How Pamela Des Barres Finally Transcended 'The Band'

Yahoo

28-01-2025

Hearing wild tales of rock n' roll's past will always have appeal because, as Pamela Des Barres says, "people weren't there. They like to say they were there, but they weren't." The New York Times best selling author of I'm With The Band: Confessions of a Groupie, Take Another Little Piece of My Heart, and Let It Bleed: How To Write a Rockin' Memoir was not only there, she's been chronicling it all for most of her life. She's one of the most inspiring storytellers in L.A., a woman who's frank, honest and real retelling and sharing of her mind-blowing memories evokes a magical time in Southern California.And while the word "groupie" may ever shed its carnal connotations, the author, performer and feminist cult figure has helped us all understand that devotion to rockstars, especially in her day, was so much more than sexual."We inspired these people," she asserts. "They wanted us around. Some people think of groupies as hangers on, or you know, as submissive. I've had to fight that battle like I've been out in a boxing ring— with the the public and the press... and I still get called a slut."
Her books, recent speaking engagements and stage appearances serve up plenty of backstage debauchery, but they also delve into music's evolution and how its magnetic personalities, inter-personal relationships and power shifts reflect political and social changes in our world. "We have photos up in the huge screen behind me," Des Barres says of her new stage show, which comes to the Whisky a Go Go on Feb. 9. "And I use music clips from throughout my life, ones that inspired me, like Dylan and Dion and Elvis, of course. Also people I dated and the GTOs, Zappa and all kinds of stuff." Of Frank Zappa's influence she says: "He was my mentor. He we produced our album, but he kind of helped invent my persona because I was developing it as a teenager, 18 years old, and we became dancers for him— the Laurel Canyon ballet company. But he saw something in each one of us and it gave me some kind of confidence I never would have had. He was always trying to save moments. He wanted to get our lives on record, so we wrote about our lives."
If Zappa put Des Barres on her path as a cultural chronicler, she had to find her own voice and inner strength to share many of her stories — including relationships and trysts with Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger, to name a couple— in a shameless way. She pioneered a sex-positive perspective long before younger generations advocated for sex workers and against slut-shaming. She opened minds about life choices and going for what one wants and it clearly resonated. She was just celebrated by revered music journalist Jessica Hopper and producer Dylan Tupper Rupert on the KCRW Lost Notes podcast Groupies: The Women of Sunset Strip, From the Pill to Punk. Reframing Des Barres and the women who came after her as empowered figures and muses in a male-dominated world, it explores how these young women paved the way for females to take agency over their bodies and to make their own music (which she did with the Frank Zappa produced group, Girls Together Outrageously aka The GTO's). Especially in the punk scene that followed, L.A.'s early groupies provided a daring DIY blueprint for making an impact, pursuing and partying with one's idols, which led to fanzines, friendships and ultimately, its own kind of notoriety.
Produced by her manager Polly Parsons (Gram's daughter) her latest presentation sold out shows in NYC, Portland and Seattle. She's planning on making the Sunset Strip event special— after all it's where she reigned. She'll have special guests join her and she'll be selling a rack of her "top notch" vintage clothes, plus new merch including "long lost wood nymph shots for Playboy 55 years ago." The effortlessly chic look of the iconic 60's and 70's groupie has become, once again, in vogue especially for today's rock chicks. The platforms, the sparkle, the faux furs and the little dresses... it's a combination that's become timeless, recreated in films like Almost Famous (yes, Kate Hudson's Penny Lane was based on her) and TV's Daisy Jones and the Sixx."It was hippie child, gypsy chic," she describes of her style. "We were wearing 20's and 30's clothes, turn of the century stuff... I love dressing people up. That's part of my whole thing selling the vintage clothes. I like to style them."
Beyond the alluring aesthetic, admiration has come from younger followers and music "stans" who view fandom differently (ie, the Swifties, Beyhive, the Beliebers). Still, Des Barres acknowledges that the stigma of the "groupie" may never be banished. All she can do is continue to share, provide context and encourage others to tell their own stories, which she does in a hands-on way via writing workshops. "All it means is someone hanging around with groups," she says of the "G" word. "But it quickly became a slur, because mainly, it was women. There are male groupies, of course, but mainly it was women and women weren't allowed to express themselves sexually.""Every generation gets a hold of I'm With The Band, so I get all these new young fans," she continues. "It's so great. They definitely see me as an empowered woman doing what she wanted to do against a lot of odds at that time. And by the way, there was no word "groupie," then. There was always more to it, because in the earlier days, people would wait around to get Elvis's autograph. We wanted more than that but it wasn't just sex. We just liked hanging out with them. We just liked being with the people that made us feel the music. Because that art was and is transferable... You know, it goes right into your being, as any great art does. So I always wanted to show my appreciation any way I could." More info on "An Intimate Evening with Pamela Des Barres" at the Whisky here.