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

by Pamela Des Barres

After a scrumptious dinner at a darkened Italian bistro near her place in Malibu, Catherine and I sprawl out on her chaise longue while her hyper teacup Yorkie puppy, Jack, gnaws on everything within his reach. All through our reminiscing, Catherine's lilting laughter bounces around the candlelit room.

  It was patently obvious that Catherine was a stunner, with her long Barbie-doll legs, flawless body, and golden mane of hair, but she never believed it. "I didn't feel pretty. I knew I commanded a certain amount of attention, but I wasn't sure why. My mother constantly insisted that I was the ugly duckling. As a young woman I felt like an imposter. Even as a Wilhelmina model and with the attention I got from every boy that caught my fancy, I still felt like the great imposter."

  Catherine's sweet nature belies a childhood full of terror at the hands of her devious folk-singing mother, Dian. She did unspeakable things to her lovely little daughter, such as dropping her off in strange neighborhoods and telling her to find her way back home. By the time she was eleven, Catherine was blossoming into a beauty, which enraged her jealous mother even further. When she broke her arm, Dian refused to call a doctor, insisting her injured daughter finish ironing a huge pile of clothes. It was probably a life-saver that Dian sent Catherine to an orphanage, where she spent much of her childhood before heading east, looking for a savior.

  Since her parents' relationship was brief and calamitous, and her father was rarely around, I ask Catherine if his absence created an attraction to bigger-than-life, seemingly unreachable men. "At that time, my mother was married to Travis from Bud and Travis. She always had famous people around her-Leon Russell, Hoyt Axton, Tommy Boyce, and Bobby Hart-I didn't go looking for heroes, they were in my own backyard. I lived with my parents in the bohemian folk world and these were the people in my universe. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary was after me when I was fourteen. There were no rules back then, no one was watching, but he certainly wasn't blabbing around town that he was interested in a fourteen year-old."

  Dian was a hopeful folk singer, who recorded an album, Dian and the Greenbriar Boys for Elektra, and her producer, Jim Dickson (who later managed the Byrds), was smitten with young Catherine. "He got my attention under the guise of being a protective father figure, which I desperately needed. I was still too young to understand the love vibe, so I just ignored it. When I was released from Los Padrenes, a state institution, I was sent to a homier orphanage in west L.A. I used to call Jim a few times a week from the pay phone on the grounds. One day I called and heard a strange voice. `Who's this?' I asked. `It's Bob: `Bob who?' I said. `Bob Dylan-have you ever heard of me?' I said, `No, I only have a minute to talk. Can I speak to Jim?' Jim was also a photographer and had taken several black and white photographs of me; and these artsy pictures had been blown up and scattered around the walls. I was only thirteen, but the photos made me look more like sixteen or seventeen. So Bob says, `Well, don't you wanna talk to me?' and I said, `No, and if you don't let me talk to Jim, I have to hang up.' I was only allowed two minutes on the pay phone, so I hung up on Bob Dylan."

  Jim had permission to take Catherine out of the orphanage on weekends, and one night they went to Santa Monica College to see the upstart folk singer. "After the show we went backstage and Jim introduced us. Bob shook my hand and said, `There's a party after the show. Do you wanna come with me?' I had just turned thirteen. He didn't ask how old I was, but I was cunning for my age because I'd spent so much time around adults. Before the party we stopped at the store. I was already smoking cigarettes and told Bob I'd like some Marlboros, please, and he bought me a carton. I was like, `Oh, my God, a whole carton!' I'd never had a whole carton of cigarettes in my life."

  Even though Catherine carefully hid her secret stash behind a windowsill, the warden in charge soon discovered and confiscated her coveted contraband. "I yelled, `You can't take them! They were a present from Bob Dylan!"

