DON'T TELL ANYBODY THE SECRETS I TOLD YOU by LUCINDA WILLIAMS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

Loved this book, and as always here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO, I was wondering if Lucinda, an erotic song writer, had ever been the other woman.  Enjoy these excerpts from the memoir and ask yourself if you have a "type" when it comes to men!

Excerpt pages 94-95

As I was growing into a full-fledged woman, I began to be attracted to a certain kind of man, and I would maintain that kind of attraction for the rest of my adult life.  The way I've often described this kind of man is that he would be "a poet on a motorcycle." These were men who could think very deeply and could have very deep feelings, but there was also a kind of blue-collar roughneck quality to them  The epitome of this kind of man for men was the pot Frank Stanford.

I met Frank sometime in the spring of 1978.  I was twenty-five years old at the time.  I had been living in Houston and Austin, plying my trade and craft in the music scenes in those towns, working odd jobs in restaurants and health food stores to pay my bills, but I was back and forth to Fayetteville to visit my father and Jorda and sometimes I would stay there for weeks or a couple of months at a time.  His literary parties were in full swing at the house as usual and sometimes in the evening I would get out my guitar and play songs... 

Pages 95-96

Frank was twenty-nine years old and married to a beautiful, smart woman named Ginny Crouch who was a painter.  Frank was also living, on the side, with another beautiful, smart woman, the poet Carolyn "C.D." Wright.  He and Carolyn started a publishing company together in Fayetteville. It was a pretty weird situation, married to one and living with the other - an ad hoc, a part-time commitment to both.....

Page 98

.... His writing was feral and on fire.  Everybody locally was proclaiming him the next great American poet.  He knew a lot about blues and country music and I think his poetry came from that background, and was also part of the Flannery O'Connor Southern Gothic tradition.

Page 99

I was enamored of him, in love with him. I don't know what you would call our relationship.  I wouldn't say it was a love triangle, or a love square, with me and Ginny and Carolyn, because Frank and I never actually had sex.  We just hung out together and talked.  He was genuinely attentative to what I had to say and he knew exactly what to say in response.  He knew what I wanted to hear, which implies some manipulation, but also suggests to me that he cared.  We talked about poetry and lyrics and feelings and desires, all sorts of topics about caring about individuals and caring for the world, about how the world was fucked up ad so hard on most people while some people had it easy, and why it was important to be a poet or a singer even if your audience was never going to be very big, which certainly seemed to be the case for me at the time.

My relationship with Frank only lasted about two months and then he killed himself by shooting a handgun into his chest.  There are various versions of the events that led to his suicide.

Basically, all the stories overlap in claiming that Ginny and Carloyn had had enough of Frank's philandering and they confronted him together, almost like an intervention, and he couldn't handle it.  He had left town for a couple weeks before this happened  He might have gone to New Orleans, possibly to visit with the poet Ellen Gilchris, who he was close to.

***

Reading this book which answers the question most posed to a songwriter which is Who inspired the song - sent me right over to YouTube where I searched for Lucinda Williams and listened to the songs she mentioned in it.  It's a smooth read and perfect for a night home alone with a little wine and cheese!  Missy

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MAY FUNG YEE PANG ON HER NEW DOCUMENTARY

The word Mistress seems to bring fantasies of riches and great beauty, women in their youth, and with much older men. But as we learn more about the real lives of women who have been in relationships other than traditional marriage, we also learn that being a Mistress rarely lasts an entire lifetime, and that Mistresses too get older.

May Fung Yee Pang was born in 1950 and John Lennon, the famous ex-Beatle, was born in 1940, ten years earlier. He was married to Yoko Ono at the time.  She was born in 1933.  Does age matter?

My feeling is often it does, but not always. Sometimes experiencing life means a person gains wisdom, sometimes not. What strikes me is that Yoko was raised in a Japanese upper class culture in which women thought a man having a mistress was not such a big deal.  I tend to think that attitude is also because marriages were arranged or at least highly encouraged and there was not and still is not much support for a woman or a man remaining unmarried.

As May Pang says, Yoko might have been a Japanese wife but she herself was not, she was a Chinese-American woman.  (And while John was a decade older than May, Yoko was seventeen years older.)

Through her documentary, which is respected, May's place in Rock and Roll History remains.  In recent weeks a concert called The Lost Weekend took place at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, one of the clubs most associated with Rock and Roll.  May was there to celebrate the music of John Lennon.  As she says, during their time together he was especially productive writing and recording songs.

In this YouTube video, May, now officially a senior, talks about those days in her life in which she was in love with John.  In keeping with my policy not to embed videos that have commercials, I'll just give you the link.

YAHOO Inteview of MAY PANG DETAILS LOST WEEKEND

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MAY PANG : LOVING JOHN and INSTAMATIC KARMA

May Pang's memoir, Loving John, came out in 1983.  The story goes that her 500 page manuscript was edited down to 300 pages, to focus on the more sensational aspects of her relationship with John.

