Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies (32 page)

Connie and I also have my early mentor, Frank Zappa, in common, but in a decidedly different way. He was always captivated by out-of-the-ordinary individuals, so their encounter doesn't surprise me. "Gosh, I was only with Frank one time and he was such a dear-and he was so apologetic. When I first met him during the sound check, I was fooling around with the crew because they had taken care of me all day and given me a pass. I was walking with his roadie into a little tuning room, and Frank got on the microphone and said, `Okay, Connie, I guess that makes number ten.' He turned out to be a great lover, and that night when we were in his hotel room, he said, `I wanna apologize to you for saying that.'"

When she was almost nineteen, two things happened that finally got Connie booted out of her childhood home. "Not much had happened with Grand Funk other than me blowing Don Brewer and Mel Schacher, and if memory serves, I took care of the keyboard player a time or two. In June of '73, I was sitting on a towel at the beach with my transistor radio on. Most of my girlfriends were out on rafts in the lake when the disc jockey said, `Ladies and gentlemen, we just got the new song by Grand Funk Railroad, and you all are not gonna believe this-you know that dark-haired girl you always see backstage at concerts? Listen to the first few lyrics of this song,' and I started jumping up and down, screaming for my friends to come listen!"

Not long after "We're an American Band" blasted the airwaves, Connie's startling tell-all article shook up the community. "I got out of the house because of the interview in Cosmopolitan. When that hit the stands my mother said, 'OK, enough's enough. You're talking in this national publication about sucking dick and swallowing. You're outta here!"

We say our good-byes to the rookie cops at Canyon Grill and on our way out, I spy a colorful store across the street offering vintage frocks. Whenever I travel I have to check out the native collectibles, and as I inspect a black velvet tunic, the salesgirl recognizes Connie and she gets a hoot out of it. She is a wellknown local character of indeterminate infamy around town. For several years she was a substitute teacher, and complains she was canned due to her off-color notoriety. Nobody will give her a decent job, she claims, but Connie refuses to live anywhere but right here because Little Rock is where she is so well-known. And of course, she's listed in the phone book just in case rock stars want to look her up.

On the way back to Green Meadow Drive, Connie surprises me by suggesting we drop by the Little Rock Zoo. It seems she has to tend a small vegetable garden she has growing on zoo grounds. "I was a wonderful teacher," she says as we peer into cages at the small animal sanctuary. "They stopped me from doin' it because of who I am, and I got press to prove it. The kids loved me but they don't want me teaching school 'cause I'm so controversial. I am who I am and that ain't goin' away." I get another shock when she tells me about her part-time job. "Well, Pamela, I rent wagons and baby strollers here." In fact, her little veggie patch is situated behind rows of gleaming rental buggies. She ambles over to a leafy plant and, beaming, reveals a fat, red tomato.

Back home, Connie shows me her favorite picture of brighteyed grade-schoolers and tells me how "precious" they had been to her. "But I have dedicated my life to being a groupie!" she shrieks, as wine gurgles from the spigot attached to a Gallo box in the fridge. "Thanks to you! You started me. It's your fault!" I remind her that she was stalking Dick Clark's fresh-faced caravan before I wrote a single word of I'm with the Band. "I know one damned thing: that's when I realized that them broads backstage looked a lot more comfortable than I did out there in a pile of people."

Sweet Connie got out from under what was left of her parents' control just in time to meet up with Led Zeppelin. "I got my own apartment in the cool part of town called the Quarter, and was doin' fine when the Concerts West promoter flew me to Dallas to see Led Zeppelin. That was such a special evening. It's been chronicled in all the Zeppelin books because the tour was based in New Orleans and they were hanging with a lot of drag queens. Everybody flew the coop that night-Jimmy, Robert, and John Paul Jones went back to New Orleans; Bonham was gonna stay in Dallas because from the balcony of the hotel he saw a Corvette in the parking lot that he liked. Bonham was take no prisoners-`if I want it, I want it!' Well, he went down there and sat on the hood of the car until the owner came out. He said, `Man, I'm John Bonham, the drummer of Led Zeppelin, and I wanna buy your 'Vetter The guy said, `I like y'all a lot, but don't ask me to sell my car.' So John decided to stay in Dallas until this guy sold him his car.