  When the future bard was in town, he began to pick Catherine up on weekend afternoons. "One time Bob showed up wearing the coolest soft suede jacket I'd ever seen. He said, `Let's go get you one!' I was almost in tears because I never had anything new of my own. We went to Fred Segal, which back then was just a tiny hole-in-the-wall store on Santa Monica Boulevard. We searched through all the jackets, but no matter how tall I stood, they were all clearly too big for me. Another time we went to the Santa Monica pier, to a funky little cafe on the beach. He'd only released the self-titled album, the one before the stunning Freewheelin'. He was carrying two bags, stuffed tight with songs he'd been writing. The Beatles had just come out with `She Loves You' and `I Wanna Hold Your Hand,' and we put a couple dimes in the jukebox and talked about the Beatles. He loved their chords and music changes. Then we talked about me, what I was gonna do, and why I was living in the institution. He gave me some pretty insightful information. He said my almighty mother would be all alone one day, and that I should feel sorry for her. He said she would have no love in her life and would have to live in the hell she created. I thought to myself, `You don't know my mom; she'll never be alone. She's beautiful, powerful, and really scary.' I thought he didn't understand because he'd never met her, but he turned out to be right. It took a while, but my mother is, indeed, completely alone now."

  The last time Catherine saw Dylan in L.A., he gave her one more shot of wisdom that has resonated throughout her life. "He said, `It's only life-it's your life.' For a thirteen-year-old, it was slightly cryptic, but I understood the essence. I was free."

  Her beloved grandmother, Mimi, had long been trying to get custody of Catherine, and when that failed, the disobedient girl was told she would be sent to Los Padrinas, a tight-security orphanage that she describes as a "lockdown kiddie prison with barbed-wire fences." This was her cue to fly the coop.

  "I went upstairs, packed a Mexican straw bag, and walked out the back door. I'd made up my mind. I was going to New York to be a singer in Greenwich Village, and maybe see Bob again. First I went to my secret hangout, the Troubadour, where I sometimes sang with David Crosby and the Dillards. There was a certain amount of leniency for me because my stepfather, Travis, played there. The police and a social worker were already on my tail because they knew my MO from the orphanage. It was now or never, so I took a seat next to a stranger who was watching Ramblin' Jack's final encore. The cops were showing mypicture to everybody, so I said to this guy, `Pretend you know me.' He put his arm around me and I slid down in the seat. I said, `I've gotta get out of here. The police are chasing me.' During the ovation, we got up, he put his coat around my shoulders like we were a couple, and we slipped out the back."

  That night, Michael Stewart from the folk group We Five was her saving grace. He took her to meet his brother, the Kingston Trio's John Stewart, and she briefly nannied for his children. But when she heard there was an all-points bulletin out on her, she hitched a ride to Berkeley. More adventures ensued, including a trip to Massachusetts, which put her closer to her Greenwich Village goal. "I had twenty dollars in my pocket and was dropped off on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal. I wanted to be a folk singer and see Bob Dylan again. Of course, by then, Bob had become a world-renowned entity. I didn't know a soul and there I was on Bleecker Street. I said to myself, `I think this is the place,' and I had nothing but me."

  Catherine says people might not believe what happened next. "Actually, I never tell anybody this because it sounds too unbelievable. The sun was setting and I was a little scared because I didn't have anywhere to go, didn't know anybody, and didn't have enough money for a hotel. I was talking to some kids sitting on a stoop, and I said, `I'm from California. I don't really know anybody here but I'm looking for Bob Dylan.' They gave me the raised eyebrow, like `Yeah, sure.' There was slow moving traffic, and just then a car stopped in front of me, and there was Bob! I said, `There he is!" I'm amazed and ask Catherine why she didn't mention this cosmic little anecdote in her own book. "Because it sounds like I made it up. But I swear on the Bible-there he was, on the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal. I r
an up to the car and he rolled down the window and I said, `Bob, I made it to New York!' He told me he was leaving town to go away on tour. Then the traffic moved and I said, 'OK, goodbye!' and off he went into the flow of traffic."

  The sweet sound of music drew Catherine to Washington Square Park and her fear soon evaporated. "It was like a love-in, everybody was playing guitars and they all looked like Dylan, wearing little caps and playing harmonicas. I met this guy, Bill Miller, he was in a band called the American Dream, and as beautiful as a boy could be. He lived on 8th Avenue in a six-floor walk-up, and when I told him I didn't have a place to stay, he said, `Why don't you come stay at our place?' So I moved in with him and his whole motley band."

  She quickly made friends in New York, and one of them, the infamous groupie Emeretta Marks, took her the RKO Theater where Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were doing a sound check. "It wasn't to meet the musicians," Catherine insists. "We just wanted to see a great show. Cream and the Who were playing, but I didn't know anything about them. I just wanted to see Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and Smokey Robinson. He was the big act."