Editors for publishers have been known to do that but perhaps this also lead to her wish to do a documentary.

Excerpt from an article in Daily Mail, 2008, 

'My lost weekend with Lennon': May Pang breaks her silence over their relationship

By MAY PANG

Last updated at 23:44 09 February 2008

Most people have come to know the time that John Lennon and I spent together as The Lost Weekend. I am always surprised by how many people are under the impression that our time together lasted only a single weekend.

John and I were together "officially" for 18 months, but our relationship actually spanned ten years - from December 1970 to December 1980.

***

May also published this book Instamatic Karma full of photographs she took of John during their relationship.  She says he encouraged her to take photos and also talked to her about how fame might effect her life.

YOU KNOW I'M NO GOOD : AMY WINEHOUSE

JERSEY BOYS : A THEATRICAL MUSICAL and A FILM

I first saw the film Jersey Boys when it came out and enjoyed it. Rewatching it more recently, I realized it was excellent, surpassing many other biopics of singers and bands.  I haven't seen the theatrical production, but hear it's great entertainment.

The film is about Frankie Vallie and his mates coming of age as Italian-Americans, coming from families who did not have much materially, turning to music instead of crime.  Was being in a band just for fun or a way out of a predictable life? For the band that finds success and fame, it's rarely overnight success.  Hard work and Hope is the key.

Seeing the play on Broadway lead to April Kirkwood writing Big Girls Do Cry.

APRIL KIRKWOOD: THREE DECADES AS MISTRESS OF SINGER FRANKIE VALLI of THE FOUR SEASONS

The intimate story of April Kirkwood, a Mistress of the singer Frankie Valli, of the "Jersey Boys" group, The Four Seasons, who has loved him practically all her life -  30 YEARS - forever  - is one that challenges our definition of Mistress, confused it with Groupie, and confounds it with issues of legality.

In this era of Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein scandal, in which both were and are accused of sex trafficking and having sex with numerous women under 18 years old, which is the age of consent, we have to question "what is statutory rape?"  I'm not suggesting April was sex trafficked by anyone or that she was raped, but the question of consent is large. And also, I'm aware that historically and in some places on this earth, 14 year old girls get married.

We know that Groupies have had sex with Rock Stars when they were under 18.  We don't confuse them with women being pimped or sex trafficked to men they have not chosen, especially because groupies go after these sexy musicians and singers and they don't file complaints.  It seems they felt they had a choice. Let me say that I once knew a Groupie, who grew up and never seemed to regret her under-age liaisons, which included running away with a famous band. Her parents knew where she was and didn't stop her. She continued to be sexual with men in music almost exclusively until she married her very own music man and has been in a good and surprisingly conservative - faithful - marriage, ever since.

I wonder though. Did Frankie have April confused with a groupie?

Frankie Valli, a tenor lead singer of a group that had it's roots in the hard streets of New Jersey and the Doo Wop era of the 1950's, had a series of number one hits with The Four Seasons in the early 1960's.  Some of these songs are the most romantic ever.  I can imagine being in the audience and feeling the lead singer was just singing to me.

Frankie met April when she was a child. She says she first saw him on stage at age six or seven and first met him at age eight. Their affair began when she was sixteen,  her first affair, and yes, he was much older.  In interviews she says she had Daddy Syndrome.

Today she sees her family, her mother in particular, who she says had a personality disorder, as influential in presenting her as a child Four Seasons - Frankie Valli fan.  When the group came through the Youngstown, Ohio town area where they lived, She and her mom were sure to go to the concert.  April has a photo of herself as a child gaining the singer's attention in full fan regalia; obviously she did not create this outfit herself.  She was not a groupie, but she feels she was, in so many words, groomed by her mother in particular, to find this relationship with a famous man acceptable.

She says that after sex, Frankie would give her "fatherly" advice such as telling her not to have sex with other men, to not do drugs, and to keep up her looks. This affair went on for three decades, off and on, an emotional roller coaster ride.  She says she still loves him, though in a different way.

April Kirkwood went to see the Broadway show, Jersey Boys, and she realized she was part of the history. She decided to write her book and three years later it was published and she started doing interviews.  We'll look at some of those this month - her own words.  In one video I watched she made it clear that the headline "Frankie Valli Took Me at 16 and Used Me in Decades Long Affair", which appeared in 2015 in the New York Post, does not reflect what she herself said, and that is not her attitude. She does not feel used.

April Kirkwood is a professional therapist at this time in her life.  As a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) she has a master's degree and is trained to work with individuals, or families, or groups, to treat mental, behavioral, and emotional problems. She also has a Masters in Education, both degrees from Youngstown State University.

This former Miss Ohio is an accomplished woman and a mother. She has videos up that give women advice on YouTube and her own website to counsel women. However, unlike many therapists, there is a metaphysical aspect to her which includes the belief in twin flames, soul mates, reincarnation, and destiny. Though her mother is described as having a personality disorder and grooming her, she also says that her mother had emotional struggles of her own, that she could cry for hours, and that she herself also advised love and forgiveness.

