TMS Muse of the Week: Audrey Hamilton
(via pinterest.com)
During the early days of my classic rock fangirling—and more specifically Led Zeppelin fangirling—when I discovered the whole groupie spectrum, there was one girl who instantly fascinated me. Audrey Hamilton. “Audrey from Dallas.” Unlike the really famous groupies who kiss and tell, Audrey has never been officially interviewed, despite having a small part in Zeppelin lore. I think looking back, the Texan gal might have been the beginning of my interest in obscure women throughout entertainment history. Who was the pretty brunette with very little public information available? When I first learned of her existence way back in 2007, there were only a few trivia tidbits out there on the web. One was that she was involved with frontman Robert Plant for the majority of LZ’s 1977 US spring/summer tour. Second was her becoming the inspiration for one of the most polarizing Zep tracks in their catalogue: ‘Hot Dog’ off their final album ‘In Through the Out Door’ (1979). Everything else was covered in mystique. A big rumor was that she ditched her husband in the middle of the night to follow Robert on the road after they met at a local Dallas bar. Another was her being only 17 at the time. Since then, it’s been confirmed Audrey was actually 20 going on 21 during Zeppelin’s last US tour, and she was in fact married to her high school sweetheart, though the context of that relationship is still vague. The rumor of Audrey being a teenager is most likely from the lyric “I took her love at 17,” during ‘Hot Dog,’ which some theorize Robert might have written from the perspective of her husband. We also knew their fling ended when the tour was cut short so Robert could return to England after being informed his 5-year-old son Karac tragically passed from a stomach virus.
What makes Audrey intriguing is how she can be spotted in so many photos from that ’77 tour, way more than previous Led Zep groupies. There’s a set of B&W photos of her and Robert which were shot during the same photoshoot for a July 1977 issue of Creem Magazine with Robert on the cover. She’s in pictures taken backstage and aboard the band’s private jet. You can hear Robert refer to her as ‘Audrey from Dallas’ in between songs on the popular bootleg recording ‘Listen to This, Eddie’ of a June 1977 concert at the LA Forum. She had this cute, seemingly innocent essence about her rather than trashiness like most of the off-stage ladies, more similar to rock muses like Pattie Boyd and Charlotte Martin. Over the years, I would keep a look out on classic rock related corners of the internet for any possible new info on Audrey. The biggest jackpot was in 2012, when a Zep fan happened to meet someone who knew Audrey and passed along her e-mail address. The fan and former groupie conversed by e-mail and phone, and afterwards the fan shared her memories to the Led Zeppelin Official Forum with her permission. In the 8 page thread, we got confirmation that Audrey was 20, was married [though ‘openly’ she claims], was almost kicked off the tour after she and Robert got into an argument, and bandmate John Paul Jones was not a fan of her presence on said tour. We also learn Audrey’s groupie stint didn’t end with Robert, and continued for another four years where she tagged along for tours with Bad Company, Rod Stewart and Electric Light Orchestra. In fact, reading between the lines of her amateur interview, it sounds like Karac’s death might not have been the only reason she and Robert parted ways; but also because of Audrey becoming extra friendly with Mick Ralphs of Bad Co., who was a pal of Robert’s; and of course, from Robert himself not being completely available.
(via reddit.com)
Audrey officially faded out of the limelight after she became pregnant from a dalliance with Ace Frehley from KISS, and gave birth to their daughter Lindsey in September 1980. Besides traveling and a brief period in Houston, Audrey has spent her whole life in Dallas. There was talk of her writing a memoir in the mid-2010s, but nothing has resulted so far. It seems looks can be deceiving too, since the main reason we supposedly haven’t heard from Audrey much is because of her dozen or so run-ins with the law. Whenever I would Google her name for a while, random Texas criminal records would appear on her search results. Various arrests and charges, such as disturbing the peace, DUIs and theft, along with mugshots and personal info looked very similar to the southern woman. It might not be a surprise her relationship with Lindsey has been recurringly turbulent as well, considering the latter grew up with an absentee father and troubled mother. With all this in mind, it’s more likely Audrey’s been MIA in the press since 1980 because she doesn’t want any attention on her criminal record rather than preferring to be incognito. I’m not actually too shocked over this discovery, since I’ve seen multiple people involved with Zeppelin, Kiss, classic rock, etc. accuse Audrey of being ‘crazy’ and ‘wild.’ Nevertheless, if vague comments on affiliated social media are to be believed, Audrey has made an effort to get her act together in the past couple of decades and is involved with Lindsey and her family now.
And as for the infamous track she inspired, well. If you’re in on the joke, then ‘Hot Dog’ might be a fun lark to jig along to. If you’re not, you’ll probably just skip over to side 2 of the record. Amusingly, I’ve always found ‘Hot Dog’ and the LZ ballad ‘Thank You’ as the best examples of how the groupies influence the novelty tunes, while the wives inspire the pretty love songs. Audrey may ultimately not have the allure I had for her in my mind, but you can’t accuse her of being boring, which is probably the worst thing you can be in rock & roll.