  Another new pal, Liz Derringer, unwittingly introduced Catherine to her future. "Liz was on the scene with this English band in their posh hotel. She said, `I've been seeing this English guy Denny in the Moody Blues, and he's really cute. They're having a party and you should come.' I got there and when Denny walked in, it was instant `Aahhh ..: between us and we rudely forgot about Liz."

  The Moody Blues were in New York for two weeks, performing Murray the K's concert series, so Denny and Catherine had plenty of time to fall in lust. Not quite fifteen, she told him she was eighteen and he didn't question her. "We did it 'til dawn, and I was in love. I used to get up early and put on my false eyelashes and eyeliner: the full fabulous Mary Quant look, hoping he wouldn't realize how young I was. Then I'd get back in bed, totally made up like I'd slept all night. I figured if he saw me without makeup, he'd know I was a child."

  After the Moody Blues played the British Invasion shows, Denny took his newly beloved on a vacation to Puerto Rico. But despite her clever makeup job, when the rest of the band got a load of Catherine, they insisted Denny send his obvious jailbait straight back to New York.

  Mushy love letters flew back and forth across the pond. "I couldn't tell Denny how old I was so I kept putting him off. He wanted me to come to England, but I was still a runaway and didn't have permission to leave the country." The heat had died down in L.A., so Catherine went back and found a place to stay with Johnny Rivers. In exchange for room and board, she became his hippie housekeeper.

  "Denny and I stayed in touch, and when I turned sixteen, he sent for me. I didn't have a round-trip ticket when I got to London, so the customs officials told me I would have to go back: `You're sixteen, you don't have a ticket home or any verifiable residence here.' I was about to have a heart attack because they were going to call the authorities. I'd be found out, and worse, they'd call my mother. Denny was waiting outside customs and he finally came in and said, `What's the trouble, luv?' When they told him I'd be on the next plane to California, Denny said, `I'll vouch for her. She'll be staying with me and my friends and I'll get her a ticket back home.' Suddenly one customs guy perked up and said, `Hey, aren't you Denny Laine? I saw you on Top of the Pops, and I love that song `Go Now."

  Sixteen-year-old Catherine moved to a foreign land knowing next to nothing about her latest Prince Charming. "I knew he was gorgeous, he was English, and in London. It was all very exotic for a teenager from California. I was crazy about him, or maybe it was the newness of our sexual chemistry."

  For a brief time, all was peachy in Catherine's swinging pop paradise. "We went to recording sessions and over to George Harrison's house. We went to happening clubs and hung out with Paul McCartney and danced with Ringo and Maureen. I was hanging with the Beatles! We were taking acid with Brian Jones and smokin' hash with George and Pattie Harrison."

  Unfortunately, things soon took a turn for the worse. Catherine was so accustomed to dealing with abuse that she attempted to take Denny's mood swings in stride. "It was unpleasant but not shocking when the real Denny stood up. He was a possessive maniac: insecure and jealous. He started knock-down brawls and turned into a raging bull. Just like my mom-he was unreasonable and started irrational fights. Sadly, I was familiar with bad behavior. I kept thinking I could win him over and he would stop. But if I even looked at somebody, he didn't believe I loved him. He would chase double-deckers down High Street if somebody whistled at me, and if I smiled at someone it started an instant war. I had to walk with my head down just to keep the peace. I felt like a prisoner."

  Denny was overjoyed when Catherine found out she was pregnant, but the impending love child didn't temper his violent streak. "It was a day-to-day thing. I loved him, or at least I thought I did. I left him several times while I was pregnant, but kept going back." She went all the way to New York, got an apartment, and started modeling, but Denny promised he'd change and convinced Catherine to have the baby in England. "He tricked me. The argument we were having the day I left for New York picked up exactly where it left off. When I was in labor he got annoyed because it went on for so long. He said, `Either we're going to the hospital or we're going to sleep, which is it?" Damian was born exactly on his due date, but the proud papa didn't alter his mean-spirited, jealous ways.

  Yet another platonic savior came to the rescue while Catherine contemplated her fate. "My friend Jimmy Webb, the songwriter, was in town producing `MacArthur Park' for Richard Harris. He's always liked me, and when he saw how unhappy I was, he said, `You're coming back to California with me.' For a while I lived in Jimmy's big house next door to Ozzie and Harriet in Hollywood."