Maybe her attitude of gratitude makes April a perfect November Mistress of the Month, since this is the month of Thanksgiving here in the United States.

Missy

C 2020 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

Research for this blogpost includes watching YouTube videos of April's promotionals as well as interviews and articles published on line, a couple of which I will link to and excerpt this month.

YOU'RE JUST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE : FRANKIE VALLI and the FOUR SEASONS

FRANK SINATRA OFFICIAL SITE

http://www.sinatra.com/


The recent press around Journalist Ronan Farrow, his mother actress and SuperMom Mia Farrow, the MeToo Movement, the arrest of  movie mogul Harvey Weinstein for sexual harassment and rape is hard to ignore.  I bring it up here because I read that Mia, briefly a much younger wife of Frank Sinatra, has said that she and Frank never really stopped having a thing for each other though they divorced, and this has lead to speculation that Rowan is actually the biological son of Frank Sinatra. Certainly he looks like he could be Sinatra's son, the blue eyes and all but some children take after their mothers.  Reading around this subject on the Internet, it seems that Mia hinted Ronan was Frank's son in 2013 and articles have appeared since that are pro and con.  Trying to stay away from publications that are clearly just rumor mills, the question is, did Frank know?  What about his children, such as singer Nancy Sinatra?


EONLINE: NANCY SINATRA SAYS MIA WAS JOKIING: RONAN ISN'T FRANK'S SON


Seems to me DNA testing would provide the revealing information.  But would all those effected be willing to test? Seems like this rumor may go the way of those about Prince Harry's father being James Gilbey rather than Prince Charles.

BARBARA BLAKELEY MARX - SINATRA : TWICE A MISTRESS - THRICE A WIFE

Barbara Blakeley Marx Sinatra

1927 – 2017

Who says that being a Mistress will never lead to marriage?

In the case of Barbara Sinatra, born Barbara Blakeley, the small town Missouri girl who was so tall at 5'8 that she hunched over shyly in her youth, two marriages to wealthy men began with mistressing.  And I so wish that she had written a different kind of book to supplement her memoir, because I think this lady really knew men and how to live with them and survive them. She provided companionship to Frank and was patient, kind, loving and giving, but also ultimately got what she wanted and needed.  And she doesn't tell us how she did it.

Barbara was the Mistress of Harpo Marx, one of the Marx Brothers, a comedy group, and Frank Sinatra, the Big Band singer who is now considered to be one of the all time American Classic singers.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

In her memoir, Barbara makes no apologies for having had the goal of marriage to a man who could take good care of her and her son by a first husband that she had a brief youthful marriage to. Maybe it took some bad early experiences to start setting that goal. In her era being a housewife and mother, not a career woman, was the most popular goal, but when her family moved to Southern California - Long Beach, the current home of the Queen Mary, the Spruce Goose, and a famous aquarium, she decided that going to a modeling school would be a good idea.  Her husband wanted to make it as a singer and entertainer but the bills needed to be paid.

At the John Robert Power's school of modeling she learned to straighten up and walk like the most beautiful girl in the world.  It seems modeling agencies and men agreed.   After she started making income from modeling, she met another man who couldn't provide, whose bills she paid, and she resented it.  She did well enough to open her own modeling agency and put her models in pageants like the first Miss Universe. 

It may not surprise you that relying on beauty lead her to a 1950's Las Vegas where she was employed as a showgirl balancing a heavy decorative headdress.  She was earning good money - more than the dancers - but Vegas came with risks for her and her son.  Perhaps her memoir, which focuses on her relationship as a mistress (a word she doesn't use) and then wife of Frank Sinatra, doesn't go on and on about what it was like to be a struggling mother paying the bills when a husband was supposed to provide.  Her marriages helped keep the mobsters that ran Vegas away.

Like other women who have been showgirls there were some men who were fascinated or fixated on one certain dream girl.  Harpo Marx had a thing for Barbara.  When events occurred that made her afraid for herself and her son, she decided to quit Vegas that minute, just get in the car and flee.  She ended up in with her parents and broke.  Harpo called and she told him the truth of her circumstances.

In Part 2, Chapter 3 of the e-book she writes that he said, "Come to Palm Springs.  I'll set you and Bobby up in your own place.  You can commute back to LA to model."  She says she had little choice but to accept and perhaps predictably he really didn't want her to work.  He rented her a two bedroom apartment next to the Racket Club and she found work modeling at the pool there. These were the days when stores would hire models to walk about in swim suits to lure customers to their shops. Harpo continued to live in his own house in Rancho Mirage near the Tamarisk Country Club - the Jewish country club - where he was a member and golfed. She did marry him and moved in with him and they were married for years. It was 1958 and she fell in love with life in glamorous Palm Springs but not Harpo; he took longer.  She did come to love him but still didn't want to marry him.  She says he was a womanizer who was not faithful. He also liked to gamble. Their house was across the hedge from Frank Sinatra's place.  Harpo and Frank were old friends and socialized.

Barbara says that her son was pretty much rejected by his father and other men in her life, and Harpo was no exception.  He didn't want the boy around but he did pay the tuition to an expensive military school they sent him to.  Bobby did well and Barbara's hopes for his future were large.

Part 3 begins the saga of Frank Sinatra.  After years of marriage to Zeppo, Barbara accidentally busted him by showing up at his boat to see it was full of girls in party mode, girls who asked her who she was.  She realized that her marriage had long been dead.  Yet she also had pledged to herself that she would not divorce him.  She was in for the duration.

As she considered her affair with Frank she reasoned that  Bobby had been educated in France and was all grown up, living in Europe.  She felt "I didn't have to protect Bobby anymore."

In Monte Carlo, where she went to visit friends who were also mutual friends of Marx and Sinatra, the affair began, with ardor.  "There was no way to avoid that flirtation," she says.  She and Frank were both lost and lonely people then.  She told herself theirs was just a fling, what happens in Monaco stays in Monaco, but "I was happy again for the first time in years."  They snuck around. Their affair, she felt, would not last, but back in Palm Springs, Frank still pursued.

Perhaps as a showgirl who had managed to avoid mobsters as well as her least favorite type of man - a drunk - she had seen a lot and learned a lot about herself in Vegas.  She never expected that other women would not be attracted to Frank.  Unsaid, I felt reading this that she had the confidence to think of herself, once married, as number one, but also that she was savvy to not mention faithfulness or bring other women up to Frank.  Implied is that maybe he had them.

Part 4, chapter 7, Barbara says she knew that divorce from Zeppo would mean having to move out of their house and nowhere to go, except back to the house she had bought for her parents in Palm Springs.  Then, in a generous move that made Barbara feel that Sinatra indeed wanted her and loved her, Frank bought the house that another Marx' brother's ex wife was selling.  He bought it, put her name on the deed and presented the deed to her.  Now that's being taken care of! (I know some of you reading this are saying "Where do I sign up?")

She held Sinatra at arm's length still, however simply romantic he was.  When she married Frank years later, on the day of the wedding, she was presented a prenup that he had not mentioned, by his attorneys, and she signed it.  Barbara had more of a "what the hell attitude" about this prenup, even though it had been sprung on her, and she airs no resentment, going on about how generous Frank Sinatra was, not just to her but to his friends as well as to strangers.

Another reason that Frank won over Zeppo was his attitude towards her son.  Zeppo had not been a good step father to him but now Frank was interested in him, giving him a hug.

Back in Palm Springs, the not yet divorced Barbara and Frank stepped into the public eye on the New Years Eve after Monaco.  Still, this wise woman knew she must have competition. In part 3 chapter 6 she tells the tale of Ava Gabor in Palm Springs, a four times divorced woman "in the Pamela Harriman mode" who had been dating Frank.  Another woman went to a therapist to talk about Frank, wanting to marry him and the therapist told her there were three other women he had as clients who also hoped or believed that Frank would marry them!  Times had changed since 1958 when Barbara had became Zeppo's mistress and then wife.  It was now 1972.  Lots of people were no longer interested in marriage as a way of life.  Frank had been divorced a few times as well.  He didn't need to marry anyone to get his needs met.

As a companion to a man who was world famous and in demand, Barbara waited, not pushing him to marry her until several years had passed.  She was extremely careful that it be his idea.  When he gave her gems to be set in to the settings she preferred she chose an engagement-like ring, but then she had the ring delivered to him so that he could give it to her.  At a dinner when he handed her the completed ring back, she still let him pick which finger he would put it on - whatever finger he wanted she said.  He slid it on the engagement finger. Only after that did she consider Frank's marriage proposal to be real.

Barbara had been raised Protestant and had been Jewish for Zeppo.  Now as a true companion to her man, she converted to Catholicism.  She also became an honorary Italian.

Barbara still avoided drunks - even if it was Frank who had that evening gone over his limits to become one.

She knew what she wanted.  She knew what she had.  She knew Frank was notoriously difficult and demanding and needed lots of people around most of the time.  Often other people depended on her to handle him smoothly. She knew how to amuse and calm him and lead the way.  She dealt with his moods, his depressions, his anger.  Her benefits as a mistress and then a wife included world travel, a life of leisure,  meeting and befriending some of the worlds wealthiest, most influential people, and being able to use their wealth to build an advocacy for molested and abused children through fundraising events.   Younger than Frank, Barbara continued on with philanthropic activities even as he aged enough to want to stay home, stay in bed, be alone, and continued on after his death.

So many people who are in dead marriages remain faithful in them until they meet someone who makes them feel happiness again.  Affairs are sometimes used to spring the trap.


