"The Groupies"

In another story earlier in this blog, your writer opined about the girls that come to gigs. Many of these girls, though very different, share a distinguished title: "Groupie."

A groupie is normally a good looking, bodaciously built, fun-loving, ardent female fan of both music and boys. Particularly, the "boys in the band." Groupies arrive at an event or concert fashionably late, and stay even later. They find a way to let everyone attending the show "know" that they are present. They dress well, smell angelic, and look as if they stepped off the cover of a magazine. (And truthfully, for some, that magazine would be, "Field & Stream.")

Groupies know all the words to all the songs. They know what each musical instrument is, (e.g., "that guitar thingy..."), and they know exactly where to stand (and HOW to stand) during the sets AND during the breaks. They find a way to make their "statement," and shamelessly lay claim to whichever band member they intend to bond with. If more than one groupie sets her cap for a particular band member, a good, old-fashioned, "cat fight" is always a possibility.

 Groupies occasionally know how to lure a musician into their web by using subtlety, veiled flirtation, and a smile that says she "might" be interested, or then again - she might not. And then, there are the groupies that wouldn't know how to play "hard to get" if it was on the clearance rack at Wal-Mart.

The groupie story to end all groupie stories for this guitar player is, beyond all doubt, of the latter variety.

The year was 1977. Actually, it was the close of 1976. New Year's Eve, to be exact. Our band, Silvercreek, was one of the three best known bands in all of Atlanta. The top-drawing bands always got invited to play Underground Atlanta on New Year's Eve. In the 1970's, "Underground," was a powerful collection of music clubs. The Mad Hatter, Scarlett O'Hara's, The Pump House, Ruby Red's Warehouse, and Sergeant Pepper's were the main musical watering holes in Underground during those days.

On this particular New Year's Eve in Underground, our stage was Sergeant Pepper's.

The club began filling up early that night. The patrons were in a mood to drink, and enjoy the music. At 9:00 PM the band began the first set of the evening. The dance floor immediately filled up. The stage was small, and quite cramped with our large Marshall Amplifiers. The night began very well, and only got better from there. The stage at Sergeant Pepper's was strategically located so that every full-bladdered female had to walk around its front and left side in order to get to the Ladies Room. This guitar player had the good fortune of being positioned that night on the very same side of the stage as the path to female urinary relief.

Some of the best looking young ladies in all of Underground Atlanta made their way around this guitar player's side of that stage during the course of that blessed New Year's celebration. One little strawberry blonde brings an especially affectionate warmth to this old heart. She was in a cluster of young ladies, most - just as blonde, and just as cute. The song was Lynyrd Skynyrd's, "Needle & The Spoon," from their famed, "Second Helping," album.

As the song started, I remember seeing her get up from her table near the back of the club. She and her associates slowly made their way through the packed dance floor, down the length of the bar, and around the front of the stage.

This pretty, young, thing apparently appreciated the intricacies of guitar playing, for she stopped directly in front of my place onstage, watching admiringly for several minutes as the song neared its climactic solo. I never saw her move. So engaged was this serious guitar player in his craft that he was totally oblivious to the blatant groupie advance that was coming.

As the guitar solo began, suddenly there was this extra hand. It was female. And, it was nowhere near the neck of the guitar. Instead, it was freely, aggressively, and happily exploring intensely personal "territory" of a young guitar player's anatomy.

It was shameless.

And, folks, it was wonderful!

Such moves normally unfold during the cover of night, by the lights of a dashboard, on the front seat of a '72 Chevrolet Nova. On this evening, they took place under the illumination of stage lights, in front of hundreds of young party-goers, and in a way that would have made my mother, Hazel, cringe with the greatest embarrassment.

But, again, it was one of THE most wonderful dividends a young guitar player could possibly reap for all the hours of solitude, practice and sacrifice.

Needless to say, the licks comprising the guitar solo on, "Needle & The Spoon," that monumental evening will forever remain a blur.

I don't know where she is now, but for that unforgettable night, she was..."My Groupie."

Now, after forty-five years in music, groupie dividends keep right on coming. Still, the prettiest females of blonde, brunette, and red-head persuasion come to shows. They cheer, shout adoring things to a rapidly aging male (who greatly appreciates their effort), while pledging life-long "groupie" allegiance. They pay little attention to the paunch, the balding crown, and the gray lining the edges of a once fuller hairline. Instead, they look past today, to a time when a young man brought them a reason to look good, to display their most desirable features, and to enjoy the magic of music.

They are "groupies" in the absolute best sense of that timeless, hallowed title.

Bless them.

They make an old man long for the days of his youth.