TMS Muse of the Week: Jenny Dino

(via instagram.com)

It’s time for another edition of MOTW where I don’t go into a legendary artist or their significant other, but instead a very lucky person who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Fan encounters for stars can be tricky depending on the moment and context. Fortunately, most of the time it’s a special starstruck incident that will stay with the young fangirl or fanboy forever. We hear a lot of gossip and lore about the love lives of our faves, but not so much about the every day occurrences they might experience. Probably because there’s less dirt there. As Don Henley once sang, people enjoy dirty laundry. A fan who ended up having one of the most fascinating lives I know of is Jenny Dino. Born and raised in New York, Jenny got to witness the rise of classic rock from the British Invasion as a little girl in the mid-1960s, to punk and new wave as a young woman in the early 1980s. And since New York is one of the biggest stapples of the US, nearly all the most popular acts were in her neck of the woods for shows.

You might be wondering, how do we even know Jenny’s story? Well, fortunately for avid rock fans who are active on social media, Jenny happily chose to share her place in history on her public Instagram and Facebook accounts back in the 2010s. On her Insta in particular, you’ll find personal photos of her with musicians including David Cassidy, Brian Setzer, Al Stewart, Mick Ronson, Stiv Bators and Ian Hunter; as well as memorabilia like concert tickets, VIP passes, radio station badges and vintage band T-shirts. Rather than just settle on enjoying the songs on the radio, record player and in the audience, teen Jenny and her friends were dedicated enough to find ways to socialize with the rockstars backstage, at clubs and at after-parties. Based on everything I’ve seen on her socials, Jenny’s experiences were fairly innocent and less crazy than you would expect from the 1970s rock scene, thankfully. Though it sounds like she was primarily a fangirl during her adventures, she did have a groupie fling with guitar god Jimmy Page throughout 1975-77, which no one even really knew about until she revealed the story online back in 2015.

(Matt Susskind)

Becoming intimately familiar with the Led Zeppelin founder would have been cool enough on its own, but Jenny even got to attend the NYC premiere of the band’s concert film The Song Remains the Same (1976) as Jimmy’s date. This included not only a screening of the movie, but also partying with Jimmy and the rest of the band and their entourage that evening. The auburn haired gal still retrospectively calls the event one of the best nights of her life. By the end of their dalliance, Jenny says Jimmy encouraged her to get a degree and to take full advantage of her career options. When the Zep tide started calming down, Jenny was partaking in early punk and new wave in NYC and briefly London, England. One reason Jenny sustained activity in the music scene is because she actually had jobs at some of the legendary discotheques in 1978-1980; including NYC’s CBGB and London’s The Marquee Club, where she got to work alongside and mingle with the likes of the Pretenders, Eddie Money and Santana.

Jenny’s later life is nearly as interesting as her youth too. She did in fact take Jimmy’s advice, and achieved a PhD which she now uses for her work as a professional chiropractor. By 1982, she also left the east coast for the west side and had short stints modeling and acting in Los Angeles, CA in her 20s. Though her period in showbiz was limited, she decided to make SoCal home, where she’s lived most of her adult life. Along with becoming a mother to a son from a past marriage, Jenny is still a presence in the music community through her participation with the charity program You Rock Foundation and hosting the podcast Rock ‘N Healthy Lifestyles, both where she chats with music artists. Following #metoo blowing up in 2017, Jenny’s toned down gushing over Jimmy and the other superstars since the concept of young women meeting famous men privately has come into question ethically, even if nothing necessarily sinister occurs.

Jenny is yet another fascinating almost famous person who got all the VIP perks while maintaining her privacy. She could rock the cute fangirly look with curls/waves and her adorable glasses or pull of the badass punk makeover. She was bright and knew how to have fun without losing any dignity. She made the most of her potential. Respect.