Lynn Carey

SE: So, you’re from L.A.?
LC: Yeah, born and raised! But I’m a gypsy. I ran off to Europe, and Russia.

SE: Europe, and Russia?
LC: Yeah.

SE: How old were you?
LC Oh, I wasn’t that young. I was in my early twenties.

SE: Oh.
LC: I left home when I was seventeen…

SE: Isn’t that the first line in “Find It”?
LC: (Laughs) No. That one was “I turn my eyes to lunatic sky’s of red destruction“…

SE: Oh, maybe that was “Sweet Talkin Candy Man”. Jeez, where did those words come from?
LC: I wrote it in five minutes.  I walked into Stu Phillips little studio in the back of his house, and he played something and I sat down and it was one of those things where the song just kind of downloads. (Laughs).. And sometimes that happens.  It’s great, I mean that’s what’s so wonderful about creating things, sometimes it’s just like you’re channeling somebody. I must’ve been channeling a really weird person that day. (Laughs)

SE: When did you start singing?
LC: Oh, I started singing when I was a kid… I always loved to sing. My Dad (Macdonald Carey) always brought jazz musicians home, and it was so neat! I just always loved music, and Dad always spent a lot of time with me, and he was a big jazz aficionado and really loved art, and music, and language and I was the first child so I was Daddy’s girl. He taught me all sorts of things, I’m the oldest of six. I love my brothers and sisters a lot. I felt like I was kind of like a second Mom to them sometimes.  So anyway, I  grew up really loving music. When I was only about fourteen I was going out to Shelly’s Manhole and other places like that to listen to the jazz greats. They never checked my ID because… I was rather well-endowed. (Laughs)

SE: I’ve met girls like your kind before!
LC: (Laughs)

SE: So that’s when you started singing in bands?
LC: Actually, I started work as an actress when I was in my teens. Then everybody kind of liked Barbara Eden, I guess, or Tuesday Weld who was a bit older than I was… but I mean, they were petite and cute looking, and I was told that I looked too European, and they couldn’t type me, but  I was good at accents so I did a Spanish woman on the “Wild, Wild West“, a German girl on “Run for Your Life”, and a French girl on “The Donna Reed Show”, among others… (laughs)… all these different girls with accents! And then George Axelrod saw my picture on the piano while I was away at the American Academy For Dramatic Arts and wanted me to appear in “Lord Love a Duck” which became a cult film… I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.

SE: I haven’t seen that one no.
LC: So I tried out for it, and everyone liked what I did.  It was George Axelrod’s first film as a director. I ended up with a feature role,Sally Grace, the president of the cashmere sweater club… Tuesday Weld’s nemesis. The film starred her, Roddy McDowell, Ruth Gordon, Harvey Corman,  and Lola Albright… a really hip cast. It was a black comedy and way ahead of it’s time. The parts I got afterwards were mostly foreign girls. I mean, they didn’t really know what to do with me, because I didn’t look like the going look at that time… But I was always writing poetry, this bizarre poetry, and I was always going to the Whisky, and I always sang. So Elmer Valentine, who owns the Whisky, said to me “Well, why don’t you just get a group and sing?” and I said, “Oh, okay, I will. I’ve always loved singing and writing, but how do I get started? He said, “Well, just go to one of these groups and sing your songs! Just do it!” so, I did! (Laughs).

SE: (Laughs)
LC: So I met some musicians and put together a group, and it was “C.K. Strong“ C for Carey, K for the guitar players last name Kewley, and Strong, because I figured that only the strong survive. And they used that little slogan which I of course stole from somewhere. Oh who wrote that?  I don’t remember.

SE: Wasn’t that a Jerry Butler tune?
LC: Yeah, I think so. Originally I wanted to call the group “Ram” and the guys said that  was a really stupid name, and then Paul McCartney came up with an album of that name. (Laughs) There weren’t many women doing stuff then. I think it was myself, Grace Slick, and Janis Joplin, Linda Ronstadt, and after I was doing it for awhile Lydia Pense, Genya Ravan started, and that was about it.

SE: So you just started playing with a band around the L.A. area ? The Whisky,..
LC: Yeah, actually CK Strong was a blues band, and we did the Ash Grove.. (laughs).. and the Strawberry Festival in Topanga Canyon where the main thing that … where the guys convinced me I had better take off my bra because no one wore a bra then, and I tried to convince them that they didn’t know what they were talking about because I was larger than most of the women (laughs) running around without bras. And I didn’t want to end up with permanent damage. So, we did the Coral in Topanga Canyon, some little festivals around… we did, let’s see, The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, and we were playing there with Little Feat I think it was, and I went into the bathroom (Laughs) and on the stall somebody had written CK STRONG SUCKS! And I was in tears. I couldn’t take it! It was so horrible! And this group of girls were there with this guitar player who was going with Erica Gavin who was later one of the stars of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. Everything interconnects. And one of this guys other girlfriends, just a friend, friend, she had written it. And she came to me and said “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad.  I thought sucking was a good thing!”

SE: (Laughs)
LC: But she really had a good point, why do we turn pleasurable acts into…

SE: That goes back to a Lenny Bruce bit where people shouldn’t yell FUCK YOU! to people, they should yell UN-FUCK YOU!
LC: Yeah! He had a very good point! Absolutely.