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RAY CHARLES on SUPPORTING WOMEN and CHILDREN

From his memoir BROTHER RAY:

"I always made it plain that I'd support the children.  I never denied being the father.  My friends told me the babies looked like I'd spit 'em out. And besides, what man - married or single - really knows?

On the other hand, I didn't believe in supporting the child and also setting up the mama in some luxurious crib with a Mercedes and two or three mink coats. No sir, that aint me.  She wouldn't starve and neither would the baby, but I didn't figure she was entitled to a life time of jewels and caviar." * on e-book 1801-1806

NOTES: RAY CHARLES was sued for paternity more than once. One woman in New York took him to court and he rented an apartment for her and their daughter on 97th and Central Park West and when he transferred all his business to Los Angeles, she transferred the suit to LA.  He lost.  Another woman in Ohio sued him for paternity, who also had a daughter with him.  This lady moved to LA.  His wife didn't make him "budge" even with all the embarrassment.  "I can't be blackmailed," he said.  Ray Charles thought that both women came to regret it.  "I pay what the court ordered and not a dime more."  He thought that they would end up with more by not making a fuss, that he was always there for emergencies. on e-book 1805-1820


Missy here: When another Mistress realizes how her man has been with other women and finds herself pregnant, well, is it any wonder why she might choose an abortion?

PLAYING THE KEYBOARD

RAY CHARLES THE MOST CREATIVE MUSICAL GIANT OF THIS GENERATION and the _++++RAELETTES SPE

The Raeletts were backup singers who toured with Ray Charles. 

I believe that Margie Hendrix closest to the bottom edge of the poster.  There was some change outs of Raeletts personell over time.  As the only mistress of Ray Charles revealed in the bio-pic Ray, until I began researching I believed he had one wife and one mistress.

RAY CHARLES and the RAELETTES - MARGIE HENDRIX and SEX ON THE ROAD TOURS

The early 1960's girl group Raelettes -Ray Charles' Touring Group. Margie Hendrix is the second from the left, and the featured singer. 

Margie wasn't the first or last background singer to be involved with her boss, the star of the show, and probably won't be the last.
Excerpts from Ray Charles own memoir BROTHER RAY read on Overdrive e-book:

"So I didn't - and don't - have a policy against hanky-panky among the girls and boys in the band.  How could I, as much as I loved to f-uck?  I'd look like a fool and I'd be a hypocrite.  The guys were adults and so were the women...  1279 -1280

HE SAYS HE DID HAVE SEX WITH RAELETTES.

"But I've never insisted that any woman sleep with me.  When sex happens between me and one of the Raelettes it happens naturally. It doesn't concern her pay or her music.  I never allow those two currents - lovemaking and music - to cross each other.
I'd never want to make love to a woman thinking the only reason she agrees is because I'm her boss. ... I have to feel she wants me as much as I want her...  1287-1288
I also have another personal sex policy.  If a girl's with another guy in the band, I leave her alone.  I don't want my cats thinking that I'm interfering with their business or their love life... 1289-1290

Finally everyone starts pairing off and the band gets hip to who belongs to who." 1293-1294

"EVEY" - JAMES TAYLOR'S JAPANESE NEW YORK MISTRESS and HIS WIFE CARLY SIMON

EVEY, a Mistress of one of America's best known and loved singer-songwriter's
 JAMES TAYLOR, 

remains a mystery to us, though Carly Simon, Taylor's wife at the time, has called her out.
She's called EVELYNE in "Sweet Dreams and Flying Machines," a biography
of James Taylor by Mark Ribowsky.

*********************************************************

*******************************************

BOYS IN THE TREES - A MEMOIR by singer-songwriter CARLY SIMON.

 

CARLY SIMON is famous for her glorious almost-opera alto voice, for her wonderfully autobiographical song writing, especially hits like, "You're So Vain," and now long over marriage to singer-songwriter JAMES TAYLOR, with whom she had a son and daughter, who are not surprisingly also musical. 

Apparently though singer-songwriter fans loved that Carly and James were married rock stars, whose voices complimented each other when they made appearances on each other's albums and in concerts, their marriage wasn't what most of the couple's fans imagined. Carly Simon says, though she loved James - and I think this woman's love for her husband and the father of her children was outstanding - they were not the perfect couple that they had been promoted as.  Not at all. She acted as though she had found her soul mate and forgot her view of her parents marriage that she wrote about in her song, "The Way I Always Heard It Should Be."  During her youth her father had Kept his own Nanny as a Mistress and her mother had installed a Boy Toy under their roof and right under her ailing husband's nose.  Had Carly learned to tolerate cheating? She did hold to the belief that no musicians were faithful and she did tolerate her husband's groupies, an affair with a back-up singer, and his confession to her of having gotten gonorrhea.  What made Evey different was that she was a real challenge to her marriage.

Taylor was absent, not only because he continued to tour while she more or less stayed home to raise their two children as if she were a single mother, but because he was a drug addict - pot - coke - whiskey - heroin - and not really there even when he was in the room. You could say he was married to his addictions.

But then Carly discovered that he was also not at home because he had a Mistress stored away in his apartment there in New York City, an apartment she had never seen that he used for rehearsing. Called "Evey" by Carly in her memoir, "Boys In The Trees," Simon had a duplicate key made, and went over there in the middle of the night, a valium and Sangria to help her courage, and faced Evey.  She wanted this other woman to know she was "not a monster."

What Evey had to say to Carly, what James had told his mistress about his wife, was shocking and exaggerated. A sensitive artist, deeply emotional, and profoundly hurt, trying to keep her family together, one child sickly, Carly was perhaps facing reality too. Evey told Carly in so many words that she was considered to be a privileged, materialistic, selfish, and demanding woman. Maybe Evey was just flouting her ability to live in a small, barely furnished pad awaiting her man,"Jamie." A  tiny Japanese (or Japanese-American) woman who spoke English with an accent, she was a dancer with a good body, physically unlike Carly.  Evey was proud of her man and unexpectedly competitive.  Perhaps Jamie really was the biggest deal in her life. She amused herself when he wasn't there playing some of his favorite music. He certainly wasn't Keeping her in luxury.

It's ironic really. Usually when a wife calls out a Mistress, it's her belief that her husband is being too generous (any amount of money can be "too" generous when a wife believes that half of that money should be hers) with the Other Woman.  It's almost as if Evey is proud of her lack of demands and needs, but when I excerpt the showdown between these two later this month, I think you'll gasp like I did at the things Evey had to say to Carly, a woman who had inherited much less than imagined, used most of her inheritance early to pay for therapy, and who had success in her own right. Evey even said James Taylor told her Carly Simon was a "JAP" (Jewish American Princess)! Carly's father was Jewish and a well to do publisher (Simon and Schuster), her mom wasn't, and the family was fairly non religious.

*****Beyond this acknowledgement, later in her life, of her husband's Mistress by Carly, little else is publically known about Evey.  She may have been a musical muse, kind of like Ruth Tryangiel, the Mistress of Bob Dylan. Though in 1980, about a year after the showdown with Evey, their marriage was still intact, Taylor would soon divorce and remarry but not to Evey.  We don't know how she and Tayor met, how long they were together, if she earned enough money to support herself besides the probably free living in the apartment, or if he continued to Keep her when he remarried. After Carly, James went on to marry two more times and seems settled into and happy in his current marriage.  Carly also remarried four years after their divorce from him and is currently divorced from James Hart after almost 20 years of marriage. Evey wasn't why the Simon-Taylor marriage didn't last. 

I usually read books, but I've also started listening to some audio books, and I'm especially interested in doing so if the author is reading their own words to us.  I want to hear their voice and emotional expressions as they read their work. I heard that Carly Simon's memoir about growing up in a well-to-do publishing-related family also contained snippets of her music. What a great idea!  And so I got BOYS IN THE TREES on audio. I must say I loved it and was even brought to tears at times. (I've posted a couple Carly Simon YouTube videos in the past so you know I'm a fan.)

Carly was frank about her early sexual experiences and growing up in a household with a secret which involved her parent's infidelities.  Her mother, still married to an ailing retired husband, with their youngest child a boy, hired a college student to sort of care-give this son, while having an ongoing affair with him. The affair required a secret passageway in their house which one of her sisters figured out first. You could say Andrea Simon, Carly's mom, had herself a Boy Toy for a while. Carly's father, Richard Simon Kept his own nanny, who helped raise him as a child, as his Mistress for years, including after his marriage to Andrea. All this had a profoundly upsetting effect on Carly who may have started stuttering  as a result.

Online you can possibly link to an old article I cut out of Vanity Fair Magazine, titled "I Never Sang For My Mother," by Marie Brenner from August of 1995. At the time it was published it was quite shocking in the revelations about Carly's parents and their extramarital set ups but also that her mother could diminish her daughter so in a moment of her success.

Carly Simon, back in the day when she was a singer-songwriter (a little like the Taylor Swift of her generation) was promoted as a sexy young woman singer-songwriter - and she posed for photos that were considered daring at the time, though a typical selfie by a Kardashian sister is usually showing more nipple or rear end.)  In her memoir she admits to a whirl of affairs with musical men, prior to her marriage, as well as not being the first such woman to be passed around among them.  It was the 1970's, a wave of feminism had hit the shore, and a lot of women had decided they were not going to wait until married to have some adventures with men, but as she was talent and among peers, she was not a groupie.

VANITY FAIR 2016 - CARLY SIMON THE PHOTO THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

 A secondary reference for this month's subject, I'll excerpt from this bio by Mark Ribowsky later in the month.  In this book "Evey" is called EVELYNE

Evey gives us a moment to pause.  She, sadly, falls into the category of Mistresses who are with men who lie terrifically to them about their wives, who have their Mistresses on their side against their wife, and who are in place quite deluded. Having known women and men who've had affairs and behaved in ways in which you can't help but think they are acting out for attention and want to get caught, I can't help but think about James Taylor at this point in his marriage with Carly Simon.

