Pieces of My Heart

It was delightful to see Pamela Des Barres’ 2007 book, Let’s Spend the Night Together (Chicago Review, $14.95), released in paperback. As the Mother Superior of groupies, Des Barres’ interviews with the old-school and contemporary groupies was eye-opening, at least for me. I know a few of these women personally but reading them recount their halcyon years was enlightening, sometimes salacious, and sometimes sad. (I should say up front that there’s a chapter on the Texas Blondes and me). Let’s Spend the Night Together, like Des Barres’ groundbreaking I’m With the Band, is a keeper.

In the end, we were all women who made a dream come true, that you could reach for a star and bed him; none of us seem traumatized or otherwise permanently debauched by the experience. Des Barres’ Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up (Chicago Review, $14.95) has also been released in paperback. This sequel to I’m With the Band was dishy and readable – her writing style is always chatty, witty, and conversational – but paled compared to IWTB.

All these years later, reading about her ups and down after tattling on herself, my heart ached for her crumbling then-marriage to Michael Des Barres, tensed with the perils and joys of motherhood, thrilled to the whirlwind of book tours and publicity, and loved the undeniable passion she maintained for rock & rollers throughout it all. Piece of My Heart is more visceral than IWTB and in some ways more personal because she examines herself as a person more than her life as a groupie.

Because enough time has lapsed, much of her life has come full circle. Her former husband Michael wrote the foreword to this new addition and is on tour with her to promote it – what a sweetheart! Books like this sometimes feel dated but time has been good to Piece of My Heart and places it tenderly on the bookshelf of Pamela Des Barres, author.

Des Barres obviously doesn’t mind sharing her passion for writing: she’s hosting a writing workshop at Pink Salon tonight and tomorrow night, Oct. 13 and 14, 7-10pm. Fee to attend is $100 – and totally worth it, especially when she starts to spin her tales. Call 447-2888 for more info.