SE: So, what would you say was your first break?
LC: I guess when I was doing CK Strong.  I met Harold Robbins and he decided that I was a female writer of songs, like he was a male writer of books, and he was going to do something with me, and that didn’t pan out, but he gave us a couple hundred dollars to tide us over. And we played at the Sea Witch.  Jim Morrison came in and threw up. He was drunk. (Laughs)

SE: As always.
LC: Yeah, he was a sweet kid but boy, was he mixed up! But then I guess we all were. Then after that I met Neil Merryweather at a job. He had just done the album “Word Of Mouth” on Capitol with a bunch of really good musicians, and he had these great musicians from Canada, and I thought that this guy was really good, and he could sing as high as I could. And so I immediately got into competing with him. I was totally insecure and was for many, many years and he put together another jam album called “Ivar Avenue Reunion” with Barry Goldberg, and Charlie Musclewhite on RCA. And at the same time we did that we started an album of our own at a studio called Paramount, not affiliated with Paramount studios. And it turned out really well and we pitched that to RCA, and then did an album called “Vacuum Cleaner”.  God knows why it was called that, and for both of those albums I was wearing this gigantic afro wig that was so large that had it been real I probably would’ve fallen over! (Laughs).. It was really bizarre. The two albums were really good musically, “Vacuum Cleaner” was excellent I thought.  Kim Fowley did a very bizarre little intro thing on that.  Do you know Kim Fowley?

SE: Yeah, he’s a little bizarre anyway isn’t he?
LC: Oh yeah, yeah. He discovered The Runaways. I met him at a bus stop when I was fifteen and took him home to meet Mom and Dad. (Laughs) Every parent’s nightmare! (Laughs) He wasn’t a boyfriend, he was just a friend, and he was taking me to some parties, and I was meeting these people and of course I told them all just how old I was…. Actually I didn’t. Jim Mitchum’s father, Bob, had told everybody  “SHE’S FIFTEEN, HANDS OFF!!” (Laughs) So, of course no one went near me.. which was a really good thing. I didn’t know that at the time.

SE: So, you did these other albums before the Mama Lion thing?
LC: Yeah. CK Strong was the first in 1969.

SE: That’s pretty good, cuttin’ records by the time you’re nineteen, or twenty.
LC: Well, I was doing TV shows and modeling by the time I was fourteen.

SE: So, that kinda put your foot in the door then.
LC: Well, Dad didn’t really want me to do that much. He was pretty scared. He didn’t want me to go through everything I went through.

SE: Did you ever have any schooling to help get that powerhouse voice of yours?
LC: No.  I had about nine lessons from Dad’s teacher, and I just always had a knack for singing. I started out singing jazz. I tried out at Ye Little Club… Dad took me there and I sang “The Trolley Song” for the guy who wrote it, and he thought that I was as good as Garland, and I was just floored! I was so pleased. And I tried to sing there and they found out of course that I was underage and that put the kibosh on that! I did sing with a big band at the Hotel Del Cornado and sang “Cry Me A River” and “Lulu’s Back In Town” when I was fifteen. (Laughs) Dad was there and I got up with the big band  and sang.

SE: So, Mama Lion was after all of those other records?
LC: It was CK Strong, then Ivar Avenue Reunion with Neil Merryweather then Vacuum Cleaner, which was Neil and I and some really good musicians… Cal David was on one of the tracks, “So Fine”.  He was a really great guitar player.

SE: Mama Lion was right before, or right after “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”?
LC: No, actually CK Strong was at the same time as “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”, Mama Lion was later in 1973. My manager was Bob Fitzpatrick, who was at that time in partnership with Robert Stigwood, who was a big heavyweight, who was handling Cream, Buddy Miles, a whole bunch of people. I used to go over to Thee Experience and jam with them and Hendrix, and Rick James, who was a friend of Neil Merryweather’s.  They’re both from Canada.  They had a group called Salt and Pepper for a while. Anyway, that was really pretty amazing.  Those people were so sweet, and so messed up! And God! I got to jam with Edgar Winter and Johnny Winter, who I just love!

SE: “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”.. how did you get that gig to do the soundtrack?
LC: Stu Phillips was doing the music and he decided that he wanted a singer who could really belt, and had a great range, and a really incredible, exciting sound and Bob Stigwood, and Bob Fitzpatrick suggested me. And I came in and sang for him in the office, and went to his house and immediately wrote “Find It”. Russ Meyer wanted me to try out for the movie (Laughs) because I’m rather well endowed in that way, and I just wasn’t ready for that.

SE: While working on the soundtrack did you have many people from the movie breathing down your neck like Roger Ebert…
LC: No, the girls came in one day and one of the actresses Dolly said “Gosh! with our looks and your voice we could really go somewhere!” and I thought… “Whoa, wait a minute!”

SE: (Laughs)
LC: What do you mean your looks! I don’t want your looks! (Laughing)

SE: Exactly! It was so strange to hear that voice coming out of Dolly Reed’s mouth.
LC: Oh I love it! It’s wonderful. Cynthia’s a sweetheart.

SE: Yes she is.
LC: She’s always really sweet.

SE: But did you ever hang out on the set?
LC: No, I was busy working with CK Strong, and working on this Ivar Avenue Reunion project. We did this stuff very quickly. I wrote the songs very quickly. I was just so pleased to work with studio musicians and not have to wait around for guys smoking joints, and playing wrong notes. And in CK Strong, the musicians weren’t that good, they were always out of tune and it drove me crazy! But it was a pretty good little blues band.

SE: So how did it happen that someone else wound up singing on the LP version of the soundtrack for the movie?
LC: Because Barbra Streisand was in the middle of a lawsuit between Epic records, and Twentieth. Either her manager wanted something that they didn’t want… I’m not sure of the particulars, but because Epic and Twentieth were in a lawsuit they didn’t want to let me, being signed to Epic, record for Twentieth. They wouldn’t let me do it. And so Twentieth just said “Well, forget this! We’ll just find somebody to imitate her.”.

SE: And who did they find?
LC: A girl named Ami Rushes. And she imitated my voice.

SE: Yeah, I know that when I finally found a copy of that soundtrack, I played it and thought that it didn’t have as much kick to it as the versions of the songs in the movie.
LC: That’s why. And I was really upset! It was the first time I came into close contact with the corporate world where they really don’t give a damn about the artist! I mean, they were dealing with Streisand, I meant nothing to them. It was just a way to be annoying to Twentieth Century because they weren’t giving them what they wanted for Streisand.

SE: But your name is all over the album.
LC: They also didn’t give me the correct credit. I don’t know where the contract is, I used to have a copy of it, but that contract clearly stated that I was supposed to get screen credit for doing the singing. And they never gave me the credit.  They put me down as vocal coordinator, or vocal coach or something like that.

SE: At the end credits?
LC: Yeah, they didn’t want people to know… like they couldn’t tell (laughs).. that the girls weren’t singing. Or maybe they were pissed at me because of what went on between Epic, and Twentieth. It really kind of soured me for a while. I couldn’t understand… I’d never been stepped on before.

SE: And you wrote two songs for the film right?
LC: Yeah, I co-wrote them with Stu. Stu is a sweetheart, he’s always been wonderful.

SE: Did you notice that on the video version of the movie that the song “Once I Had a Love” was cut?
LC: Yes I did. I wondered why.

SE: I can’t understand why they cut that scene out of the video.
LC: I can’t either. With all the other stuff in that film, I can’t see how that scene could have been objectionable, or maybe it was too long or… I don’t know. Who knows what goes on.

SE: Did you go to any of the cast parties, and wrap parties…
LC: No.

SE: You just laid your tracks and went home?
LC: Yep.

SE: That’s not very L.A. of you.
LC: (Laughs) I know! I know.

SE: But you were involved with Lance Rock (Michael Blodgett) himself for a while weren’t you?
LC:  Uh yeah, we went out for a little while. Mom and I used to double date with him and a friend of his.

SE: Really?
LC: (Laughs) This was way later.

SE: You mean after the movie?
LC: Oh yeah.

SE: How much later?
LC: Oh, let’s see, six years later.

SE: Now that was in say, the late 70’s. Is that when you started working behind the scenes, and did music for other projects?
LC: Yeah. In the 80’s actually.

SE: What did you work on then?
LC: Let’s see, I did a song in (Russ Meyer’s) “Seven Minutes” a film that Russ adapted from the Irving Wallace book. I did the vocal on the featured song in that film, and another song that wasn’t used. I did songs for different TV pilots, I did the singing for “Cagney and Lacy” for a year.  I did songs for the TV movie “Centerfold”, “Combat High”, “Paper dolls”, sound alike vocals for various TV shows covering songs like “Borderline”, “Lucky Star”, “Crazy For You”, ”Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, “Old Cape Cod”, the TV movie “Challenge Of A Lifetime”. I sang some things for German television, and French producers.. I sang background for Eric Burdon on an album. I also had a career as a big band singer, singing with Lester Lanin’s band, Woody Herman’s big band, etc. I also did acting in films like “Lord Love A Duck”, “Seven Minutes”, and TV shows like “Lassie”, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”, “Run For Your Life”, “Wild, Wild, West”, “The Donna Reed Show”, “The Day’s Of Our Lives”.

SE: When were you on the Donna Reed show? Was it an early episode, or a later one?
LC: I don’t remember. (Laughs) All I know is that I played a French girl.

SE: I must’ve seen you. I used to watch that show’s reruns all the time when I was a kid.
LC: I didn’t watch that much TV. I was reading Edgar Allen Poe all the time.

SE: Ahh, a goth girl eh?
LC: Yes I was, very goth… I was actually… I thought it was very romantic.

SE: Now you’ve been in all these different bands, and have played all these different kinds of music.. are you afraid that all of these fans of “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls” are going to look at you as only the “Find It” girl?
LC: No, because nobody knows who it is. I’d love to have them find me the way I am.  I am who I am, and I’ve done what I’ve done…

SE: But you probably don’t want the kids who have just discovered that movie and only want to see you as that 70’s campy, rock singer like the character in the movie…
LC: Oh, I don’t care.  It’d be fun. And besides that I found that when I was doing colleges, and touring with the L.A. Jazz choir,  people went crazy for jazz stuff! And you do what people want when they want it and then gradually they learn to love the things that you love and you crosslink to people that love what you love. It all works out. It’s no big deal.  I don’t know why people get uptight about stuff like that. Anything that gives me an entre back into life where I am a full participant is a welcome, and much appreciated occurrence for me.

SE: You’re right, that nowadays more so than in the 80’s younger people adapt to a lot of different styles of music much easier.
LC: Are you kidding? Rap, and all sorts of things…they’ve got jazz influences, R & B, poetry, it’s all happening! I love what kids are interested in. I think that they’re so educated today, and so open-minded. And I love it that… you know, I’m vintage! Hey! (Laughs)

SE: Yeah, vintage yet still hip.
LC: It’s really nice. I appreciate it.

SE: And you have a recent album that you’ll soon have for sale on your website?
LC: Yes, “Good Times” on Big Blonde Records. An album which was done with musicians that I went to music school with at Dick —- School of Music. I decided that it was about time that at age thirty I should learn what I was doing. (Laughs) I met some really nice people and we started making music together.

SE: Now since you’re still friends with Stu Phillips, would you be able to go into the vaults and unearth some tapes and do a compilation or something?
LC: I am hoping that we can do that! God, it would be so nice. Plus there’s a couple of tunes that we did that they didn’t use for “Dolls“ and “Even Minutes” that are really cool.

SE: I was just thinking that you wrote that song “Find It“.  Do you get compensated from the video sales?
LC: (Laughs) Hardly anything. I wouldn’t say anything more than ten dollars over all this time. 

SE: That’s insane! Especially with how many copies that video has sold to rental stores alone.
LC: Nothin’.

SE: I think it’s time to call your brother.
LC: No, he doesn’t do that type of law. I called BMI at one point and they said, “We do spot checks, and we just didn’t check the portions of the country that you were being played in.” (Laughs) Actually, I think that Twentieth owns the publishing to that song so, for me it’s just a writing credit. An album has to be really big… I made more money on stuff that I released myself on Big Blonde Records than I ever made from anything I did off of a major label. And that is not right! Boy, I was naive!

SE: Well, when you’re dealing with record companies…
LC: Oh I can’t believe the whole record company thing. I don’t know of any other business where they sign somebody to work for them, and the person has to pay all of their own expenses, and then only gets one percent of everything that the company who hired him gets in return. After you get five percent for a group, which was the going rate, and everybody in the groups split it up, and most groups were five people, you get one percent each. After you pay for all of the studio costs, all the promotional costs, and every other expense they can think of. So, you never make any money. I don’t know what people are talking about, how Napster is so bad.  I mean, I would love to be on Napster and have people just hear some samples of what I do.

SE: So many artists today are doing it all themselves with the help of the internet that pretty soon there won’t be any more record companies.
LC: Well, the only thing that you would need a record company for would be promotion, and distribution. But distribution of what? Of something that you’re not going to make a cent off of? The only thing it’s good for is promotion.

SE: But the web reaches the masses… Doesn’t it?
LC: Right, it’s amazing!

SE: Speaking of record companies, did you make one or two albums with Mama Lion?
LC: Two. “Give It Everything I’ve Got” was the second album. And on its cover I was clothed from neck to toe. (Laughs)

SE: That must be why I can’t remember that one!
LC: Right.

SE: So when you write, what do you write on?… A guitar or…?
LC: I use a piano.  I usually collaborate though.

SE: Who did Mama Lion tour with?
LC: Mostly it was just Mama Lion. That’s it.

SE: No openers or anything like that?
LC: Not that I can remember. (Laughs) Actually, I remember doing one concert with Genya Ravan, in Mexico… somewhere near a big desert. (Laughs)

SE: I think there was a stage.
LC: There was a stage because the guitar player took a leak off of it. I remember it was time for his solo and I’m like, “WHAT THE..?!”   (Laughs)

SE: This is my solo man.
LC: (Laughs) Right.

SE: Did you pose for both Playboy, and Penthouse?
LC: No, but I was in Oui, which belongs to Playboy, I think, with my clothes on. (smile)

SE: Oh.
LC: It was a really good picture! A photographer by the name of Andy Su took it. He was wonderful. So talented and easy to work with. And I was in Penthouse. I was a Penthouse pet of the month for December 1972. I didn’t go into stores for two months! I was so embarrassed!

SE: (Laughs)
LC: Bob Guccione did the photographs. He was a really nice man and really liked my singing and songwriting and he had said that he was going to back Mama Lion with a lot of money and promote me. Unfortunately, the deal fell through.

SE: You know, for growing up in this business and living in L.A. all your life, you’re a pretty down-to-earth lady.
LC: My dad was a pretty big star and he never had an attitude. When I was first starting and he realized that I wasn’t going to be dissuaded from the business he said, “Don’t ever have an attitude, because no matter if you become really famous or whatever, it changes so quickly. And even if it doesn’t change and you’re really lucky… you’re just really lucky! There are so many talented people, and you’re depending on so many people to do what you do that you can’t afford to piss anybody off. Always be positive. Life’s much more pleasant that way.”

SE: I’m sure that you saw quite a few rock and roll casualties throughout the 70’s and 80’s. You’ve even mentioned that you almost became one yourself?
LC: I had a problem with alcohol… did I ever! I was awful.

SE: Fun!
LC: I had no idea that it would get that way… and it got that way. Even in my teens I was an alcoholic. But everyone around me was, so I didn’t know that it was a sickness; I just knew that nothing seemed to work. But that’s the only thing I knew, and I couldn’t figure it out. And I had a good mind, I wasn’t stupid, but I was stupid in that regard. It really is a sickness. Sometimes it makes me very sad that no one knew those things back then. From everything that has been studied, it is a disease. People who are alcoholics and addicted react differently to the same things. But, you know, when I was working, that was pretty much all I needed… the work. I never used anything when I performed. It was afterward that I did. I mean, when I’m making music, that always gets me higher than anything! But I never put two and two together.