"That was the first time I ever had caviar-with Led Zeppelin when I was nineteen. I'll never forget that big tuna-salad fish mold covered with black caviar. And you know, I don't even like caviar! Sex with Bonham was real good and he just kept saying, `I'm not leaving Dallas until I get that 'Vette. I'm gonna have 'em put it on the back of a truck. I'm gonna take it to California and drive it around.' And he got what he wanted." Did she ever spend time with Bonham again? "No, I didn't, but I did see Keith Moon after that and told him I'd been with Bonham and he said, `We're gonna do something together eventually." Sadly, that meeting of remarkable minds never manifested.

Connie splashes more wine into her glass, then leads me into a dusty room crammed with photo albums and starts yanking out pictures of her with Rick Springfield, Ginger Baker, Ronnie Lane, Dr. John, et al. But when I ask about the picture on the living room wall of her sitting cozily with Eddie Van Halen, she's briefly at a loss for words. "It's hard to explain my relationship with Van Halen. It goes back to 1979." Questions about the virtuoso guitar player are verboten, but when I ask if I might allude to her relationship with Edward, Connie smiles slyly, "You can allude to it." And what about David Lee Roth? Was she ever with the last great front man? "Oh, yes, David and I were very intimate in an oral sense. We were together with another girl in the production office. We were fooling around, getting ready to blow him, and the promoter came in to watch. Then they called in David's bodyguard to watch ... everybody had a good laugh and then he had to go onstage. By the next time they came around, David was history." I assume she then went on to Sammy Hagar. "Yeah, Sam was a lot of fun, but I believe he's mad at me. I don't think he wants me talking about it, but that's too bad. He never said don't."

She's been telling me all day about Doe's, the laid-back neighborhood hot spot and well-known Clinton hangout where the owner is treating us to dinner. "Who knows," she sneers. "Clinton's in town; he might even be there." Connie promises she'll divulge the details of her encounter with our former charismatic president of the United States over a colossal plate of garlicky shrimp.

After taking a gander at the shots of the handsome prez with local celebs that line the restaurant walls, I toast Connie with a glass of wine, and soon we are gaily gabbing with a table full of traveling salesmen sitting next to us. She, of course, tells them all about what brought me to town, and it turns out that one of them had read my books. We both sign autographs and pose for snapshots, feeling like the divas of the diner. Crustaceans are served and while we dig in, Connie launches into her antiClinton tirade. I soon discover that she doesn't share my admiration for William Jefferson Clinton.

"I sometimes went to the bar at the Riverfront Hilton for happy hour and the manager said, `If you're a regular here, you're more than welcome to use the pool!' Rush had stayed there a few days earlier and we all partied at the pool. Anyway, I was the only person out there that day. No bands, everybody was gone. I was in my bathing suit, writing in my diary, minding my own business until two guys came up to me. One of 'em used to live near me, and he said, `Connie? I thought that was you. It's Mike Gaines. I used to be your neighbor. I'm working for the governor's office now.' Then he said, `The governor wants to say hello to you.' I said, `Well, Mike, I met him before, at an Olivia NewtonJohn concert.' He said, `He wants to say hello to you again,' and I said, `I don't have any clothes on.' He said, `That's exactly why he wants to talk to you.'" Connie threw a towel around her shoulders and followed Mike inside. "Clinton's standing there saying, `I just want you to know you made my day, laying out there in that little purple bikini. Do you have a room here?' I said, `No, Governor, I don't.' He said, `You sure you don't have a room?' I said, `No, Governor, I just snuck in to use the pool, sorry.' He said, `Well, where can we go? Looks like we can't go in there,' he opened another door and said, `We can't go in there,' then he opened the doors to the laundry room and we go in there and proceed to start groping and fondling. I stroked his cock-he's very well endowed-and right when we were about to get to it, he moaned and somebody popped her head up from behind the washing machine. He said, `I guess we'd better get out of here: We stepped back into the hall and he said, `You gonna be here later?' and I said, `I'm gonna be here all afternoon, Governor.' He said, `I'll call you or come back. I gotta be up at the Capitol to direct the legislature.' I swear to God, I never addressed that cocksucker any way other than `Governor: Afterward, I go in the bar and tell the manager about it and he says, `Yeah, I know, the governor is a whore dog."

