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

by Pamela Des Barres

  Yes, the naughty ploy worked, but Dee Dee didn't go all the way with Cozy Powell, and she made it clear that she had a crush on Jeff Beck. "At that point, I would only do oral thingscuddling and playing. I wasn't gonna do it." Smiling, she adds, "I shed that feeling later and started doing everything to everybody! But I thought if I had sex with Cozy, I wasn't gonna get Jeff. I had an ace in the hole: I knew Jeff was into cars, and I had a killer '69 purple Cougar stick, and I let Cozy drive it back to the hotel. I went to the Whisky early the next night and got a booth. When Jeff came in, he kept trying to get my attention, but I ignored him. Finally he tapped me on the shoulder and said, `Are you the one?' and I said, `Why, whatever do you mean?' `Are you the one Cozy told me about?' When I said, `Yeah,' he said, `All right, when are we leaving?' At this point, Charlotte let me know she really wanted him and moved in as the Alpha canine-Jeff was gonna be hers. She thought I had gotten him for her, and I was OK with that. I was a real follower then; I didn't have my own identity until I was well into my thirties."

  Dee Dee sometimes shared an apartment with Charlotte, and at the end of the night, they left the Whisky, heading for their tapestry-covered couch. But was Dee Dee really OK sharing her Top Rock Dog with her cunning canine roommate? As soon as the door closed behind them, jaunty Jeff clambered onto the bed, inviting both girls to join him. "We each go to him, and when I smell him and feel him, I think, `Oh my God, this is a real rock star, this is a real man, this is what I've been waiting for.' When he was kissing me, she started to go after his fly, and he leaned to me and said, `Is there someplace we can be alone?' Charlotte stormed off to her room. We went into my room, but suddenly I felt like shit. He said, `Come on, you can't be upset about her,' and I said, `But I have to live with her tomorrow.' I said, `I know, let's all take a bath together!' So I ran this big bath, lit all the candles, and got us in the tub." Did she wind up sharing her prize after all? "No, because he didn't want Charlotte, and he was gonna have it his way. I had him in her room, on her bed, with her watching. I was a bit nervous, but after a while I thought, `I don't really care. I just wanna be with Jeff.' He really enjoyed it and when he leaned over me, the cross around his neck dangled just above my face. I can still see it. Then he wanted me on top, and it was the best experience I'd ever had in my life. The next day the two of us went cruising. I let him drive my car all around Hollywood, and he gave me tickets to the show, then he had to leave town. That was my first big groupie hurrah. I was hooked."

  Dee Dee speaks openly about her X-rated early life, and her lack of remorse is quite charming. She laughs freely and her sky blue eyes shine when recalling raunchy three-ways or when telling me tales about her six adored children. Her youngest daughter, Kelly, appears to be following in her mama's platformed footsteps, and Dee Dee promises to bring her over the next time we get together to gab.

  How did her obsession begin? What made young Dee Dee Lewis desperate to be in the spinning center of the action? "At thirteen, my fantasy was to get to the Rolling Stones. I loved their music. I wanted to know all about them. I wanted to be them. I wanted to be a cool dude like that." When she went to Wallach's Music City to buy her Stones concert ticket, she met a savvy older girl in leather who gave her a new perspective. "From that minute on, I was gonna be this tough little leather chick."

  At the Stones' 1965 Long Beach show, Dee Dee and her girlfriend were way ahead of me, literally crawling through a bathroom window to get backstage. I'm astounded when she reveals that it was her friend who clambered down the golden curtain and attached herself to Keith's scrawny leg that November night. "They didn't throw us out, just tossed us by the side of the stage. I realized I could get that close. I was standing right there when they came out to the car. `These guys are real, these guys are cool, my parents don't like 'em ... I'm there.' It was very powerful."

  She was fifteen when the Stones played the L.A. Sports Arena and the father of a friend managed the venue. "Does it get any better than that?" Dee Dee grins. "So I buy myself gold stockings and I'm ready to go. We're backstage after the show, and here comes the band. Keith Richards walks up and says, `Hey, little girl, you wanna come on the bus?' My girlfriend grabs my arm, `Oh, we shouldn't do that.' I look in Keith's eyes and know at that moment exactly what could happen if I get on the bus. But her father arrived and whisked us away. I thought to myself, `I really want to be on their bus-and I really want to know what that look meant.'"

