Lick Me
How I Became Cherry Vanilla
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3.9 • 8 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this sexually open and disarming account of her life and the era, Cherry Vanilla tells all about her personal successes and failures and in the process explores every aspect of the music industry during its most electrifying era—complete with detours through the sexual revolution, the women's liberation movement, and the theater of the ridiculous. From her rise from humble Irish Catholic beginnings to a Madison Avenue wunderkind in the swinging 1960s, an actress in Andy Warhol's Pork, David Bowie's publicist, and punk band diva to her notoriety as a groupie—known to have bedded musicians ranging from David Bowie and Leon Russell to Kris Kristofferson—her behind-the-scenes tale chronicles the highs and lows of her fast-lane existence. Far from a saccharine glamorization of a high-profile life, the memoir also candidly acknowledges the parallel downsides of the high-rolling days—unwanted pregnancies, poverty, sex addiction, and obsessive-compulsive disorder—and how she handled them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A fixture in the music and club scenes since the 1960s, musician, groupie, and PR woman extraordinaire Vanilla takes readers on a wild romp through her drug- and sex-filled life. Born Kathleen Dorritie in Queens in 1943, Vanilla loved music from an early age and would often accompany her parents to the Copacabana in Manhattan, where she once met Dean Martin. Raucous parties often fueled by acid and pot were a fixture of her life in the '60s, as she dabbled in DJing in clubs and built an advertising career on Madison Avenue. In 1970, Vanilla had "a rock and roll revelation": she wanted to become a groupie, even though she was "already a twenty-six-year-old businesswoman of sorts." This led to trysts with musicians like Kris Kristofferson and David Bowie, whom she helped introduce to American audiences. As punk music began to overtake glam rock, Vanilla launched her own music career and briefly toured in the U.K., with the Police as her backup band, and later in the U.S. Vanilla's voice is distinctively sassy, despite her conventional storytelling methods, and her memoir is an entertaining peek into music's backstage world.
Customer Reviews
Lick It!
Juicy, Fun and fast read especially if you loved the 70's music scene!