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Pamela Des Barres brings her Led Zeppelin, Doors and Jimi Hendrix stories to the Whisky

March 13, 2024

Pamela Des Barres knows the Sunset Strip has changed since its rock and roll heyday in the ’60s and ’70s when she, then known as Miss Pamela, roamed its sidewalks.

But these days, amid the ghosts of bands and fans and venues, you can sometimes still find Des Barres, a well-known memoirist of that heady time and place, and when you do, well, odds are good she’s at the Whisky a Go Go, her home away from home in those glamorous days gone by.

“I do these rock and roll tours,” says Des Barres, who’s been called the most famous groupie who ever lived, a title she laughs off as the result of telling tales and naming names in her 1987 autobiography “I’m With The Band: Confessions of a Groupie.”

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. Des Barres, author of books including “I’m With The Band” and “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart,” the latter of which provides they name for her show, hopes to take it to other cities in the future. (Image courtesy of Pamela Des Barres)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. (Photo by Tom Wilkes)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. She’s seen here posing for a photograph before signing copies of her new book “Let’s Spend The Night Together” at Book Soup in West Hollywood on July 19, 2007. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)

Among Pamela Des Barres published works are the memoirs “I’m With The Band: Confessions of a Groupie,” “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up,” and “Let It Bleed: How to Write a Rockin’ Memoir. (Images courtesy of the publishers)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. She’s seen here in April 2013 with former Rolling Stone photographer Baron Wolman, standing in front of two photographs Wolman took of Des Barres, at the opening of Wolman’s photo exhibit “The Groupies” at Markham Vineyards in St. Helena, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. She’s seen here at HollyRod’s 17th Annual DesignCare Gala held at The Lot Studios on Aug. 8, 2015, in West Hollywood. (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17. Here she’s seen before her creative writing workshop at the James Dean Gallery on Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018, in Fairmont, Ind. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. She’s seen here at the HollyRod 17th Annual DesignCare Gala held at The Lot Studios on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015, in West Hollywood. (Photo by John Salangsang/Invision/AP)

Pamela Des Barres will talk about her wild life in the rock and roll scene of the ’60s and ’70s in a spoken-word show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood on Sunday, March 17, 2024. She’s seen here before signing copies of her new book “Let’s Spend The Night Together” at Book Soup July 19, 2007 in West Hollywood. (Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images)

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“We go into the Whisky and I said, ‘This is where this and that happened,’” she says of the occasional tours she leads. “I mean, no one can even believe that I saw live on that little stage the Who, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. On that tiny stage. No one can believe that.

“But it was such a hip place,” Des Barres says. “You know, like, Zeppelin would play the Forum one night, and then get up on stage at the Whisky. It’s a magical place.

“Because of Zappa, who I was aligned with in many different ways, I was there a lot,” she says. “He played there quite a bit. The GTOs, the girl group we put together with Frank, we opened for Alice (Cooper) and the Mothers there one time. Our first real gig was at the Whisky.

“So it’s really a very special place. The walls ooze, shall we say?”

On Sunday, March 17, Des Barres will return to that tiny stage inside the landmark Whisky in West Hollywood, for a live show called “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart” after her second memoir she published in 1992, which borrowed its title from the Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company hit “Piece of My Heart” from 1968.

It’s a show she debuted at the Whisky on Sept. 9, 2023, her 75th birthday, which mixes readings from her memoirs with asides that the books inspire, bits of music from the artists she loved or who inspired her, while photographs and video clips play on a screen behind her.

She’ll probably talk about her girlhood crushes on Elvis Presley, Dion and Paul McCartney, which she dutifully chronicled in the diaries she religiously kept from girlhood through young adulthood. She’ll definitely talk about some of the famous musicians she fell for as a fan and sometimes lover, names that include Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Chris Hillman of the Byrds and Keith Moon of the Who.

“Whatever comes to my mind – it’s very off the cuff,” Des Barres says of the night that will also include a Q-and-A hosted by her rock star ex-husband Michael Des Barres. “Just about my crazy, amazing, unpredictable, insane, glorious life in the ’60s and early ’70s.”

In an interview edited for length and clarity, Des Barres talked about her show and books, the bands and men she knew in different degrees of intimacy, and what people get wrong about groupies.

Q: Tell me more about what special things you’ve planned for your show at the Whisky.

A: Gram Parsons was a good friend of mine, and I share a piece of clothing that I made for him, that his ex-wife gave me. And Polly Parsons, his daughter, is my producer, and she’s directing this one, actually.

That’s a full-circle thing. Gram called me one evening (in 1969) and said, ‘My fiancée Nancy’s in town with my daughter Polly. I wanted to take her out to dinner, could you come babysit?’ I was 19 years old, just enamored with all things Gram and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Byrds, everything. Of course, I was thrilled to do that. So I met Polly when she was not quite a year and a half old and now she’s my manager.

It’s pretty far out. Talk about full-circle, cosmic American music, man.

Q: I was just reading in ‘I’m With The Band” where you talk about making Gram a shirt, and he promises not to lose it in a poker game like Chris Hillman did with the shirt you made him.

A: That’s exactly the shirt I’m showing. I made him that purple, hand-embroidered shirt with ‘GP’ and the beading and everything. And he told me he would never lose it in a poker game. In fact, he kept it in plastic. Gretchen, his former girlfriend from back then – wife, actually – gave me that many decades ago. I just burst into tears at seeing it. Because the last time I saw that shirt it was on him, you know.

Q: What’s it like to do this show on stage at the Whisky, a club where you spent countless nights watching bands from the audience?

