Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies

by Pamela Des Barres

  Up until this time, Cherry was still Kathleen Dorritie, but had already begun using witty aliases such as Indian Summer and Party Favor. "During the Vietnam War, I met Richard Skidmore, who worked for left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman. They made tapes that were being smuggled into Radio Hanoi and basically were propaganda from black radicals. I knew I wanted the war to end, but I wasn't politically savvy. They asked me to make a tape as a DJ, play my favorite records and tell sexy stories to entertain the troops. I thought I was doing a fabulous thing by telling them how I fucked this one and that one. I could see a soldier in the field being able to jerk off to it. Years later I wondered, oh my God, what were they really using me for? So we were in this makeshift studio, and Richard said, `You shouldn't use your own name because the government doesn't like these tapes.' I might have seen the name on an ice cream container, but for the life of me I can't remember. So I said, 'OK, how about Cherry Vanilla?' I really didn't intend for it to continue, but eventually I started writing for Circus and Creem. The first couple of things were published under my name, then they said, `Why don't you use Cherry Vanilla?'

  "Remember `Hang On, Sloopy?" Cherry asks. "I met the McCoys at a little club on the East Side. I got to meet the whole band and really felt excited to be around them. Then I met the Guess Who. During the mid-to-late '60s, the scene around Bethesda Fountain in Central Park was amazing. On Sunday, you'd take your acid and go to this huge music jam, all kinds of people playing drums and guitars. I went to the park every chance I got. One day, I heard music coming from the Schaeffer Music Festival. I went to the side door and asked this guy, `Who's playing?' and he said, `Oh, that's the Guess Who.' It just happened to be sound check. I was wearing a dress from Mexico that I hemmed so my panties stuck out. I had on platform sandals, and was stoned on something. He was kind of flirty and said, `Come on in!' I went backstage, introduced myself to everybody, and started talking to this guy with curly black hair, `So, you're in the band?' and he said, `Yeah.' Then I find out, he's Burton Cummings, the singer. I'm thinking, `This is the guy with the beautiful voice. Fabulous!' So I'm falling in love already, right? Then he says, `Do you want to come back for our show? I'll get you in."' An overjoyed Cherry went home, called all her friends, and gushed about her impending backstage pass. "It's kind of funny, because I had been an advertising executive for years, one of the few female TV producers on Madison Avenue. I always had two or three jobs, no matter how many drugs I took. But there I was, running through Central Park, freaking out that I was gonna fuck some rock star. I had a seat in the first row, and when he sang, he looked at me. He's looking at me! `These eyes ... are crying ... crying every night for you ...' So I went with him to Howard Johnson's on the Upper West Side. I had sex with him and had such a fabulous time. For the next three or four tours, he'd call and I'd get to go see Burton Cummings! I was his New York girl. One night I was with him, and the tour bus was leaving for Asbury Park, and the band was saying, `Come on the bus with us!' and I said, `I can't, I have to go to work."'

  Cherry did go to the office the next day, but couldn't concentrate, left early, and hitchhiked to Jersey just in time for the curtain to rise on the Guess Who. But guess what happened? "I was so excited I was going to have another night with Burton. But backstage, he was a little distant. The band kept saying, `Come with us to Virginia Beach!' So I got on the bus. Not even an overnight bag, mind you, but Burton wanted nothing to do with me. The guys said, `Oh, you know how Burton is,' because obviously, I was finished. He had cooled on me." But Cherry stuck it out, crashing platonically with band members, wearing the same dress for three days. "They dropped me off in the Bronx, and I had to take the subway in this dirty dress. I felt like everyone was looking at me, I was shameful, and Burton didn't love me anymore. But I wrote a poem called, `A Groupie Lament.' I didn't think of myself as a groupie, even though I liked musicians, until I saw the film Groupies, with Cynthia Plaster Caster. You were in it too. When I saw that, I thought, `Yeah! It's cool to call yourself a groupie. I'm a groupie! Call me a groupie!' And fuck it, at least I got a poem out of it."