SE: How was life on the road with Mama Lion?
LC: I remember I once went to Switzerland to perform there and we got snowed in. We were snowed in with Deep Purple, and some other groups, and they kept telling me what beautiful big brown eyes I had, and I thought that they were being so nice, and they were laughing like crazy! Then I found out that big, beautiful brown eyes meant big breasts! (laughs)

SE: Nice.
LC: There was some group that I ran into in Germany while I was touring. I was standing out in front of the hotel and they thought I was German, and were trying to pick me up. I had my long blonde hair in braids, and they were trying to speak really bad German to me and I just let ’em go on for about fifteen minutes, and then I finally looked at them and I said, “You doofusses! I’m American!” (laughs) What I did sometimes was, because I didn’t know that I had a drinking problem but I knew that sometimes I would pass out from drinking, I’d put safety pins all up the zipper of my pants, so that in order for a guy to get into my pants he would probably prick his finger with one of the safety pins and would yelp and say “Ow!” rather loudly and I’d wake up and stop whatever was going on! (laughs)

SE: How crafty!
LC: That was my chastity belt. On one of the tours I did I followed Tina Turner. She was on tour ahead of me. I got her sound system after she used it, and that was really nice. I played on the bill with Johnny Holliday at the Olympia Theatre when I was touring in France. That was a big dream of mine to play the Olympia. I saw Genesis perform there. They were amazing.

SE: So tours were just Mama Lion then, no package tours?
LC: I wanted to. I don’t know why our manager didn’t do it. But he did do some great stuff for us, you know? I really never could understand why Mama Lion didn’t become huge. I mean, the poster alone could’ve made a fortune! But it was never marketed. You know what I think may have happened? There was an oil crisis at the time and Family Records was part of Paramount, which was a subsidiary of Gulf and Western, and I think it was a big tax write-off for the oil company. I mean, Sunshine Records, Michael Lange’s Woodstock label was on there, Family Records with Billy Joel and me on there, Melanie
was on there, and everything went down the tubes! I remember one time Billy Joel talked to me after I had wanted to do some songs of mine that Neil Merryweather had been rather nasty about. We had the ever-popular bottle of Jack Daniels and we sat in Artie Ripp’s office, which was in his house that had been painted by The Foole with all sorts of psychedelic murals, and we talked and drank and Billy was so nice. He was really a good person, very simpatico… and so talented. It just blew me away. I showed Billy some of my poems and he said, “God, this is amazing stuff! What’s with this guy Neil that he’s treating you like dirt? You shouldn’t let him.”  I really regret the fact that I was so out of it, and so addled, that I never kept contact with people like that. I mean I just had nothing on the ball business-wise. I didn’t know how to network; I was so involved in my own situation.

SE: I’m sure that he’d remember you today.
LC: You think so?

SE: Sure. If you think about it, there weren’t that many female lead singers in bands back then. You mentioned to me that you once tangoed with Arthur Brown?
LC: Yeah, I was just wondering what happened to him.

SE: I don’t know but his first album was great!
LC: What was it called? Was it The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown?

SE: Yeah.
LC: He really was a character! Oh, let me tell you my Frank Zappa story.

SE: Okay.
LC: When I was in CK Strong, one of the first gigs we ever did… I think Ten Years After was there… we played a club called the Cheetah in Venice, California, on the pier. There were three stages at The Cheetah. It was a huge club. Frank Zappa was there that night. It was one of my first experiences ever on stage in a big, big hall. The sound was like being inside a garbage can. There was so much echo; it was really hard to hear. Anyway, during one song I decided to play the maracas and I had never played them before. The band had said, “Play something besides the tambourine, you’re always playing the tambourine.” So I picked up the maracas and, not knowing how to play them, I hit them together! I had on this black mini-dress with black tights and black boots. I always wore all black. And, of course, maracas are full of white powder and seeds…

SE: Right.
LC: And it got all over me! And Zappa thought it was the best thing he’d ever seen!

SE: (Laughs.)
LC: He thought that was the greatest! I don’t know if he knew that I was so stupid that I didn’t do it on purpose.(laughs) But he thought it was very hip … and I never told him the truth!

SE: That’s a great story. Tambourine and maracas, if you know what you’re doing…
LC: Oh now I know how to play them, now I love playing them, yes!  I love percussion instruments. But most drummers I’ve known have said they usually don’t like women playing percussion if it’s just for something to do on stage.  But I do have a good sense of rhythm. When I first started playing I’d be told, “Oh God, you can’t do that!” And then the drummer would say, “It’s okay, it’s cool. She knows where the ‘one’ is.”

SE: You had a pretty cool look which is what most girls look like now. They all look like they just walked off the set of “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”.
LC: (laughs) Well, that really is a very hip look now. The Nancy Sinatra look. But she wore white. I wore black. But, though I wasn’t aware of it then, she did it first

SE: You don’t smoke, do you?
LC: Oh no, I gave it up. Actually, I don’t remember when I gave it up. (laughs) That’s how out of it I was on the Valium I was taking for muscle spasms and back pain. I kept dropping cigarettes. There was a little corner of the kitchen… I used to sit in this one little corner and accidentally drop cigarettes. So I had to get the floor replaced. I’m lucky I didn’t set myself on fire. So I gave up smoking.