I wonder why Connie is so vitriolic about the Clinton skirmish. Apparently Big Bill later denied that it ever happened, and honesty is paramount to Connie. Her mom warned her to keep mum, but the tale of the groupie and the governor soon got around and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran the sordid tale on the front page. When denials came from the governor's office, the right-wing American Spectator asked Connie to take a lie detector test. "They were so out to get his sorry fucking ass, they said, `We'll pay if you'll do it,' and I said, `Hey, I've got the balls to take it.' They said there was a 50/50 chance I might not pass and I had to live with that. I smoked dope, I drank wine the night before, and told the polygrapher exactly how much I drank, how much I smoked. I said, `Look, I was nervous, but I guarantee you, I'm telling you the truth.' They gave me the test three times and I passed it all three times."

Connie may have aced the lie detector test, but the odds were with Clinton, and the scathing press and negative fallout wore her to a frazzle. She still fumes with anger. "I started talking about what he was way before Paula Jones. The Clinton deal almost put me on the streets. He is a bigger groupie than either of us ever was; he may not be sucking any dick, but it ain't all about the dick sucking, it's about the handshaking and glad-handing. I might be a slut and a whore, but I ain't no liar."

I wonder if Connie ever attempted to settle down, and she tells me that only once did she give domesticity a try. "I got engaged spring of '83-he was a bond daddy, one of those guys who sells stocks and bonds-and he always had blow. We got along great until a gig came to town, then we didn't get along worth a fuck. I told him from the get-go that I'm gonna keep goin'. But he was enamored about who I am, you know, `Oh, I'm dating Sweet, Sweet Connie, she's got celebrity status.' Plus I got him to the gigs because he was selling blow. But I'd tell him, `Don't be hov- erin' over me because I'm gonna be gone, I'm gonna be way out of your line of vision-in the bus, in the dressing room, I'm not gonna be wantin' to hang around with you.' When there weren't gigs, we were havin' a great time; havin' great sex-he had a huge cock-and my parents were happy. Their little girl was finally gonna give up all that bullshit and get married. My mother and I looked for a dress, and I knew better than to get a white one, so we got a little sundress because I wanted something I could wear to gigs. I've still got it. He and I sort of tried to hang on to the threads, but one thing led to another and we broke up."

Fortunately, Connie has always been listed in the phone book, and shortly after her engagement unraveled, she got a surprise call from a certain raconteur. "He said, `Connie, this is Jimmy Page,' and I said, `I don't believe you.'" Jimmy put Phil Carlo on the phone, a record exec she knew from her days with John Bonham. "He said, `Connie, it's Phil-that was Jimmy. We want you to come to Dallas. He's doing the ARMS tour and we'll prepay your ticket.' I was substituting that day and went to the airport when school let out." Connie spent the next three days trading rooms with Jimmy and Phil. "I did make Jimmy mad because it was during my anorexia period and Phil called me aside and said, `Jimmy does not want you throwing up in his suite anymore.' The anorexia manifested when I got engaged. I was torn between what's right and `I wanna keep doing what I wanna do!' I thought, `I'll just kill myself.' It didn't work out, but it made people take notice." Did she still have ribald relations with Jimmy even though he didn't want her hurling in his suite? "Yeah, as much as possible, but I mainly gave him head. He was doin' a lot of nose candy." Connie pauses to light up a bowl. She offers me a hit of pot, but I have to decline because I'm on the job. "The majority of the time I was with Jimmy he spent bitching about Robert. And I know what they were bitching about: they were blaming each other for Bonham's death. But Phil was fabulous."

When her dad died in October 1984 with bad blood still brewing, Connie drowned her grief with another pop star. "Rick Springfield came to town and I guess I really needed to let my hair down. It was the first gig I'd been to since my dad died and Rick and his crew treated me real good, gave me passes and let me hang out in the dressing room. I got it on with his massage therapist, and they made a movie to watch on the airplane. He was Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital. It was just something to get my mind off the fact that we had buried my dad, and two days after the funeral, my mother stopped speaking to me."

Since that day over twenty years ago, Connie and her longsuffering mother have been estranged. Has she ever had the desire to patch things up? "Well, yeah, but she's got an unlisted phone number and if I show up she'll probably have me arrested."