  Some musicians had more of an effect than others. "When I met Kris Kristofferson, he was just a little folkie playing coffee houses in the Village. He was fabulous, one of the most romantic ones, a very loving guy, and great in bed. This is a funny story: I had seen pictures of him and had heard him sing, and thought, `I have to have sex with this man.' So I waited on line for the first show at the Gaslight Cafe. It was a little coffee house with benches that held sixty or seventy people, and I had to sit in the back. When they cleared everybody out, I went to the ladies' room, stayed until the second show, and got a seat right in front of the stage. I was by myself, looking at him the whole time, practically touching him. I wrote a four-line poem and gave it to him as he left the stage. As people were getting up to leave, he peeked his head out of the dressing room and said, 'OK, you got me.' Isn't that cute? `You got me.' So I went backstage and hung out with him."

  Kristofferson invited Cherry to the Kettle of Fish bar next door, along with a passel of musician pals. "Patti Smith was there. She'd been doing poetry readings, mostly in the UK. I didn't know if she was romantically involved with Kris, but she seemed mushy with him. Everyone was drinking and carrying on. It was getting late, and I just wanted to go home and have sex with this man." But Kris invited everyone back to his room at the Chelsea Hotel, much to Cherry's annoyance. "I was thinking, `When am I gonna get to fuck this guy?' It was four o'clock in the morning when everybody left. There was just me, Patti Smith, and Kris, and I was thinking, `I'm not leaving! This is a stand off!' Patti had a morning flight to London to do a poetry reading, and Kristofferson finally said, `Patti, you've got a plane to catch. Come on, I'm gonna get you a taxi.' And I thought, `Thank the fucking Lord, I got him!' And we had fabulous sex. The next morning, we had lots more sex. Then he wanted me to come sit on the toilet and talk to him while he shaved, which I thought was so cute. He was a loving, beautiful guy. I ran into him again, eight or nine years ago, and he was so sweet. I said, `I don't know if you remember me. .: He said, `How could I forget you? You took me to see El Topo on acid and I had pneumonia.' One of the nights we went out, he had what he thought was a cold, so I said, `Take some acid, that cures everything.' We took acid and it turned out he had pneumonia! I did get a crush on him, but we became friends because he started going out with my friend Nancy."

  I comment that it was very magnanimous of Cherry to share her prize. "Oh yeah," she smiles, "we used to give our best ones to each other. And somebody else was coming next week-Leon Russell! So who cared? I first met Leon at the Capitol Theatre on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. That was the ultimate run-away-with-the-circus tour for me, when I thought I could get on the bus and never come back to reality. The music was so amazing and the atmosphere so welcoming, so family, and a nonstop party. I had an instant rapport with the Okies in the band, most especially Chuckie Blackwell, the adorable goldenboy drummer. He was a little devil and a true sex maniac, able to fuck and fuck and fuck for hours nonstop. And playful, maybe a little bisexual, and there were a million laughs mixed with the orgasms. I really loved him, not in a girlfriend way, but as a true sex buddy. Through Chuckie, I eventually got to know Leon-as much as anyone really gets to know Leon. He's a quiet, keep-tohimself kind of guy. Of course, I was madly in love with his music and wanted to be as close to him as possible, which in my head, at the time, meant sleeping with him. Chuckie and Leon were sharing a room, twin beds. I had sex with Chuckie, then Leon called me over, and I had sex with him. I can't say it was the most exciting sex I ever had, certainly not like with Chuckie. Nobody in rock and roll was quite like Chuckie Blackwell when it came to sex. But I got to be close with Leon for a few hours and give him the gift of my loving in return for all the pleasure his music had given me."

  Aww, it sounds positively idyllic. "Not exactly," Cherry laughs ruefully. "The next morning in the hotel coffee shop, everyone told me that Leon had crabs in his pubic hai
r, beard, everywhere! And for a minute I totally freaked out. They were just putting me on and having a laugh, but for a while they really had me going."