SE: Well, when you were vocalizing last night, you sounded just like you sounded thirty years ago.
LC: My voice got way, way better the more I sang. When I was in Mama Lion. I couldn’t sing for more than an hour!

SE: Because you were beltin’ so hard?
LC: Yeah. And I was drinking so hard, and I was smoking then, too. And doing cocaine, which is wonderful for the voice!

SE: (Laughs.)
LC: But no more. Never again.

SE: What, you weren’t gargling battery acid, too?
LC: Just about. What with the smog here!

SE: That song “Sister, Sister” from the first Mama Lion album, did you write that?
LC: Yeah.

SE: Well, you co-wrote it right?
LC: I wrote it with the guitar players and Artie Ripp, who came up with one or two lines and the idea to do it.

SE: Let me ask you this, did you always see him only with one hand on the console?
LC: (laughs) Oh God!

SE: It’s almost like, let’s come up with something that won’t get any airplay whatsoever! A song with a topic (lesbianism) that no top-40 station would touch with a ten-foot pole!
LC: Yeah. And recording the song “Be Bad With Me” was hysterical! We’d be all night in the studio. Artie would make me do … I think one time he had me do over 130 takes of a song. It was either “Mr. Invitation” or some other difficult song. I mean, why do you think my voice was cracking and rasping? I was in pain! And he just loved it, being this taskmaster who was controlling this ship of fools.  That was the image of a rock and roll producer. He wasn’t very old at the time; he was in his thirties or something. He was as messed up as we were!  But he was very successful at what he did. He discovered The
Lovin Spoonful, Melanie, Billy Joel, and he did those bubble gum records with Buddha. He has an amazing history, Artie Ripp does. So anyway, on the song “Be Bad With Me” he spent hours and hours, because there weren’t all of these sounds like we have today. Synthesizers were in their infancy. He spent hours in the studio trying to approximate the sound of a whip. Finally, he ended up whipping the Hammond B-3 with his belt, and he couldn’t get the timing right between drawing his arm back and hitting the leather on the wood… he couldn’t do it! (laughs) But he wouldn’t stop trying! It was just tedious. It’s funny looking back on it, but it was like, “Oh, my God!”

SE: What was the “Sister, Sister” session like?
LC: He actually sent me a young woman one night at the studio!

SE: Talk about you wanting to live the song!
LC: I felt so bad for the girl.  I just said, “Look, please go home.” (laughs) “I’m really sorry.” I felt badly and I don’t like to see people being treated like objects. And when we toured, women would approach me because of the song. The band was always like, “Hey, look at these chicks!” And finally it got to be “Yeah, look at the chicks. They’re probably here for Lynn.” And they usually were! I had no idea that people would take that song so seriously. It was very nice, but I had this one young girl come to me in Canada at the hotel after we’d played at the Colonial in Toronto, and she said she was in love with me and had this big crush. She brought her mother’s jewelry with her for me. She robbed her mother! Came back with her mother’s jewelry and wanted me to take her across the border. (laughs) And I’m just going, “Oooh, aahhh, okay, calm down … time to call Mom and go home. I don’t want to go to jail!” (laughs) “You can write me, sweetheart.” (laughs)

SE: Were there any unreleased tracks from those two Mama Lion albums?
LC: I know that Artie Ripp has the last recording I did as Mama Lion, which was never released. It was a version of “Heartbreak Hotel” that is just gut-wrenching! My throat was just ripped. It’s quite impressive for pain level alone. (laughs) I’d love to see it released if he still has it. He may have thrown it out, though.  I don’t know.

SE: Since you were on a somewhat independent label, did they have your best interest at heart?
LC: Well, they said that they were taking all the risks, but the way they wrote the contracts, they took no risks! Every expense was a tax write-off.  I can’t even believe that they thought that we should be so grateful. When I read the contract, I was just so furious! I didn’t know what to do about it. Everybody said that I couldn’t change it. The only thing I kept was half the publishing, and my songwriting. I got about five cents off of every album, but out of that five cents I had to pay back all studio costs and anything that Artie Ripp spent on the band and himself.  He stayed in the presidential suite everywhere he went; first class accommodations for the record executives, managers, and producer …even friends of the producer. Everybody got the gravy. And after all that was paid off, we’d have had to have had a platinum album to make anything.

SE: And even then.
LC: And even then it was even doubtful!

SE: There are a lot of million-selling artists filing for bankruptcy.
LC: Rocket Records offered me a contract. I had this really cool album put together in the 80’s. They wanted all of the publishing, and they wanted to give me a half-penny per record. And I was like … forget it! What do I need this for?  I mean, I was ready to just write off all of my early records, but then I thought, “Wait a minute! I wrote most of those songs on all of those albums, where the heck is my money?”  I tried to look into it and, boy, was that a revelation.

SE: Record companies are the root of all evil!
LC: Not really. It’s no good to wonder why, it’s just how it was. I wasn’t resourceful enough, business-wise, or sober enough to do anything about it.

