"Groupie Cover Girl"
Groupie Feminism art series
Attributions and Artist Statement
Betty and Veronica comic book cover
Cut and paste
Heart-shaped gemstone stickers
16 3/4” x 11 1/2”
2025
Pictured from center clockwise are:
Betty Cooper with Cherry Vanilla on ZigZag magazine cover
Veronica Lodge with “Groupies” issue of Rolling Stone magazine with Karen Seltenrich on the cover
Nancy Spungen
GTO’s
Groupie license plate
Emmaretta Marks
Lithofayne Pridgon
Barbara the Butter Queen
Jenni Dean
The Plaster Casters, Cynthia and Dianne
Devon Wilson
LA Queens
Audrey Hamilton (with Robert Plant)
Sweet Connie
GTO’s
Pamela Des Barres
Star Magazine covers of Shray Meecham, Karen Umphrey, Patty Clark
Heart-shaped gemstone stickers in various colors: blue, gold, white, red, pink, green, purple, deep blue, fuschia
Stars with foxes that I cut out from copies I made of Star magazine covers after copying them in various sizes, and then pasted on the copy of the Betty and Veronica comic book cover
Artist Statement
Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge first appeared in Pep comics, Betty in 1941 and Veronica in 1942. Betty was based on Betty Tokar Jankovich, Archie on movie star Mickey Rooney, and Veronica on a combination of Agatha Popoff and movie star, Veronica Lake. The cartoon characters of Betty, Veronica and Archie were co-created by publisher, John Goldwater, writer, Vic Bloom, and artist, Bob Montana. Bob dated Betty Tokar Jankovich, and Agatha Popoff was a rich classmate of Bob’s.
In the comics, Betty and Veronica are frenemies, teen-aged best friends in love with the same classmate, Archie (and, maybe, with each other), Betty and Veronica got their own comics with their names in the title, formed a band with Archie, co-starred in an animated television series I watched as a kid, had an actual hit song, and are featured in a contemporary TV series.
I loved their hit song! Don Kirshner reportedly said he wanted to work with a band that didn’t talk back, so he created The Archies, a cartoon pop band for the animated TV show of the same name, which ran for one year in 1968. The Archies played bubblegum pop by session musicians hired by Don for the TV series, a series based on the comic book that began in 1941. The best-selling song of 1969 was theirs: “Sugar, Sugar,” just as groupie feminism was cresting.
Many of their comics feature groupie or music-related themes. I showcase many of those in an art assemblage from my Groupie Feminism art series, “Groupie School Desk.”
Groupies emerged in the 1960s on the cusp of Second Wave feminism as the avant-garde of the sexual revolution, navigating old-fashioned double standards with daring independence. Fans with the band, groupies went further than just going to the shows. Ardent fans who befriended and sometimes bedded, lived with and/or married musicians, groupies led their lives as though they were equal to men in creative and sexual freedom.
Groupies from that era astound me. They took risks and lived their lives adventurously, venturing exchanges of creative and sexual freedom with the musicians they liked and loved. Backstage antics and hotel-room lore from the golden era of groupies established a new kind of cultural mythology based on fact, featuring groupies who became famous. But sexism and corporate interests impeded women's liberation, and groupies were often dismissed as playthings in the power ballad of music history.
The G-word is confounding. Music writer, Danyel Smith, told me, "I don't know why women who enjoy music and hang out backstage have to have a whole name that makes them less than what they are." Patriarchal language tries to control and diminish females through sexual slurs. And yet! As music scholar, Lisa Rhodes, points out, without groupies there'd be no rock stars.
Understanding the relevance of groupies is crucial to understanding music and women's history. Paradoxical with their reflected glory and often unmarried independence, it'simportant to understand them in terms of evolving self-government. Groupies further our sense of music by embodying the intersection of feminism and music.
