TMS Discussion: The Ennui of a Classic Rock First Wife

(via medium.com / imdb.com / coolcherrycream.com)

For every supposed tortured male artist, there seems to be a long-suffering wife on the other end. I mentioned Eleanor Coppola in an article last month, who is a famous example of this scenario. For 60 years she supported the rise of husband Francis Ford Coppola’s talent and art in cinema, to the point where she had to choose their family as her main focus over her own career most of the time. In music, women like Eleanor are pretty rare. It’s hard to find a wife who’s in it for the long haul without ever receiving as much creative recognition as her spouse and putting up with his infidelity. It’s even harder to find a genuinely devoted, long-term married couple like Charlie & Shirley Watts or Paul & Linda McCartney. During the classic rock era of popular music, if you were serious with a musician before he found success, you were probably a member of the ‘first wives club.’ The three biggest examples that come to mind for me are Cynthia Lennon, Phyllis Nesmith and Maureen Plant. Three ladies who witnessed the rise of their significant other’s legacy, only to be left aside by the time their prime was over. Cynthia and Phyllis in particular are strikingly similar. Both met their first husbands in college, where Cynthia was Cynthia Powell when she was introduced to John Lennon while attending Liverpool College of Art in 1958. Phyllis, née Barbour, started going out with her first husband, Michael Nesmith, as students at San Antonio College of Texas in 1963. Neither lady was actually available when the two musicians asked them out. Both girls weren’t sure how far their relationships were going to go or how serious their boyfriends were about their feelings. The young men ultimately chose to propose when their girlfriends discovered they were pregnant with sons Julian Lennon [b. 1963] and Christian Nesmith [b. 1965]. Both were natural brunettes who went blonde once their husbands became famous. Both young wives had to stay behind raising their babies when John and Mike were on the road, making music, or shooting film & TV projects. Both dealt with the humiliation of the musicians being carelessly unfaithful. Both inspired some of their husbands’ songs.

(Paul Popper / Popperfoto)

If you’re familiar with biographies on rockstars and other music legends, you’ll find this story isn’t uncommon, including how Cynthia and Phyllis abandoned their own artistic or business potential until after their divorces, thinking they should prioritize being a housewife fulltime. Instead of graduating and starting careers, these gals watched John and Mike become a superstars as members of the Beatles and the Monkees instead. Interestingly, Cynthia actually mentions in her memoir, John (2005), how Mike & Phyllis spent a few days over at the Lennon estate the first time they visited London. While you would think the English blonde would get along easily with the American wife, Cynthia actually said she found Phyllis overbearing with constantly making sure Cyn’s cooking and baking were up to Mike’s standards. Which I guess is one difference between the two. Cynthia, though traditional, never seemed like a pushover. But then again, neither did Phyllis based on some stories, making it surprising she was so intent on pleasing her husband.

Of course, there were pros and cons to this kind of relationship, such as having a partner with a big salary for a nice home, consistent vacations, holidays, house parties, clubs and other perks for the pros. Things every couple hopes for when they settle down. Something the couples could have opted for with their newfound privilege was nannies, which a lot of wealthy families hire for extra help. The blondes had plenty of assistance in that area, but some wonder why they didn’t fall back on the option to travel with John and Mike more often too. Ianthe McGuinn, former wife of Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, mentions in her 2017 memoir, In the Wings, how she would semi-regularly leave their kids with the family nanny so she could go to major events and trips with Roger. Former groupie Bebe Buell goes into similar detail in her own book, Rebel Heart (2001), casually admitting she would drop off her toddler—future model and actress Liv Tyler—at Liv’s grandmother’s house whenever Bebe wanted to tag along with a music star out of town. The thing is, not every mother wants to spend long periods of time away from their children. Though Cynthia and Phyllis did travel with the bands sometimes [such as all the Beatle wives accompanying the bandmates to India in 1968 and Phyllis joining Mike on Monkees tours in 1967 and 1968], I think they also wanted somewhat normal lives and weren’t expecting to be at the center of Beatlemania and Monkeemania so fast. Based on their own memories and retellings elsewhere, Cynthia and Phyllis did legitimately love John and Mike and initially wanted the marriages to work out. But then the cons gradually began adding up to the point where John transparently overlapped his relationship with second wife, artist Yoko Ono in 1966-68; and Mike had an affair with groupie/photographer Nurit Wilde which resulted in a child, Jason, only six months after his second son with Phyllis, Jonathan, was born in February 1968. Despite the obvious affair, it was actually John who boldly asked Cyn for a divorce in November ’68 to be with Yoko. While one would expect Phyllis to not put up with such an embarrassing predicament between Mike and Nurit, she chose to forgive and forget until 1972, when she accepted Mike’s cheating hadn’t decreased. Both ladies considered the men’s interest in recreational drugs a factor in the failure of the marriages as well; and Phyllis once revealed fame and fortune made it a struggle for her and Mike to be practicing Christian Scientists, who aren’t supposed to view materialism with any value.