SE: Didn’t the first album have a billboard on Sunset?
LC: Yeah, it did. It was a picture of me jumping up in the air dressed in blue velvet, and it looked like I was wielding a whip, but it was a mic chord. It was on the corner where that moose is (laugh). Near Crescent Heights and Sunset. There was a big one on the side of the Whiskey, too. When I was in Europe, my posters were everywhere. It was amazing. They really did a good job there. The record company people, promotional people and journalists there were wonderful.  I would love to work with people like that again. It’s happening, too.

SE: In the 70’s and 80’s when you were doing more jazz and big band singing, did you ever get into the Vegas scene at all?
LC: No, but it would have been great. It was a little bit scary to me, though, with all the bright lights and big hotels. My dad took me there for my fourteenth birthday. He took me to see Peggy Lee and boy was she incredible! I remember her singing “Fever” and the spotlight closing on her hand with that tiny pin spot, as she was snapping her fingers at the end of the song. It was so cool! Las Vegas is great for so many performers.

SE: What’s left of it.
LC: Now it seems to be like a kind of a polyester Disneyland for adults. They’ve changed it so, all these garish huge hotels imitating places in the world. Only in America, where we are the king of bad taste!

SE: Where were the Mama Lion albums recorded at?
LC: At the Record Plant.  I met Stevie Wonder there.  I was in awe of him!  It was like being in the presence of God! To walk into that studio and there he was, behind the board, swaying to the music, and he knew that I’d entered the room. Everything was on full blast and somehow he knew that the energy had changed in the room, that someone had come in. He stopped, and he said, “Who walked in?” I was just so stunned to be there in his presence! (laugh)

SE: What can you say about Stevie Wonder!
LC: A genius. A gift from God.

SE: Should you start work on another album soon, which genre would you be exploring next?
LC: Well, if left to my own devices, I’m all over the map, so I’m hoping that I will be directed by what people want. I love rock and jazz and rhythm and blues. I see them inextricably intertwined. I really love all types of music, but those are my favorites. And if the retro stuff is back, that’s great, too. As long as the music is good, I love it. But, really, I’m hoping to be directed by the reaction I get. “Good Times” is with Ollie Mitchell and a twenty-piece band, doing rock and roll, rhythm and blues kind of stuff.  It has an amazing, monster sound. It was so cool! And the other stuff on there was bluesy torch, and be-bop jazz. My newest project, with PaulSurdin and his Toronto-based company, Music Unlimited, is more into the rock sound that Mama Lion was famous for.

SE: And then you have the “Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls” soundtrack where you scream out those songs! Do you ever pop in that movie and watch it every once in a while?
LC: That was a very gory movie. I couldn’t watch parts of it, it scared me! I’m such a wuss when it comes to violence. I couldn’t watch all that decapitation and mutilation stuff. It was frightening! I love the rest of it, though. Very funny stuff.

SE: But I guess that soundtrack helped keep your voice stretched out enough for the Mama Lion sessions.
LC: I loved doing that soundtrack. Working with Stu Phillips and for Russ Meyer was really great. Everyone was so professional. I remember the second Mama Lion record that we did, the producer accidentally erased the some of the lead vocals when he was mixing it and they had to use ghost tracks. I was in France when he was mixing it and he played it to me over the phone. Everybody was so stoned then, I’m surprised that anything survived!

SE: Since you and Billy Joel were attached to the same management, did you ever do any shows together?
LC: I toured through Europe with Billy. Billy sure knew more than I did! I was really being good in not ordering stuff from room service, because I didn’t want the record company to have a lot of charges. He found out and he was like, “You idiot! Spend some money! Have a good time.” (laughs)

SE: What year was that?
LC: 1972. I did Penthouse during that tour.

SE: And he was just starting out at that time?
LC: Yeah, actually he had already done one or two rock albums before “Cold Spring Harbor”, and when Artie Ripp ran it off in the studio, the machine was calibrated wrong, and Billy came out sounding like a chipmunk! He hated what happened to that album! Everybody was always doing something. I remember one night we were recording and all the machines went down. A little seed of grass had rolled into something on the console and stopped everything! (laughs) One little grass seed.  Sheesh!

SE: Were there any other outrageous album cover ideas?
LC: Boy, were there! For the second album, Artie took us to Western Costume and we tried on a lot of crazy stuff. He settled on having me outfitted as Wonder Woman. The guys all had rabbit masks on and were attacking me in a kind of sexual way. That was the front cover. On the back cover, they were all passed out on the floor, exhausted, and there I was, Wonder Woman, standing there stronger than ever, with a big, wicked smile on my face. Another cover concept was Neil Merryweather’s. All the guys were made up as extreme sexual versions of the characters from A Clockwork Orange. We were standing in a line facing the camera. I was in the center, sitting at a table with both hands grasping a huge phallus shaped like a piece of raw meat. I was biting into it and the blood was running down my arms. It was really bizarre. At that time, the album was to have been called “Raw Meat”. Somewhere, there are great photos of those two shoots, along with a second Mama Lion shoot featuring me and an older lion cub …the same one from the “Preserve Wildlife” cover. Another concept was Artie Ripp’s again. He wanted the guys to be tiny characters running through a big picture of my pubic hair. That was way too much. I said, “No way!” There was never a photo session for that one. Needless to say, the record company thought we’d all lost our minds. I ended up doing a photo in a dress of mine that covered me from head to toe. (laugh)