A: Oh, it’s incomprehensible. I was not up on the stage with the GTOs [the girl group Zappa formed]. We performed our act on the dance floor. Which at that time, the dance floor was elevated and had a little fence around it. It was almost a stage. But yeah, it’s very different, looking out into the audience from the stage. It’s just incredible what went on there through the years.

Jim Morrison. I’ve got incredible Jim Morrison stories I tell about the Whisky there. (The Doors) played several nights in a row there regularly. Sometimes people can’t relate to that. They think of Jim Morrison as this Greek god and everything. But he was a guy.

Q: So when you’re telling these stories, what’s it like to be taken back to when you were a teenage girl from Reseda, going over the hill to Hollywood night after night to hit the scene?

A: I was 16. I was still in high school when I met Captain Beefheart at the Teenage Fair because his cousin went to my high school. I didn’t really get involved with romantic relationships with musicians until I was really 19. But I was there. I was on the Strip. I was at all the shows.

I was making out with some of these people, but, you know, I was still very old-fashioned really. Brought up in the ’50s. So I wanted to be in love to give my all, so to speak.

Q: Who tends to come see your shows – younger people or ones who were there on the scene back then?

A: Most people who come are not in my age group. You know, I am a very spectacularly healthy individual from that time because I was not addicted to stuff. I dabbled in everything but I did not get addicted to anything. I’m pretty healthy. My brain still works. And people want to know what it was really like, so they are fascinated with my tales.

However, I do not live in the past. It’s just become sort of a business for me. But it’s fun going back there for other people because they weren’t there. And my diary entries are so immediate. Like there’s one where I was with Zeppelin at the Forum: ‘Oh Jimmy (Page)! The encore just started. Oh, here he comes. He’s getting in the limo.’ People are just enthralled with it.

Or Jimi Hendrix. I danced in the ‘Foxy Lady’ video.’ I was there. So of course they want to know about it.

Q: How many diaries do you have from back then? Is it like a bookshelf filled with them?

A: Oh, yeah. I started writing in my diary when I was – I think it was my eighth or ninth Christmas. My mom got me a diary, those little diaries that lock, you know. And I already loved to write, so I just felt obligated to write in that thing.

Q: It’s amazing, and such an archive of a time and place, too.

A: Yeah, I didn’t expect that, of course. Writing it all (in books). I always took writing courses, creative writing classes. So at one point, I was thinking about writing a book, but I didn’t know if anybody would be interested. At that same time, I did an interview with Stephen Davis for one of the very first rock tell-all books, ‘Hammer of the Gods’ (about Led Zeppelin).

He said, ‘Whoa!’ – after I’d given him all my stories, of course – ‘you should write your own book.’ At the very same time, I wrote about meeting the Stones for the very first time in my writing class. My teacher told me to write a book and (Davis) did, so I thought, ‘OK, I’m gonna start doing that.’

Q: I want to ask you about the term groupie. On your podcast (Pamela Des Barres’ Pajama Party) recently, you described the essence of being a groupie as love.

A: That’s it. We loved the music. We wanted to be around it. Also, for me, where did it come from? How did they do that? Can I do anything near that level of genius and brilliance? Any great art touches the audience member and makes an equal with that person, I believe.

Like a Springsteen show, people are 100 percent united. I’ve never missed him, because, besides being a massive fan, I want to feel that from thousands of people. I want to be immersed in it. I’m still so obsessed with Dion. The last time he played was a couple of years ago in New Jersey and I flew there to see him. My love is eternal for these people.

And it wasn’t just sex, by any means. I made shirts, as you know. I made Jimmy Page a shirt, pink-and-white velvet with three-foot-long fringe. There’s lots of pictures of him in it. So, you know, there’s so much more to it.

Q: I don’t think people understand that. I think they think it’s just people having sex with rock stars when it’s not really that.

A: Well, that’s part of it. But everyone was having sex. Everyone. We just happened to have it with really cool people. People that everyone else wanted to have sex with. [laughs.]

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Q: Exactly. [laughs]

A: And it was a time when you could do that. A rare time when all of a sudden women had some rights, and I took advantage of it. I mean, I took the birth control pill in front of people on the Sunset Strip, and I assume that was an act of feminism. That’s what really pisses me off, too. They say ‘groupies’ – I get accused still of being a submissive slut, you know, and it’s just absurd. Absurd.

Q: ‘I’m With The Band’ came out in the late ’80s when it was still controversial to talk this frankly about being a young woman enjoying sex with rock stars.

A: Oh yeah. It was very tough. I went on many talk shows and got really lambasted by audiences. And it really hurt me when women would jump all over me, which they did. That part was no fun. But eventually, I did get used to it and had my lines all worked out. One of the main ones was, ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to sleep with Mick Jagger.’

Q: What’s next for you? I’ve heard you might take this show on the road.

A: Well, in November I did the show in London and it was great. Polly has gotten me a booking agent and we’re trying to line up some venues in New York and San Francisco and Austin. Nashville. I’m hoping to take it out on the road.

My other stuff, I just finished a book with Jane Petty, Tom Petty’s wife of 25 years. It’s called ‘American Girl,’ and it’s about their relationship. I’m just now writing my third memoir, ‘Sex, God, and Rock and Roll,’ about my lifelong spiritual quest. And then a Cynthia Plaster Caster book. I’m very, very busy.

Orange County Register

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Pamela Des Barres brings her Led Zeppelin, Doors and Jimi Hendrix stories to the Whisky

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