In my book about groupies, forthcoming from Chicago Review Press, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978, I begin my groupieology in 1965 when the term "groupie" most likely originated, and I end it in 1978 with the mysterious death of a punk rock groupie. Many of the groupies I discuss are all pictured in this artwork, and include: Lithofayne Pridgon, the muse and musician from Georgia; Cherry Vanilla, the Warhol Superstar from Queens; Jenni Dean, the rhythm guitarist from New Jersey; Emmaretta Marks, the musical artist from Washington, D.C. who performed in Hair; Cynthia Plaster Caster, the art student who made casts of musicians' genitals, from Chicago; GTO's, the all-girl art rock band from California; Cleo Odzer from Manhattan, who appeared on the vinyl documentary album, 1969's The Groupies, then earned a Ph.D. in anthropology; Devon Wilson from Wisconsin, written about in songs by Betty Davis and Jimi Hendrix; underage LA Queens in California who graced the pages of Star magazine; the oft-heralded from the stage, Barbara the Butter Queen, from Texas; gold-glittered schoolteacher, Sweet Connie, from Arkansas; and feminist punk rocker, Nancy Spungen, from Pennsylvania.
During the golden era of groupies, some freedoms were granted to girls and women for the first time: owning property, living alone and unmarried, obtaining an individual bank account and credit card. Birth control was available. Abortion was legalized. But: the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass. Sexual harassment wasn't legally defined until 1980. Husbands could rape wives legally until the early 1990's. Eating disorders disabled women, including some of the aforementioned groupies. Some musicians were violent to groupies, and some groupies' lives bordered on sex trafficking. Women are still struggling to earn a wage equal to men for equal work, and females lost the right to safe and legal abortions in 2022. Music journalist, Holly George-Warren, told me that “the reality is, it is the men who are mostly in power, and have abused that power.”
Which makes it all the more important to consider groupies. I can't emphasize enough how important it is that their stories be told, heard, and preserved. Because women's experiences are often belittled, insulted, diminished, disregarded, or erased. Especially if they are sexual or outrageous. GTO and SuperGroupie, Pamela Des Barres, told me that even today people respond to her best-selling memoir, 1987's I'm with the Band, with a "finger-pointing jeer."
I've conducted interviews with groupies, music journalists, photographers, and musicians. I've presented at conferences and museums, and written several published articles and short stories, about groupies. I organized the standing-room only reading with Q & A, Writers Together Outrageously, featuring two of the original GTOs and their record producer's daughter, Moon Zappa. I've guest DJ'd my Groupie Playlist on the radio, and exhibited my Groupie Feminism art series. I've amassed my own private collection of groupie artifacts.
Golden era groupies have their own groupies today. It’s why I replaced pin-ups of Archie in Veronica’s locker with the groupies I discuss in this artist statement (and in my Groupie Feminism art series, my Groupie Gospels mixtape zine, and my book, The Golden Era of Groupies: 1965-1978 ), and it’s why I replaced the words “Archie” and “his” with “a groupie” and “her” in Betty’s word bubble.
Fans have tattooed their bodies with the names and likenesses of groupies such as Pamela Des Barres; art and cartoons have been inspired by GTOs; fashions and styles featured in magazines and on runways have been inspired by golden era groupies; podcasts and professors discuss groupies; Hollywood movies such as Sid and Nancy(1986); Almost Famous (2000); The Banger Sisters (2002); and Drive Away Dolls (2024) have been based on some of the groupies I consider here, and popular TV shows have referred to groupies: Lorelai reads Des Barres's bestselling book, 1987's I'm with the Band, on an episode of Gilmore Girls (2000-2007), and Donna reads Star magazine in an episode of That '70s Show (1998-2006).
Some say the groupie issue saved Rolling Stone magazine from bankruptcy. Musicians have said the reason they became musicians at all was for the groupies. Groupies call radio stations and request songs, buy concert tickets and go to concerts, buy the music in various formats, crowd the merch table and buy the swag. They wear the concert t-shirts. And stylishly at that. Groupies bring the party to the front row, backstage, in the limo on the plane to the hotel room. They make crucial introductions, such as GTO Miss Christine for Alice Cooper to Frank Zappa (getting Alice a record contract), or Betty Davis for Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix (making Miles dress cool). They feed clothe caress and have sex with the musicians. The sweat and glory!
The devotion a groupie feels is wild and concentrated, like an essential oil, delicate and strong, like blood, tender and empowering, like breath.
I created this artwork, "Groupie Cover Girl," to go with my book. And also because I am fascinated by groupies. I've wondered about them, and wished I had been one. (Holly once told me I probably was one in my own way, and I’ve thought about that (a lot) and I think maybe she’s correct. I have a few of my own almost groupie stories.) For this artwork, I found pictures of the groupies I discuss in my book, made copies of the pictures, printed them out, and pasted them onto a color copy of the Betty and Veronica cover. I cut out the letters from copies of the cover to create new words in Betty's thought bubble, and added a groupie book for Veronica and a groupie magazine for Betty. In this manner I changed the focus from men to women, emphasizing women's points-of-view. I made it a flyer because bands promote themselves that way.