If interested in the Mistresses of musical men, their Mistresses, or their groupies, read archived posts about Bob Dylan, Pamela Des Barres, or Jim Morrison (although that one has an outstanding number of hits and I'm about to take that whole month down!)

 

C 2017  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot - All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights

LETS SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER : "WE PUT THE SEX in SEX, DRUGS, and ROCK and ROLL"

 

WARNING!  As I promised I would give you a warning if I think some readers might need or want one, since MISTRESS MANIFESTO BlogSpot demurs from sexual explicitness.  Cynthia Plaster Caster (and her casts of a certain part of the male anatomy) is part of this film!  You may want to skip it if you're shy.

Video replaced with this one June 2021

"We put the SEX in Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll"

"I'm setting out to reclaim the word Groupie..."

LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER stars Pamela Des Barres (sometimes called Queen of the Groupies - at least in LA!) and Lori Maddox (AKA Lori Lightening), who both had relationships with Led Zeppelin Guitar God, Jimmy Page.  These two women were once enemies, but  years later bonded because he broke BOTH their hearts. Based on Des Barres book of the same title, watch it and learn a bit about HOW TO DEFINE GROUPIE!

LISA L. RHODES "ELECTRIC LANDLAND" on WOMEN IN ROCK N ROLL INCLUDING GROUPIES

That picture on the cover of the book isn't Lisa, but a famous Groupie at the time. 

She has the look of someone who knows the score and has seen it all.

ELECTRIC LADYLAND, WOMEN and ROCK CULTURE, 1965-1975 by

Lisa L. Rhodes, who was part of the scene as a singer and made her own album, takes on the question of the role of women in popular music during the early explosion of Rock along with the sexual revolution, in an interesting book, and one for my library. 

To do so she looked at how women in music were portrayed by the media, in particular in Rolling Stone Magazine, as male journalists quoted the musicians and singers and others looked at women's sexuality in old, sexist ways.  About half of her book is about Groupies, how they were defined in the media, Time Magazine also having published an early article about them because they were considered to be a phenomena.

Some of you will think "Why did they let themselves get used?"  Others may think, "Why didn't I run away with the band?"

Page XI

"Another reason to study rock women stems from the fat that between 1965 and 1975 gender roles were in flux in America and these women were in the front lines of the gender wars of the late 1960's and early 1970's.  For example, by redefining what it mean to be a female musician or write, these women were helping to change perceptions about women in general.  The groupies, with their freewheeling sexuality, were also helping to reinterpret what it meant to be a sexually active woman in the music scene, as well as the role of girlfriends, lover, wife, and whore.  The activities of all these women helped to establish gender roles as they exist in America today."

Page XIV

"I chose rock music because it conveys power and being a woman in our society offers us precious little of that commodity." ... Performing music at loud volume means different things to women than it does to men.  As women we are (usually) told all our lives in subtle and not so subtle ways to be quiet, at least more quiet than the men around us.  For women to take center stage, literally, and draw attention to themselves through the employment of loud volume is thus a truly liberating act..."

Rhodes also takes on these: Did the 1960's have its own moral code, as what is considered pedophilia now is viewed by some as sexual experimentation?  Did adult women Groupies basically become slaves to men they idolized or where they liberated hero worshipers?

C 2016  Mistressmanifesto.blogspot.com  / Missy Rapport  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

GROUPIES! ARE THEY REALLY SO DIFFERENT FROM MISTRESSES? MISTRESS MANIFESTO LOOKS IN ON THE WOMEN WHO DON'T APOLOGIZE FOR BEING SEXUAL!

G R O U P I E S ...

   

This month we're looking at Groupies as part of defining not only them, but Mistresses.  There's no question that some Groupies have become Mistresses, but yet, it seems to me that, in general, a Groupie, while she is one, must have a very different mind set than a Mistress.  For a Groupie tells her tales, if not in books she's published, then to her friends - her peers - on her scene, while a Mistress tends to have a deep sense of privacy, and is usually discreet and careful as a condition of her ongoing relationship. 

A Groupie may revel in her conquests, even the competition she has with other groupies, while a Mistress may revel in being special and important to just one man, in a relationship - at least one relationship at a time! 

Though some Groupies have gone along with a band on tour and had their expenses paid for - plane tickets - meals - and been gifted clothing, jewelry, and so on - many of them have paid their own way along the road, into concerts, and bought those plane tickets and hotel rooms out of their own money or simply stayed in their own home town to meet and greet the bands that come to play local.

Of all the Groupies I've heard about or read about, there is one in particular who managed to move from Groupie to Wife, putting in some time as a Mistress of sorts while she awaited a divorce and marriage, and that is the "Supergroupie,"  Pamela Miller Des Barres. This month will be a lot about Pamela, who has become a prolific book author, but also look at some of the other groupies who she has written about.