  Believing she was finished with Denny for good, Catherine eventually got her own Hollywood apartment, sharing it with her friend Linda Lawrence, who had a toddler son by Rolling Stone Brian Jones. The two single rock moms shared babysitting chores and Catherine got a job as hostess at Thee Experience, the crazy club-of-the-moment.

  The presence of little Damian didn't seem to stop Catherine's determined admirers. "The boys were even more interested because we were a ready-made family. They saw this girl on her own with a baby and wanted to swoop me and my cherub son into their arms.

  One late night at the club, someone arrived just in time for Chuck Berry's encore. "The show was almost over so I told this beautiful boy he could go in for free. He said `What time do you get off?' I still had half an hour to go, but I said `Right now.' There was an instant attraction between us."

  Catherine and the appealing young songwriter, Jackson Browne, quickly became an item. "He was a sweetheart. He'd take me to work at Thee Experience and pick me up so I'd be safe. This was before his first record, but he was writing such beautiful songs. I would listen to him sing and play `Doctor My Eyes' and `Jamaica, Say You Will' on the piano. He wanted to write for other people, and we would visit his musician friends and he'd play for them. I remember he was trying to get Rita Coolidge to record his songs. I said, `Jackson, you should sing your own songs, don't give them away."

  Catherine says that she and Jackson fell fast in love. "He wrote me a beautiful song called `Under the Falling Sky.' It goes, `I've got lightning in my pocket and thunder in my boots/Have no fear/I've got something here/I want to show you/Our angels wait to take us higher and higher.' Jackson was a sweet and romantic lover, the one I should have stayed with."

  She hadn't heard from Denny for over a year when a mutual friend gave him her number. "I was over him, but he started calling me secretly, begging me to come back. He was in a new band, Air Force, with Ginger Baker. He told me about his sprawling house in the country and the Jaguar he'd buy me for my birthday. He finally convinced me when he said he really wanted to have his son with him. So I left Jackson. He was very upset, but such a gentleman. He even took me to the airport."

  English country living didn't turn out to be as comfy-cozy as Denny promised. "There was no
heat, so I had to stoke coals and bring in the firewood. The bathtubs in England are bigger than usual, and it took fifteen trips carrying buckets of heated water up and down the stairs to get the bath half full. We were getting along quite well, but I was freezing out there so I convinced Denny to get us a little place in London."

  One of the backup singers left Air Force and a replacement was needed immediately. Catherine auditioned for Ginger Baker and suddenly she was a singer in a rock and roll band. "We traveled around doing concerts with Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Animals, and Donovan. It was all wonderful, except Denny and I were starting to battle again, and we couldn't seem to fix it. I walked around with my head down, not making eye contact with anybody because of his bloody jealousy."

  Air Force was booked on the QE2 to sail away on an American tour when Ginger Baker abruptly changed his mind. "The night before we were supposed to leave, Ginger Baker decided he was going to go to Nigeria to play drums with the Nigerians, and the tour was canceled. That same day, a friend of Jackson's, Ned Doheny, arrived in London and called to say hello. I was talking to him and Denny asked, `Who is that?' When I told him it was a friend from California, he hauled off and slugged me in the face."

  Catherine escaped out the bathroom window, scaled the wall, and hailed a cab. She was bleeding so badly the kindly cabbie gave her a free ride to the hospital, where she got five stitches over her left eye. Since her bags were conveniently packed, she grabbed Damian and left Denny for the last time. An innocent flirtation she'd been having with Gene Krell from Granny Takes a Trip instantly changed course, and that night she moved into his house on Carlyle Square. A month later, I arrived from California, and for a couple of months, we were one big, well-dressed, wacky family.

  The romance with Gene didn't last long because Denny, still obsessed with Catherine, began following her around London, shouting threats and obscenities. I remember vividly the day we were strolling along the King's Road and he tried to snatch Damian out of her arms. "Denny was with his father in the Bentley, and we were running down the street with them on our tail," Catherine recalls. "I was going to take Damian back to America and wanted one last night at the Speakeasy before I left. They sat me across from Eric Clapton, and when he saw the black stitches in my pale white skin, he said, `What happened to you?' I told him about Denny and that I was moving back to America. And he said, `Come to Hertswoood Edge and stay with me instead.' He had my trunks picked up from Kensington and taken to his estate in Surrey, and I spent the summer as his chef and trusted friend."