  She soon found out what that sort of look actually meant when she got pregnant at seventeen after a brief fling with a dashing family friend. But that didn't stop her from exploring the Sunset Strip and pursuing coveted rockers. "I just went about my business, pregnant or not, and started following the Young Rascals. That's when I made a wonderful discovery: I would pick the least popular guy in the band-in this case it was Gene Cornish. I found out where they were staying-which wasn't hard-and would just call the hotel and leave a message. Curiosity always killed the rock star," she assures me. Gene Cornish was a tad bummed that his mystery caller was seventeen and pregnant, but Dee Dee started hanging out with the band whenever they hit town. She became dazzled by singer Eddie Brigati's L.A. girlfriend Amy and soon named her newborn daughter after the blonde model.

  "I had a lot of adventures with the Rascals. They just accepted the fact that I was gonna be there. I didn't know they had different girls in every town, but when I began to realize that Amy was Eddie's L.A. girl, I thought, `I wanna stay in nice places like they do. I wanna ride in limousines and go on airplanes. I want to live this life.' Later on, I would say to certain musicians, `I'll be your L.A. girl,' because I just wanted to be something-some kind of monumental thing to them."

  While her daughter was safely ensconced with her exasperated parents, Dee Dee became assistant to Whisky owner Elmer Valentine. "My parents weren't thrilled because I started renting a house with Charlotte. For a long while I'd have to work my job at the Whisky, which ended at 7:00 P.M., then I'd go take care of my baby, then back out partying all night. I did that for years."

  Despite her quickie with baby Amy's father, Dee Dee was surprisingly insecure at this early stage; most of her sexual experiences consisted of oral favors. But after a wild night with one of Led Zeppelin's roadies, gossip got around, and she caught the eye of their gargantuan manager, Peter Grant. "One day I was sunbathing at the Hyatt House pool. I noticed Peter had his eye on me. That night he took me back to the hotel from the Whisky in the limo."

  I knew Peter well. When I was with Jimmy Page, the big man took divine care of me, and I felt I knew a side of him that few others were privy to. I'm happy to know that Dee Dee saw his sweet side as well. "Down deep Peter was one of the sexiest, nicest men I had ever spoken to. I was drunk, yes, and the idea of this enormous man ... I thought, `Hey, I wonder what that's like! Nobody else seems to want to know and I'm not getting any Robert Plants.' I had on these five-and-a-half-inch patent leather heels with heart cutouts, this little top, and a tiny velvet skirt. He was so sweet to me. We were drinking, more drinking, and pretty soon we were making out. I said, `Wanna see my sunburn?' and he said, `Oh, do I!' and off came the clothes. I put myself down on the bed and said, `Come here to me,' and he said, `Darlin', I'll crush you.' So he got down on the bed first."

  Peter's horny kindness encouraged her to branch out even further. "He called me sweet names; he adored that I was a little blonde thing who touched him and liked him. It was good-it helped me to get a little bolder as to what I might be able to do."

  Dee Dee's stories come hard and fast now. She spent twelve years, day and night, at the hippest club in the trendiest city, and gaily took advantage of her priceless vantage point. Even though she has a thick scrapbook crammed with memories, her escapades are all jumbled up, and I hear about that keyboard player, this drummer, that bass player ... and through it all, she carried on a tempestuous, clandestine relationship with her powerful boss, Elmer Valentine. He treated her like a princess, and perks were plentiful. "I almost got caught once
when I was down on the floor under his roll top desk, and one of the girls came in. I looked up at him and he looked down at me and suddenly I was brilliant: I grabbed whatever I could find on the floor, peeked out, and said, `Found it!"

  People think I was brazen in revealing my rock star intimacies, but Dee Dee's unabashed saga makes my tales sound kindergarten tame. "I do have a wild story about the Hollies," she says with a wink. "I was with all of 'em!"

  The British foursome was heavily coveted among the Whisky chicks, and every girl had claimed a Hollie for herself. The stakes were even higher because the band was going to be in town for a few weeks recording a new album, which made them potential boyfriend material.