Here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO we've dedicated months to May Pang (Mistress of ex  Beatle John Lennon),  Jerry Hall, who hung in there with Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones fame to the tune of four children, to the question of Who Was Door's singer/poet/songwriter Jim Morrison's wife and who was his Mistress (was it  long red haired Pamela Courson or long red haired Patricia Kennealy and where does long haired blonde Judy Huddleston fit in?)  We've dedicated a month to Ginger Alden, live in Mistress of Elvis Presley who was awaiting marriage when he died.  We've learned about the prolific and enduring Bob Dylan whose mysterious Mistress-Muse, Ruth Tryangiel, legally claimed to have helped him write some songs.  We recently covered the Mistress of Ringo Starr, Nancy Lee Andrews. And if you're interested, We also devoted a month to Jillian Laurel, who went from New Jersey to being in a Harem, but who has since been married to a music man.

These women, who had relationships with Music Men, were not Groupies, even though they dated or lived with or had long romances with men who were singers, songwriters, and musicians.  It can get confusing. 

For instance Linda McCartney (who I've never thought of as a Mistress), ex Beatle Paul McCartney's first wife; was she or wasn't she a Groupie first? I think she was, but her long and happy marriage with Paul, who was no saint sexually back in his Beatle-fame days, sort of cancelled out her Groupie time. Which, if you've read my profile of football famous O.J. Simpson's Mistress turned wife, Nicole Brown, you may know is a theory of mine, that Mistress time is forgiven if the relationship turns into marriage.  Paul married Linda and they were faithful to each other all those married years and rather than have a high courtesan aspect to her personality, she was the mothering archetype.

But Groupie time that doesn't turn into marriage is not so forgiven and perhaps this is the ultimate in sexism.  Some of the Rock Gods who Groupies have had sex with pride themselves - and brag about - the hundreds of women they've had sex with.  Why can't a woman do so also and get away with it like that?

These men seemed entitled to so many women and so much sex without any commitment at all, trading the power of fame for it. So many Groupies became infamous for being aggressive and seeing men as prey rather than famous for having lived it the other way around.  The old Double Standard.

Why are Pamela Des Barres, Lori "Lightening" Maddox, Cynthia Plaster Caster,  Sweet Connie, or any number of other women who might be Rock Goddesses called Groupies?

Is it because they became known more for sexuality with a number of rock stars, even though sometimes there was a real relationship happening?  Is it because some of them sometimes wanted nothing more than five minutes, an hour, a night,  or a short term fling while the man was in town, only to say they had sex with him, only to brag, to score, to compete with other Groupies?  Is it because their competitiveness with other women to get with such a man may be not very nice to other women?

Is it because they self declared, or revealed themselves as such?  In Pamela Des Barres' books she exposes her Groupieness and takes pride in it. 

What was it like to be so sure of yourself, and so unafraid, that you might not even be of legal age yet, but driven for that special back stage pass into the inner sanctum of a Rock God's life, that you could not only meet him, talk with him, be a muse, but also his lover, if not the Great Love of His Life?

Or, perhaps, is it because these women had and used CHOICE, which is its own power.

This is year 2016, fifty years or so from the Sexual Revolution and the beginnings of the Rock and Roll Revolution, the Summer of Love, and the first stirrings of a new wave of Feminism that was about Sexual Freedom, linked into the Contraceptive, the Pill.  And what some of the Groupies, women who followed music and the men who made it (though there were male groupies too), did, being promiscuous, even if they were "in-love," with lots of men, back then, made them uncommon women in their time.  Women having conquests, feeling free to be sexual with a great number of men they barely know isn't as unusual now. It's not the lifestyle most women aspire to. It's not a lifestyle that's easy to have. It's also now much more dangerous because of STD's, the most fearsome of them all being AIDS/HIV.

A Groupie is a woman who is sexual, who makes herself available, to a man she finds desirable, maybe because he's a musical genius, maybe because he's a sexy musical genius, or a sexy and seductive musical genius, or maybe simply because he's famous, a name, and she's willing and able to play a game that men have played.  She is not apologetic for being sexual. 


This month I'll be covering some of the Groupies who had that label applied to them and others who themselves applied the label!

Missy

Read more about Groupies including videos, book reviews, a profile of Pamela Des Barres, and more this month!  To read about musical muses and Mistresses such as Jerry Hall, Nancy Lee Andrews,  May Pang, Ginger Alden, Patricia Kennealy... (you might also want to read the updated ANGELYN who is NOT a GROUPIE) , please use the Google Blogger Search feature embedded in the side bar to bring up posts!  Missy

C 2016  Mistressmanifesto.blogspot.com  / Missy Rapport  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

MILEY CYRUS : 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER

NANCY LEE ANDREWS and RINGO STAR PHOTO MONTAGE

from YouTube Contributor "Beatleswives"