  While DJing at Aux Puces, Cherry got asked to audition for an off-the-wall play. "I said, `I'm not an actress.' But they didn't want real actresses. It was called `Theatre of the Ridiculous,' and they needed people who were crazy and free, so I said, `Why not?' I wound up in this wild play written by Jayne County, who was actually Wayne County then, World: Birth of a Nation. It was all made up of song lyrics. I wore a corset, and we used hot dogs as penises. I'd cut them off and castrate those boys. Andy Warhol came to see us. His play Pork was being performed at La Mama in New York with a Broadway actress in the lead role, but he thought she was too trained. Pork was going to the Roundhouse Theatre in London, and he wanted a new lead. He asked my director, `What about that girl who used to go around with the hot dogs?' So I auditioned for Andy at the Factory. I had been around him in the back room at Max's Kansas City, but never had the nerve to sit next to him and start talking."

  I'm full of questions about the enigmatic Mr. Warhol. Was he mysterious? Amusing? Quiet? "He was childish with me. He'd whisper in my ear at a party, `I hear that boy has a big penis. Why don't you go see, and come back and tell me about it.' He was very voyeuristic and adorable, and wanted to hear stories. He would bolster your ego, saying, `You are so fabulous. If only Hollywood knew who the real stars are, it would be a different world.' Other people had problems with him. I think they became dependent on him for money, but I never did. This was an Equity play and we got a salary and didn't expect Andy to pay our rent. When I auditioned for him I discovered he loved advertising. I had done an ad for Yodora deodorant for black people, which would be so racist now. But we used to say it was made for Negro skin. And he just ate it up! The other subject he loved was Catholicism, so he asked me all about Catholic school."

  Cherry diligently rehearsed for the play, but Andy just wanted to hear her sing "Our Lady of Fatima." "I sang terribly, I'm sure, because I was nervous. Probably the worse I sang, the better Andy loved it. I got the part and walked out of there, thinking, `Wow, I just auditioned for Andy Warhol. And I'm going to London to play the lead in his play!"

  It was much more difficult in 1970 for a woman to make her mark in the music world. "I wanted to be necessary, I wanted to be needed, so I thought, `Wow, I'm getting in there. I'm really a part of show business.' Oh, it was the most magical summer! The cast lived together. Rod Stewart came to our apartment, and the band America. A lot of local bands would sleep at our flat. We had a ball. Andy came for a couple of days before we opened. And we had a fabulous opening night party."

  Cherry was already an underground star in her own right, playing the lead in Pork, when she saw David Bowie perform for the first time. "I played Brigid Polk, or `Pork: She was supposed to be gross and freaking out on speed. There was a gesture I did all through the play, which was to pop out a tit. Bowie was a Warhol fan and knew we were in town. So at the end of Bowie's show, he introduced us in the audience: Leee Childers, Jayne County, and myself-and I popped out a tit. Bowie had long hair and yellow bell-bottoms and played an acoustic guitar. Mick Ronson was on electric guitar and Rick Wakeman played piano. Angie was pregnant, and running the lights. So we all got to be friends and started hanging out." When the play ended, Bowie's new manager, Tony DeFries, kept in contact with Cherry and Leee in New York, eventually asking them to help bring David to America to get a record deal. "In September '72, he brought Bowie to America, and we became the core of MainMan-the management agency. I was the only one with some structured Madison Avenue experience, so I organized the office, did all the contract typing; I was the `everything girl.' DeFries had this ploy to make David more desirable: he wasn't going to let him talk to the press. `You can't talk to him. But you can talk to Cherry.' So I was yap-yap-yappin' with the press. I'd had poems published in magazines, and was colorful enough to keep people interested and entertain them a bit. Basically, I started doing David's interviews. I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked beautifully."

  Here's a revealing little nugget from Bowie's Web site in 1998:

  I had decided to give my public life over to an extraordinary woman called Cherry Vanilla, an actress and performer whom I had hired to be my PR. And of course, she just wrote about her own life, like what shows she was seeing, where she ate and all that. If Cherry loved or hated something or someone it was Ziggy/Bowie who loved/hated it. Some of the events she wrote about did happen to me but you can assume that most of anything that is taking place in New York is happening to Ms. Vanilla. The cute thing is that every now and then she'd write how I had just come from seeing this great new performer whom everyone should know about ... Cherry Vanilla.