(Bob Custer / coolcherrycream.com)

While the sexual revolution curbed shotgun weddings a bit with acceptance of casual sex and living out of wedlock, these kinds of marriages were still somewhat happening by the end of 1960s, such as with Robert and Maureen Plant. Similar to the Lennons and the Nesmiths, 17-year-old Maureen Wilson was a local girl in Birmingham, England when she met an 18-year-old aspiring singer named Robert Plant at a local concert in 1966. At the time, Maureen was from an Anglo-Indian family and getting her nursing degree while Robert had odd jobs around town in between performing in bar bands. Six months after Robert became the lead vocalist for the greatest hard rock band in the world, Led Zeppelin, he and Maureen married in November 1968, which was also two weeks before she gave birth to their daughter Carmen. Both being under 21 and Robert about to catapult into superstardom made domesticity a challenge, even with the pair genuinely in love. Maureen put her nursing career on hold to raise Carmen, Robert was constantly on tour or in the recording studio with LZ, Maureen wasn’t interested in partying as hard as Robert was. Originally Maureen was actually financially supporting the family through her medical career and her dad’s steel factory before Zeppelin landed their record deal at Atlantic and ‘Led Zeppelin I’ (1969) skyrocketed on the charts. While this might have been a weight off the young wife’s back, the typical cliches broke through once Led Zep’s following quickly grew. Groupies were a thing in the 1960s, but by the early 1970s these kinds of young ladies were public figures themselves as socialites. If Led Zeppelin fully encompassed the phrase ‘sex, drugs and rock & roll,’ you can expect them to be big participants in the groupie scene. Former rock journalist Lisa Robinson likes to tell a story of all the Zep wives blowing up at their husbands after a famous set of photos of the band clubbing with some popular groupies were published in a 1973 issue of Melody Maker. Robert’s dalliances with girls like Michele Overman and Audrey Hamilton were open secrets in a ‘what happens on tour, stays on tour’ way. But since he was a devoted family man back home, Maureen ignored his faults for the rest of the decade. And if you’re familiar with the history of LZ’s music, you’ll notice how the subject of what many fans consider the best, prettiest love song in their catalog, ‘Thank You’ off ‘Led Zeppelin II’ (1969), is an ode to Maureen. Which I think shows Robert was aware of how much she had to deal with even that early into marriage.

(Paul Popper / Popperfoto)

Surprisingly, it wasn’t even the groupies or drugs that resulted in the Plant marriage ending, but unexpected tragedy. In 1975, Maureen almost died when she, Robert and Jimmy Page’s companion Charlotte Martin were in a serious car crash in Greece, where everyone was injured; and Maureen had to stay in extensive hospital care while recovering from multiple fractures and received blood transfusions. Robert, not in as much need of medical assistance, was naturally by her side for the whole treatment. But only two years later, tragedy struck even harder when their 5-year-old son, Karac, suddenly passed from a stomach virus while Zeppelin was on their 1977 tour. Both parents grieved together, and Robert penned the ballad ‘All My Love’ on Zep’s final album, ‘In Through the Out Door’ (1979), to Karac. But sadly, the loss still caused the couple to gradually drift apart, even after conceiving a second son, Logan in ‘79. And in what might be the most awkward aspect of any of these relationships covered, Robert also had an intimate history with his sister-in-law Shirley, who he actually went out with before Maureen way back in 1966-67. The fling allegedly rekindled twice while the singer was married to the other Wilson sister from 1968 to 1983. Robert and Shirley officially dated later on in 1991, which is also when he became a father for the 4th time through son Jesse…with Shirley as the mother. I can only imagine how strange the family gatherings are with this group.

Fortunately, the Lennons, Nesmiths and Plants all publicly maintained decent terms for the sake of their children. I don’t want to make it seem like this article is just trashing three flawed husbands. All three men have even acknowledged how they were the problem in the marriages not working, whether it was lyrically [John, Mike and Robert], in interviews [John and Robert] or a memoir [Mike]. All three ladies did carry on with interesting lives, such as Cynthia writing two published books, John and A Twist of Lennon (1978), picking up art again in the 1990s, opening and running her own restaurant in Ruthin, Wales, in the 1970s, and operating a less successful London restaurant with a Beatles theme in the late 1980s. Despite usually being viewed as a bit old fashioned, Cynthia married four more times before dying of cancer in 2015. In general, the blonde came across rather sharper and wittier in her books and interviews than her ‘doormat’ reputation suggested. Neither Maureen nor Robert remarried after their divorce, though both had serious, long term relationships over the years, and Maureen continued nursing once all their children were grown. The most impressive post-divorce life might be Phyllis, who became a social and political activist, a corporate businesswoman, and was with her second husband, a company exec named Bill Gibson, from the mid-1980s until her death of ALS in 2010. Maureen is still with us and has been spotted at public Plant and Wilson family events featuring Robert. Unlike Phyllis, who it sounds like never fully forgave Mike for what their marriage turned into. John was 40 when he passed in 1980, so we’ll never really know how he felt about his mistakes with an introspective memory and full life experience. Mike sure seemed to battle guilt and regret in his later years, to an uncomfortable level between his candid memoir, Infinite Tuesday (2017), and blunt comments before performing songs written about Phyllis during concerts until his own death in 2021.

I think what’s sad about these three ladies’ situations isn’t so much that they had to wait later in life to form their own, self-realized living, since they did well for themselves all the same. They’ve never given the impression they regretted parenting full-time, and all of their children have nothing but love and appreciation for their caring mothers. I’m sure there were plenty of girl friends to have lunch and playdates with. But I think the thing is, these tales really show how easily thankless being a supporting housewife is if you don’t have mutual respect given back. It happened to Pete Townshend’s first wife, Karen Astley, and to David Gilmour’s ex-wife Ginger Hasenbein, and many other women from the same era married to men in the music community; and probably any occupation that requires regularly being away from home. It’s good couples don’t feel obligated to settle anymore and take their time letting the relationship grow organically. Every marriage comes with obstacles, of course. But it shouldn’t all fall on the lady of the house, and the man shouldn’t be off the hook just for being the breadwinner. Don’t take your wife for granted, fellas.