  "They all came into the Whisky and I stood behind the lead singer, Terry Sylvester. He kept turning around, and every time he did I made an awful face. Finally he said, `Are you trying to take the piss out of me?' I'd never heard that phrase before and started laughing, and he said, `Get over here. Talk to me."' It must have been quite a night, because once again, Dee Dee remembers exactly what she was wearing, "I had on a little rainbow sweater with `Hello' knitted into it and he thought that was really cute." At the end of the night, Terry asked Dee Dee for a ride to the hotel, and she sashayed out of the club with her prize while the other girls shot dagger eyes. "As we were driving, he explained that the boys in the band were well aware of what the Whisky girls wanted, but they were all married or in relationships. I made it clear that I didn't want to destroy any relationships, I just wanted to have a good time." Terry took her up to the room where the other three Hollies were watching TV. "He said, `Look what I brought home.' And I did my famous `Let's take a bath, boys!"

  Dee Dee had come up with this routine when she realized that British rockers' bathing habits weren't quite up to her standards. "I had so many encounters that I developed the Bathtub Game. There is nothing worse than going down there when ... yuck! So, I ran a bath with the Hollies, took off my clothes, got in the tub, and said, `Come on in with me.' Of course they all couldn't fit; some were sitting on the edge, and they were so cute, that's when I decided to have sex with whoever wanted to do it-and it was glorious."

  They all basked in Dee Dee's largesse except for cutie-pie Tony Hicks, who stayed in front of the TV. "He was a little `tsktsk' about the whole thing while the rest of us had a good time. Afterward, he frowned and said, `Well, what are you gonna do with me?' I got down on the floor in front of him and they all gathered 'round to watch." After hearing about Cynthia Plaster Caster's unique way with a dick, Dee Dee had been trying to come up with her own sexy gimmick. She asked Terry to go to the fridge and get some ice cubes. "I was gonna put them in my mouth and give head with 'em. I wanted to be called the Ice Princess, but it never took off . . ." Yikes, no wonder. Lucky for Tony, there weren't any available ice cubes, so Terry came back with a carton of yogurt. "I poured out the yogurt and gave him head. He came all over and I licked the yogurt off him. From that minute on, he adored me. We had the best time; the whole band made a date with me every night that week, and we created little games. One of 'em was `We'll pull up in front of the Whisky and you'll be wearing just a trench coat, stockings, and heels, and pretend you're hitchhiking and don't know us.' They would take turns having me flash 'em. I'd pretend I was Marilyn Monroe and they'd be total strangers. The girls were so angry," Dee Dee says proudly. "They never could figure out what I'd done and how I had 'em all!"

  She was having a blast, but couldn't seem to keep the promise she made to herself and her Hollies beau. Dee Dee began falling for Terry and things soon got sticky. "He started coming into the Whisky often to see me, and I knew it was out of line. He told me he wasn't in love with his wife but promised he'd be there for her and they'd have a child. I respected that, I really did, although I would love to have stolen him away." Dee Dee sighs, "The last time I saw him, we couldn't even touch each other because it would have been lovemaking, not just fun. I cried and begged and whimpered; then I had to pull myself together." Sounds like the age-old groupie's lament to me.

  There were plenty more guitar-playing fish in Dee Dee's aquarium. There was Leigh Stephens, lead guitarist in Blue Cheer, and Tony Stevens, the handsome bass player for Foghat. "And I had an encounter with Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. It was actually Carl who picked me out as I walked by their booth. That was another thing: strut by the booth enough times and you might catch their attention. Mario used to assist in telling the guys which of us were the `clean' girls. And Elmer would always say, `This is the girl you want.'"

  All the while, her relationship with Elmer never abated. "He was with me the first time I ever gave a girl head. Suzette was one of the cute little things who used to hang around in the office. I liked boys, not girls-I really didn't know what to do with that sort of anatomy, but I did the best I could. Suzette crashed her car the day after I'd been with her, and tragically died. This is the kind of humor Elmer has-he said, `Dee, you give killer head."

  In the midst of a semiserious fling with Johnny Almond of the Mark Almond Band, Dee Dee cavorted with a few other rockers. "I began to see, on a very serious level, Ian Paice, Deep Purple's drummer. He wanted to marry me and take me to England. At the same time I was seeing LeRoy Jenkins of Quicksilver Messenger Service, but he had a teeny-weeny peenie. And there was also a lighting man, Erich Haddix. I really wanted to marry Keith Robertson, the roadie for Fleetwood Mac, but one night he went out with someone else. It broke my heart because he really loved my daughter Amy." In retaliation, Dee Dee picked up Keith's best friend at the Whisky and took him home. "Keith was so peeved, he ended up crawling through my bedroom window, screaming at me. I thought, 'OK, I'm a tramp.' So I just went Eeny, Meenie, Miney, Mo. I did process of elimination and married Erich Haddix. But I remember standing in the church with my flowers, realizing `I can't say I do,' and crossing my fingers."

  She may not have been sure she married the right guy, but Dee Dee certainly gave it the royal try. The mismatched couple had three sons together, Marlon, Jeff, and Erich Jr., before breaking up in 1980. "I did have a stable time when I was doing the Betty Crocker/Suzy Homemaker thing, but I guess temptations were pulling me because the entire time I still worked at the Whisky. We were developing the Roxy and the Rainbow and were quite busy booking all these great bands. There I was, under the table, sucking Elmer's cock, then going home-'Hi, did you pick up the dry cleaning? Let's make dinner!"'

  To make the setup even more unusual, Erich's erstwhile boss, Iggy Pop, was a frequent houseguest. "He had nowhere to live so he ended up living with us for years. I spent my honeymoon night at an Iggy and the Stooges concert. I had on this beautiful long black gown with rhinestones and brand-new weddingnight panties with roses on them, and Iggy walks into the room. He was comfortable with me because we'd been hanging out for so long. He points at me and says, `You. Take off the panties.' My husband says, `You'd better just do it,' so I pull 'em off and give 'em to Iggy, he puts them on, and says, `Now I'm ready to go onstage.' He went on that night wearing my panties and a pair of boots." Dee Dee is suddenly struck by vivid recollection, "Outside of David Cassidy, Iggy has the most enormous cock I've ever seen in my life. It's huge! I don't even know how anybody can deal with that thing. And he's such a bad boy. He'd see my little daughter and say, `Come here, little girl. There's a mouse in my pocket.' We'd have to slap him and say, `Come on, she's three years old, stop!' Yeah, Iggy was really naughty. He was pretty bad off when Bowie was in the picture-when they were having their little thing. They were lovers, very much in love. My ex-husband has some drawings that Bowie did of Iggy having oral sex with him, and he's got a tear in his eye. It was when they were breaking up."

  Dee Dee and I agree that there were a lot of same-sex relationships back in the day. It was a way people expressed themselves, but it didn't necessarily mean they were gay. "There was more freedom," Dee Dee says assuredly. "I walked into a bedroom at a party one night, and Rod Stewart was with a real cute guy, giving him oral. I wasn't shocked, just embarrass
ed and felt bad that I'd intruded. I just closed the door. I did see some pretty outrageous things at the Hyatt House. I was with Jeff Beck on our way upstairs and he wanted to stop at this certain room. When he opened the door some roadies had a girl on the bed, putting champagne bottles inside her. If I hadn't gotten close, I would have thought they were in the middle of a poker game-you know, men yelling and taunting; that sort of thing. When I got closer, I thought, `Oh, dear, I don't want to find me there next.' I saw the same scenario later in Iggy's camp-some girl messing with sticks of butter. And I thought, `What will these girls do to be accepted?"

  Toward the end of her marriage to Erich, during a rocky marital spat, one of Dee Dee's girlhood wishes decidedly came true. As we peruse her numerous backstage passes, stickers, and photos, one shot stops me hot. "Isn't that David Cassidy?" I ask. "Yes, I finally got that fantasy fulfilled. I had a crush on him from day one, but he eluded me." That is, until she heard the teen idol was having marital strife himself. At a baby shower, a good friend of Dee Dee's sneakily got David's home phone number by asking his wife, Kay Lenz, out to lunch. "I feel extremely guilty about this. We waited until Kay was out of town and me and my girlfriend called him. He was home by himself. We made sure he knew he was gonna meet somebody who really wanted him. It was that easy." The excited girls arrived to find their pop hero in his new mansion, amid chaotically stacked packing boxes, sitting alone in the dark. "He wanted to give us a tour of the house, and when we got to the bedroom, we stayed there ... of course." When I ask if a three-way ensued, Dee Dee shakes her head. "My friend was more of a watcher. Hey, it was my treat!"