9/12/2023 0 Comments Rita coolidge stephen stillsHer book describes the drugs and debauchery backstage, with half the band queuing in a corridor for VD shots. I think I understood on some level that he was mentally ill.”Ĭoolidge writes that the hedonistic Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour scarred her emotionally and physically. “I knew there was something wrong with him and I didn’t want to be around it. He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and is now in a psychiatric prison for the murder of his mother. Gordon’s violence foreshadowed a more dramatic turn. I wouldn’t talk to him, I wouldn’t accept gifts. I don’t think I ever even had a conversation with him after that. If you don’t get out while the gettin’s good. “Well, if you stick around, you’re just asking for more. Kristofferson struck her once, drunkenly (“it never happened again”) and on Joe Cocker’s infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, her boyfriend at the time, Jim Gordon, hit her violently in a hotel corridor that left her with a black eye for the rest of the tour. "I continue to grieve, and will for all my life," Coolidge has said.)Ĭoolidge herself was not spared physical abuse. (In 2014, Coolidge's sister Priscilla, who was once married to Booker T Jones, was killed by her third husband in a murder- suicide. It was hard to keep those secrets with people who were public.” “I think if you’re a public person – certainly Bonnie Bramlett would not be able to walk down the street and be just anybody she was Bonnie Bramlett with a black eye. “Maybe men really felt like women kind of belonged to them,” she says. She believes it was symptomatic of society generally. She describes the domestic abuse her friend, singer Bonnie Bramlett, suffered at the hands of her partner, Delaney. "This is what he does," Turner tells her. Early in her career, Coolidge meets Tina Turner, who takes off her wig to reveal a long scar on her skull. Violence against women is stark in the memoir. I think that women felt their power long before men accepted it.” It was a time of change, not only with civil rights in this country, but women were demanding to be treated as equal. It just was part of the way society looked at women at that time. Speaking with Coolidge now, her voice is gentle but there is a toughness there, which undoubtedly gave her the resilience to survive in an often misogynistic industry. “I didn’t feel I was doing her any favours by going the distance when clearly her parents were not in harmony.” The couple have a daughter together, Casey. When we divorced I didn’t ask for anything from him.” It was just enough that I cried every day, and that’s not a good way to live. “He might feel that I was abusive to him. I was making an album every year or two and I think that’s what he wanted really more than anything, but the films just kept coming at him and he made the choice. She writes about Kristofferson’s emotional abuse and how he would belittle her talent. We were equal in our jobs and in our relationship,” she says firmly. “When Kris and I were doing concerts, he didn’t have hit records. I think I made it clear how much I care about this man, how much I’ve always loved him.”īut she did get the opportunity to correct critics who accused Coolidge of hitching herself to Kristofferson’s rising star. “My intention was never to vilify Kris in this book and I don’t believe that I did. “People were fascinated with us as a couple,” she says, but his drinking and infidelity proved too much to bear. Rita Coolidge: “I just cried and felt this great relief and release that the memoir was done.” Photograph: Matt BeardĬoolidge details her time as a backing singer on classics such as Eric Clapton's After Midnight and Stephen Still's Love the One You're With, and touring with Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison and Joe Cocker before embarking on a solo career. And then, also, I’m very nervous because I am very frank and I don’t hold back.” “I just cried and felt this great relief and release that it was done. But her marriage was in tatters and she had just miscarried her second child.Ĭoolidge’s new memoir opens with this time in her life and goes on to describe more than a decade of “blue jeans and limousines” when rock stars believed they were true “counterculturists”. The legendary Delta Lady of the song had won two Grammys for performances with her husband at the time, Kris Kristofferson, and had just recorded her sixth solo album. In 1977, Rita Coolidge was 33 and one of the most in-demand rock vocalists in LA.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |