TMS Muse of the Week: Catherine James

(Henry Diltz)

Memoirs can be some of the most entertaining, page-turners available in literature. Depending on the topic and person, they’re a decent look back to a time and place in history through a real person who was there. Many celebrities have autobiographies and non-fiction books about their experiences with fame and fortune. But while amusing, they can also be reminders said celebrities shot to stardom for something other than writing. The best examples of this kind of memoir are from hangers-on and other people behind the scenes. I went through a period in college where I read various memoirs by famous wives, girlfriends and groupies in music and film/TV. Most of them were pretty tedious and cringe-inducing in between all the dirt they were spilling, but a few were legitimately interesting. One of the more fascinating tell-alls I’ve come across is Dandelion by Catherine James from 2007. I first heard about Catherine through the groupie chronicle Let’s Spend the Night Together the same year her book was published, which was later adapted into a VH1 documentary with the same title in 2010. Out of all the women featured in the book and doc, Catherine was the only one I found naturally cool, for lack of a stronger word.

The way Catherine shares her stories, she almost sounds like a character in a real-life soap opera, especially if the reader is over the age of 21. Her father, Robert, was an absentee alcoholic who later came out as transexual; while mother Dian was a failed folk singer and Cinderella’s stepmother incarnate regularly mistreating Catherine. Her aunt, Claire James, was a beauty pageant queen once married to legendary musical director-choreographer Busby Berkeley and even a background extra in Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind (1939). Born with these kind of showbiz connections, it’s not a surprise Catherine was already attending concerts of music acts like Bob Dylan and the Byrds while growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s-60s. By the time she was 15, Catherine ran away from her dysfunctional home to NYC, where she mingled with the likes of Andy Warhol, Nico and Edie Sedgwick in the mid-‘60s. From there, Catherine traded her wild and crazy childhood for wild and crazy adulthood in Manhattan, London and Hollywood. Flings and relationships with musicians, such as Mick Jagger, Jackson Browne, David Gilmour and Jimmy Page, followed; along with steady and fleeting gigs as a fashion model, a nanny for the kids of John Stewart of the Kingston Trio, a stand-in on film sets [including for Diane Keaton], a backup singer, a professional cook, a matte painter and finally a published writer.

(Andy Warhol)

Catherine’s one child, son Damian [b. 1967], was conceived during a toxic relationship with Denny Laine of the classic rock bands the Moody Blues and Wings. Unlike most groupies, Catherine actually did inspire a song: ‘Miss James’ by John Mayall on his 1968 album ‘Blues from Laurel Canyon.’ The blonde’s days with sex, drugs and rock & roll were already past her when she settled down in New England at age 25 in 1975 to focus on raising Damian. Contemporarily, Catherine’s back in California and still interviewed occasionally about her life and run-ins with celebrities. Despite reading LSTNT all the way back in 2008, and finding Catherine’s story fascinating, I didn’t actually read her own book for the first time until a couple years ago during the holidays. I still find Catherine interesting and nice enough, not to mention stunning. There’s this collected poise about her in interviews that you usually don’t get with these kinds of ladies. Yet, now that I’m older and a lot more educated with rock history and the people she goes into detail about, I am actually a little disappointed. I don’t doubt the former model’s horrific claims about her mother or Denny. But Dandelion is a good example of how these types of books aren’t written by professional historians or journalists.

As in there are plenty of photos and outside sources to back up Catherine’s tales, yet she lacks what most of these kiss-and-tells feature: proper grammar and fact checking. She doesn’t bother to double check the spelling, dates and locations in her stories, and unfortunately these errors stick out like a sore thumb if you’re a genuine fan of classic rock. For example, when she first meets Bob Dylan in 1963, she mentions he was living in Woodstock. But he actually didn’t move there until 1965. This could be a simple typo or foggy memory, but it also comes across lazy to someone already aware of Dylan and not completely taking her at face value. She also uses a sensationalized tone that reminds us her generation of celebs and exes were encouraged by publishers to be gossipy. So unfortunately, reading Dandelion makes readers realize memoirs and autobiographies can actually be more subjective than objective. Someone being there in the moment, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most accurate narrator. Catherine might have embellished a little to make sure she was capturing readers’ attention and thought her memory was enough for historical context. Which is too bad, because I think if she had toned down the melodramatics, it would have improved her storytelling.