Bibliography
Audrey Hamilton with Robert Plant, photographer unknown but probably @ 1977
Barbara the Butter Queen from her Facebook page, retrieved @ 2021 (and as of this writing in 2025, her page is no longer there!)
Betty and Veronica comic book cover
Vol. 2, No 85
March, 1995
Cherry Vanilla at the Roxy in the U.K., 1977 Photograph by Ray Stevenson
ZigZag cover, 1977 from author’s collection
Vanilla, Cherry. Lick Me How I Became Cherry Vanilla (by way of the Copacabana, Madison Avenue, the Fillmore East, Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and the Police)
Chicago Review Press Chicago: 2010
Devon Wilson in a photograph by Baron Wolman
“The Cop of the Year” Interview by Daphne Davis
Rags magazine
June, 1970
p 47
Emmaretta Marks in a photograph by Baron Wolman
“Groupies: The Ultimate Girlfriends” by Susan Edmiston
Cosmopolitan
November, 1969 pp 144-145
Groupie license plate, photograph by Lucretia Tye Jasmine of Pamela Des Barres’s car in her driveway at home in Reseda, CA, 2017. A license to roam! As Holly George-Warren told me, she likes to think that groupies were “stomping down the street with a girl power vibe.” So do I. Unescorted by men, unmarried, popping the pill (“I popped the pill on the Sunset Strip,” said SuperGroupie and bestselling author, Pamela Des Barres). walking in the sexual liberation and Second Wave Feminism that was the zeitgeist.
“Groupies” issue
Rolling Stone magazine
Photograph by Baron Wolman of Karen
No. 27 February 15, 1969
GTO’s on the cover of Aum magazine
May, 1969
Photograph by Ed Caraeff of GTO’s (Cynderella, Pamela, Christine, Sandra)
GTO’s in a photograph by Baron Wolman
Camera magazine
no. 10 “The Groupies” October 1969
p 37
Jenni Dean in a photograph by Baron Wolman
“Groupies: The Ultimate Girlfriends” by Susan Edmiston
Cosmopolitan
November, 1969 pp 144-145
LA Queens
Lori Lightning and peers in a photograph by Julien Wasser
“Elements of Style I Was Afraid They’d All Be California Girls” by David Marsh
Creem magazine
August, 1974
p 41
LA Queens
Star magazine covers:
February, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Shray Mecham
March, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Shray Mecham
April, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Karen Umphrey
May, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Patty Clark
June, 1973 by Jean Pagliuso of Karen Umphrey
LA Queens
Queenie, Shray and Sable
Photograph by Richard Creamer
“Sunset Strip Groupies: Who, What, When & How (Wow!)” by Carole Pickel
Star, June, 1973
p 60
Lithofayne Pridgon from her YouTube channel:
her private collection, found on YouTube channel named “Lithofayne Faytoe,” 11.24.2023. (As of this writing, the channel isn’t there anymore! Thank the groupie goddess I took screenshots with my iPhone of the channel’s photos on my television, and tape-recorded the songs on my Casio cassette recorder, as they played on my television. For those who want to know about the music, here are the songs: "The Bad Part About It," "Behind Every Successful Man," "Drivin Wheel Lithofayne Style MSWMM,""Dust My Broom/Yonder Wall," "How Long," "Plain Old Blues Instrumental," "Rent Day Blues," and "Thank You So Much." (The only reason I took the photos and taped the music is because I was leaving town, unsure of YouTube access at my hotel, and had to keep writing my chapter about her for my groupie book and I very much wanted to include that information in my writing about Lithofayne!)
Nancy Spungen in a photo of Nancy from her mom’s memoir.
Spungen, Deborah. And I Don’t Want to Live This Life New York Fawcett Crest 1983
Pamela Des Barres in the “I Am the Light” photograph at Chuck Wein’s house, the Wizard. Photograph by Lee Lawrence, @ 1971
The Plasters Casters, Cynthia and Dianne
Photograph by Baron Wolman
1969
Sweet Connie in a photograph by Larry Kolden
“Sweet, Sweet Connie” by Crescent Dragonwagon
Cosmopolitan
August, 1974
p 80