SE: You’ve got a few pretty amazing stories, one of them is about an encounter you had with one of my personal heroes Harpo Marx.
LC: He was the most wonderful man. I always felt like a bit of an outsider. This started when I was very young. Kids pick up on that. My neighbors were older kids and they used to make fun of me because I was such a bookworm and wore glasses and orthopedic shoes and braces. I was a nerd. One day they had chased me and I ran up the block and across the street and hid in the bushes underneath the window of a big house. As I hid, I heard harp music. I guess I started singing. A man heard me, opened the window, and asked me to come in. He was so kind. He asked me if I wanted to listen to him play and to sing with him. I was shy, but I loved the music and I loved to sing, so I did. He told me I had the gift of music and that I had a beautiful voice and to be grateful and happy about it. I felt safe then. It was a very important moment for me. The man was Harpo Marx. I will always love him for that.

SE: You knew Harry Shearer?
LC: Harry was my neighbor when I was married to Arthur Mortimer, the muralist. I would pass his house on the way to ours and would hear him playing bass. Why, I wondered, was he practicing the bass? It later developed that he, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean had come up with this great idea to form a group and do a take-off on heavy metal music and that whole scene. He played me some of the stuff they wrote and performed, and it was hysterical. Spinal Tap is the best. I love them! We traded albums. He was married then to a singer, Penny Nichols, who was signed to Artie Ripp before me. Small
world!

SE: Another story is about the guy who wrote Three’s Company.
LC: Right. Another neighbor of ours was one of the writers for the show, “Three’s Company”.  His fiance never left the house or answered their door unless she was beautifully made up and nicely dressed. One day, he needed to borrow some olive oil and rang our front doorbell. I was alone in the house and was getting ready for a photo shoot later in the day. I had on a tatty old bathrobe, fuzzy slippers, curlers in my hair and a skin mask on my face. The look on his face when I answered the door was priceless! He was speechless. I took in his expression, put one hand on my hip and said in a low, strong voice: “Penthouse … the aftermath!” We laughed about it for weeks.

SE: And last but not least, your Led Zeppelin kidnapping story!
LC: Oh yeah.  I was at the Roxy after living in France for a while. Actually, I was at On The Rox, and I was walking by one of the tables and Ahmet Ertegun was sitting there with the guys from Led Zeppelin.  Their drummer, John Bonham, picked me up and just swung me over the back of the seats right into the booth! So I was sitting there with everybody, and Ahmet said something bizarre about an incident when he and Artie Ripp and Michael Lang, who was one of the organizers of Woodstock, had visited me in Paris. The guys cut in and said that John had a crush on me, so why didn’t I visit them? I thought, “Well, this is interesting.” So they decided to go back to the Riot House, which is what everybody called the Hyatt House back then, which is where they were staying. We all piled into a limo and went to the hotel. I had my little briefcase with me … it was a little black suitcase I used to take everywhere … and in it I had some nude shots that I had done, which I had forgotten I had put in there, plus my poetry and drawings. I had on my black tuxedo; I always wore black. I ended up in John Bonham’s room. The floor was practically covered with cases of Don Peringnon, and the bottles were all open! I thought, “What a waste! I could never drink all of these!” (laughs)  I couldn’t understand why they opened all of them. Anyway, John wanted me to sleep with him, and I didn’t want to. He couldn’t understand that and he was just kind of raging, and he came running at me like a big bull! At the time I had been studying ju-jitsu for some movie role I was trying out for, and I flipped him! At that very moment, the band opened the door to the suite and they witnessed this. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant just fell out! They thought it was the greatest thing they’d ever seen! Evidently, John liked to do this; he liked to terrorize girls. And they watched me toss him over my hip, and they just applauded. Obviously, I thought it would be best to leave the scene at the time because John was rather upset (laughs). But he had taken my briefcase and found the nudes. Yikes! So we went up to this other suite and I told Jimmy and Robert that I wanted my briefcase back.  Bonham had taken my briefcase hostage, with the nude pictures, and I wanted those pictures, my pen and ink drawings, and my poetry back. At the same time, some other rock group in the hotel had kidnapped a senator’s daughter, and the police were all over the place! So I said, “My godfather is Paul Caruso, the famous lawyer, and if you do anything, I’m just gonna bust your …” I blustered my way through everything and the guys thought it was funny and proceeded to try to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, Robert Plant walks up to me while I’m sitting on the couch, discussing poetry with Jimmy Page, and he says to me, “Well, so you’re known for your tits?  I’m known for my cock! How does it feel, love?” (laughs) I just thought, “What a flaming asshole!”  It was a pretty funny remark, though. Jimmy Page was really nice.  He read some of my poetry afterward when I got my little suitcase back and seemed to like it. Yes, they got the briefcase back for me … finally! Bonham was having a temper tantrum and didn’t want to give it back for a long time, though. (laughs) So we sat up there and talked and snorted some coke while we were waiting, and Ahmet came up and tried to be nice. He had a very difficult time doing that for longer than two seconds with me for some reason. (laughs) Ahmet’s a funny guy. He’s quite a character. I like him and think he’s an amazing man. Later that week, my little brother got to go to one of Led Zeppelin’s concerts at the Forum, too. So that was a pretty cool little episode.

SE: I have to agree! And thank you so much for all the time you’ve spent with me!