupie issue,
Genie the Tailor (who was included in the article) wrote in and was
very upset at the article and her portrayal. She said that RS has
gotten it all wrong and that all they had to do if they wanted the
truth was to ask, while slamming Frank Zappa and his groupie
connections. I was so sorry that RS never asked her as she died that
year (car accident). They did include her in the book version of the
groupie issue but she was dead by that time. 

M, I always got the feeling that Connie Hamzy (?) was much more a
"professional" groupie than someone like Genie who was a rock clothes
designer of some reknown.
  

    
I didn't read the article about Genie, so I can't say anything about it
either way.   All my knowledge came from the fact that she was in the same
social circle as me in the late 60s, when a gang of us hung out backstage
at, and in the alley behind, the Troubadour.   A bunch of Laurel Canyon
type, some of whom worked for Teen Set magazine.  Genie was something of a
legend among them.  She used her sewing talents for access.   I thought she
was nice, but never knew her biblically
myself.

And yeah.  Connie and here posse were pros.   Just rackin' 'em up.
  

    
Genie was famously Richard Thompson's girlfriend, which is why she was
in the van when Fairport had the accident (it also killed their
drummer, I think). And Jack Bruce did Songs for a Tailor for her. I had
no idea she was American until I read this. 
  

    
Isis from New York:  My friend Lolly Bienenfeld played with them early
on.  She said that most of their gigs were on the bath house circuit,
where they were very well received and had a lot of fun.

I saw Lolly's sister a month ago.  I'm sure I can get in touch with
Lolly if anyone wants to hear more.