A fixture in the music and club scenes since the 1960s, musician, groupie, and PR woman extraordinaire Vanilla takes readers on a wild romp through her drug- and sex-filled life. Born Kathleen Dorritie in Queens in 1943, Vanilla loved music from an early age and would often accompany her parents to the Copacabana in Manhattan, where she once met Dean Martin. Raucous parties--often fueled by acid and pot--were a fixture of her life in the '60s, as she dabbled in DJing in clubs and built an advertising career on Madison Avenue. In 1970, Vanilla had "a rock and roll revelation": she wanted to become a groupie, even though she was "already a twenty-six-year-old businesswoman of sorts." This led to trysts with musicians like Kris Kristofferson and David Bowie, whom she helped introduce to American audiences. As punk music began to overtake glam rock, Vanilla launched her own music career and briefly toured in the U.K., with the Police as her backup band, and later in the U.S. Vanilla's voice is distinctively sassy, despite her conventional storytelling methods, and her memoir is an entertaining peek into music's backstage world. (Nov.)
Vanilla personified the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll of the Sixties and Seventies, and she here reveals an astounding array of details about her life during those turbulent times. Onstage, she starred in the Andy Warhol production of Pork. She steeped herself in rock 'n' roll and toured with the Police. A poet, singer, DJ, songwriter, publicity rep, groupie, and more, Vanilla was linked with David Bowie, Kris Kristofferson, and scores of others—the list reading like a who's who of the times with absorbing and titillating behind-the-scenes anecdotes. She survived untold highs and lows battling drugs and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet the heart of this story is how and why a little girl from Queens, NY, evolved into a larger-than-life celebrity. Tales of an insensitive father, a compassionate mother whose night job as a telephone operator provided Vanilla with a glimpse into the Copacabana, and youthful capers will engage readers from the beginning, offering a thought-provoking, bittersweet prelude to the mayhem that follows. VERDICT This brutally honest, engagingly written, and often raw memoir of a pop-culture icon reflects a bygone generation.—Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ
Raucus, sexy memoir by the sensation-seeking pioneer of punk rock.
Cherry Vanilla, born Kathleen Anne Dorritie in 1943, was the youngest of four children of a brutal sanitation worker and indulgent hotel-switchboard operator. After graduating from a Catholic school in Brooklyn, she went on the prowl in Manhattan for sex, drugs rock 'n' roll and a way to make a buck using her street smarts and creative spirit. She first found haven among the Mad Men in ad agencies—mostly of the gay male persuasion—but soon finagled her way into spinning records at a chic nightclub called Aux Puces. She fell into acting for the Ridiculous Theater Company, setting her up to win the lead part in the London production of Andy Warhol's first theater piece,Pork, based on his lurid phone conversations with Factory "superstar" Brigid Berlin. There, she had a prescient appreciation for David Bowie, whom she would befriend, bed and help get known in America. Meanwhile, the author applied her insatiable appetite for sex—which inspired her to print come-on cards with her number on them to hand to handsome strangers wherever she found them—to a lifestyle she felt a calling for: groupie. The narrative occasionally devolves into a recitation of people that Cherry Vanilla has met (Don Ameche, Dean Martin, Abbie Hoffman, John Lennon, etc.) and had sex with (John Hammond, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Keys, Cousin Brucie, etc.). Her observations on the '60s ("the fabulous psychedelic decade that we already sensed would go down in history as the defining one of our generation") are often clichéd and perfunctory, though this may be a factor of her having spent so many of those years stoned out of her gourd. The most affecting sections deal with her working-class childhood, but throughout, the author's salty sweetness and lust for life exude from the pages.
Not for prudes.
"Reading Lick Me is much like hanging out with Cherry: a refreshing dose of honesty and humor. Considering this book is about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Cherry has an amazing ability to remember it all." —Tim Burton, artist/filmmaker
"A swinging romp with one swinging gal! This juicy page-turner will have rock gossip tongues wagging their tales!" —Kate Pierson, the B-52’s
"Pop art and glamour . . . an exciting and multiflavored story of the journey of a true icon! Cherry is rock and roll royalty." —Countess Luann de Lesseps, The Real Housewives of New York City
"With matter-of-fact nonchalance the delightful Ms Vanilla tells an unrepentant tale of a joyously madcap life among rock royalty and the artistic elite." —Pamela Des Barres, author, I’m With the Band
"You lucky bitch! Your New York was definitely not my New York!" —Rufus Wainright, musician/composer
"I love this book. The writing is beautiful, sad, sweet, fun, and honest. Some people tell stories. Some live them. Every once in a rare while someone who lived an exceptional one takes the time to tell theirs." —Dito Montiel, author/filmmaker
"Vanilla personified the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll of the Sixties and Seventies, and she here reveals an astounding array of details about her life during those turbulant times.... [A] brutally honest, engagingly written, and often raw memoir of a pop-culture icon." —Library Journal