  Cherry continues with her intrepid tale: "We were in Boston one night, Angie wasn't there, and I ended up in bed with Bowie. And oh boy, did I want that to happen from the moment I met him! They had this so-called open marriage, but until then I never had the opportunity. Also, I worked for him and Angie was his wife and my friend. So even though I was this wild thing, it did feel a little strange. If I was gonna do it, I was gonna sneak! It was wonderful. Bowie is an amazing lover, because he, too, is romantic. Although with him, one might feel he's acting, but who cares? Bowie is an actor. And I feel that way in life too. Whatever job you get, you put on the uniform, the costume, and act the way you think you'd act if you were in a play. Romance made lovemaking better, but I didn't always go for it. I went home with guys who I knew were into S&M and did some pretty weird things because I wanted to try everything. The missionary position between a man and a woman is great, because you can be kissing while you're coming. Who doesn't love it? Bowie was very good, athletic and strong and fun. But being with David was forbidden by Tony DeFries. Members of the staff weren't supposed to do that. We had been in Tony's room earlier, and Bowie made me sit in the same chair with him. DeFries was saying, `You better have those contracts typed tomorrow.' That made it all the more exciting, because it was forbidden. So were drugs on the tour, but we did drugs anyway. But by the time I was working for Bowie I didn't have much time for sex with anybody else. I tried girls, even Angie Bowie, but girls were not my cup of tea. There were a couple of guy groupies on the road, but by the time I worked for him, '72, '73, '74, my big groupie days were over. They kind of ended with Bowie."

  Seems like a pretty good place to stop, if stop you must. "It wasn't enough anymore. Once I got to work with Bowie on a business level and help make him a star, that was much more fulfilling than just having sex and then, good-bye. It wouldn't be satisfying to have sex without that mental connection and respect for what I was doing."

  After her lengthy stint with MainMan, Cherry was ready to pursue her own extremely creative side, and started doing a poetry act at clubs around Greenwich Village. "I had written a bunch of songs at Leon Russell and Carl Radle's house in Oklahoma. Then I went to my dear friend Michael Kamen and said, `I wanna write a rock and roll song.' And I wrote `Little Red Rooster,' about Bowie. Then I wrote a song called `The Punk,' about Punk magazine in New York, the Ramones, and what was going on in the punk scene. When I went to England, in February '77, it was the first single we recorded. They called us punk rock, but I thought we were lollipop, like a joke. I was being satirical, `Yeah, I'm a rock star, too!' I made two albums, for RCA UK. The first record was all rock and roll. During the second one, it was romance time with my guitar player, Louie. I thought it was punky to write hymns and love songs, punkier than trying to be punk. Like saying, `Fuck you! I'll do what I want!' But there were a couple of good tracks. Stuart Copeland, Henry Padovani, and Sting were in my band in England. They worked for me and the Police was my opening act. They didn't have Andy Summers then, and Henry was a real punk guitarist. By then, I was into one boyfriend at a time. I was monogamous, but they weren't, which I found out later. It was always my lead guitar player; I had a string of those."

  For the last eight years, Cherry has been w
orking with Vangelis, the world renowned Greek composer/artist, most noted for his stunning Chariots of Fire soundtrack. "I met him in the RCA offices when we were both on RCA. He's the same age as I am, sixty-two. He was nothing like anybody I had ever been with before. I always loved skinny, little rock and roll boys. Here was a man my age, an intellectual, and I fell in love with his mind ... and his kindness. I fell in love in a whole new way. Vangelis kept sending for me, to do little `talk' things on his records, whatever excuse he could find. Then one time, I wound up having sex with him. We had sex a couple more times, then, it was like, now what? Am I supposed to be your girlfriend? But we both knew we would never be boyfriend and girlfriend, because I was much too independent. So we thought, `What are we going to do? We love each other, but we know it's not going to work.' He said, `We will love each other, and be friends forever.' He was right, we are. And here I am, working for him. And look!" Cherry beams, holding out her arm, "He gave me a $15,000 watch for my sixtieth birthday!"