Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Untold Stories From the Widows of Ronnie Van Zant, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Keith Moon & More [Episode 203]

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Untold Stories From the Widows of Ronnie Van Zant, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Keith Moon & More [Episode 203] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Jamie Wiland talked about Scott Weiland being like quicksand what does she mean by that
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that very quickly you got pulled into Scott's life. She certainly got pulled in
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very quickly to his life, realizing that there was really no one who had
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his best interests at heart and no one who had us back. We're totally
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boomed rock and roll. Well, I mean gott to leave you. You're
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reading Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll up. I totally booked.
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Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about to read
0:36
and rock. Find the podcast online at booked on rock dot com. You
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can find every episode of Booked on Rock there, along with links to your
0:43
favorite listening platforms, exclusive videos, including full episodes on video got blogs.
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There links to all of the social media sites, and if you want to
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find out what the latest rockbook releases are, we'll find it at bookedon rock
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dot com. Laurie Tucker Sullivan is a first time guest. She is the
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author of the brand new book I Can't Remember If I Cried Rock. Widows
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on life, love and legacy. Stories of rock musicians who die young are
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the thing of Lauren Legend. Accidents, drug overdoses, playing crashes all have
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taken the lives of male rock stars still in their primes. But what became
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of their widowed brides? How do they survive a loss so great? What
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is it like to have to share your grief with millions of strangers? And
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where are those widows today? I can't remember if I cried? As part
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music history, part memoir based around interviews with rock widows conducted by Laurie,
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who were self lost her husband in twenty ten. With each widow that Laurie
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interviews, she learns lessons and love forgiveness, coping, and moving on.
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The book is framed by the author's own narrative to create a single thread that
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links the stories together to ultimately create a tale of how the author's life is
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changed through her interactions for these amazing women. Among the women profiled in the
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book are Judy van Zan, who, after losing husband Ronnie of Leonard Skinnard,
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soothed the Reform Band in order to protect her interests. Sandy Chapin,
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widow of Harry Chapin, who's worked tirelessly to uphold Harry's significant legacy were on
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activism and hunger prevention. Crystal Zevan, the ex wife of Warren ZeVA,
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who provides details of her abusive relationship with Warren and how she resolved her anger
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and grief. Jamie Wiland, widow of Stone Tuble pilot singer Scott Wiland,
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speaking openly of Scott's mental health, which at times kept him housebound for days.
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JOHNA. LeBlanc, widow of Stevie Ray Vaughan, who shares the details
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of her visits with Stevie and rehab. Gloria Jones, the girlfriend of t
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Rex's Mark Bolan, was driving the car which crashed and took Mark's life.
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An Anna Walter Lax, girlfriend of who drummer Keith Moon. Laurie shares with
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us some of these women shared with her for the book and how her life
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has been changed as a result of writing this book. Laurie, Welcome to
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the podcast. Great to meet you. Thanks Sarah Kay, it's great to
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be here. First, congratulations on the book. It's a great book.
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Thank you, thanks so much. And this book for you is it's personal.
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I mean, normally writers put their heart and soul into these books,
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but this is this is very personal. So I want to start by asking
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you how the idea to write this book began the University of John Lennon's passing
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in twenty twelve. You tell a story in the book about that. It's
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something that you heard on the radio about Yoko Ono. Yeah. Yeah,
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So your music has always been a part of my life. You can't grow
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up in Detroit without music just really being a big part of your life.
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Live shows and you know, record collections, all of those kinds of things,
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and so it was very important to both me and my late husband.
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So my husband passed away in twenty ten and had a lot of additional loss
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around that time too, my parents, some close friends, my kids were
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going off to college, and so I was kind of struggling with this idea
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that all of the ways in which I identified myself as a wife, a
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mom, a daughter, those were all pretty much gone over you know,
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three or four year period, and so I really wanted to talk to women
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who had gone through a time of needing to kind of reframe their identity.
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And so that's where the idea came from. I was finishing up a master's
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degree, which I had promised my husband I would do after caring for him
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for about two and a half years and on the way to class I did
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hear a story about yogo Ono, and I realized that I thought very differently
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about her now as a widow myself, and thinking about all of the things
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she had accomplished for herself, raising her son, their son, you know,
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continuing to to promote John's legacy, to make sure that he was always
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still out there with us, and and all of those things. And I
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thought, I really have this much deeper appreciation for her now than I did
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previously. And there must be other women out there. And so I did
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just kind of a quick search of some of the widows and found some really
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amazing stories. And that was it. That was the birth of the book.
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And I'm sure there are many people curious as to the title. I
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was curious as well. I now know from reading the book this comes from
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a song, right, Yes it does. Yes, it's a line from
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American Pie. The full line is the epigraph in the book. I can't
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remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride. And my interpretation.
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I don't know that Don McLean has ever fully explained the song, but
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my interpretation of that is that it's about Maria Elena Holly, the widow of
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Buddy Holly and the person I would consider as the first rock widow. Now,
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you and your husband were you had a connection through music, right,
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You guys love music. In fact, you said a lot of the albums
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that he had you had some, and there was a connection there. Yeah.
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Talk about your relationship with with your late husband, Kevin. Yeah,
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So we met when we both worked at the Highatt Regency and I got a
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job at the Higher Regency front desk in Detroit specifically to meet rock stars when
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they checked into the hotel. And in the early eighties that was a really
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fun place to be and got to meet a lot of people. But he
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and I met there as well, and and we did, you know,
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we dated for a couple of years, and then when we moved in together,
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we had lots of duplication in our record collections and and there was you
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know, I really continued to really love kind of the stadium rockers that I
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grew up with. I'm a really big queen fan, and so you know,
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he had moved on a little bit from that music and so introduced me
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to to bands like The Clash and the Pretenders, and then you know,
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our music tastes kind of grew together. I think once we started a family,
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we expanded to more kind of singer songwriters, and so lots of Saturday
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mornings with our children listening to Harry Chapin and John Hyatt. He was also
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a favorite. Oh yes, one of the best singer songwriters, really a
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national treasure I think, but rated very much. Yeah, Warren Zyvon was
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on that list as well. And and then once Kevin was diagnosed with cancers,
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diagnosed with head and next guamous el cars sonoma, and that was a
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very he was a marathon runner. I mean, it was a shocking diagnosis
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for us. But one of the first things he did was put together a
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list of songs and and kind of curate a list of music that he would
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listen to quite often during treatment. And then he started a blog, and
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in that blog he asked others for their suggestions and so made an even longer
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list, and that became very important to him really until the very end.
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Let's talk about some of the women that you do talk for this book.
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And you mentioned Harry Chapin, Harry Chapin's widow Sandy. You mentioned Warren Zevon
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Crystal Zevon, ex wife of Warren Zevon. Also Judy van Zant, widow
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of Leonard Skinnerd's Ronnie van zandt Jamie Wyland widow of Stone Temple Pilots in Velvet
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Revolver singer Scott Wiland. And also I think it's pronounced Jonna LeBlanc, Yes,
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Okay, I think I was thinking maybe it was silent Jhona LeBlanc,
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widow of Stevie Ray Vaughan. What was the process for you to when it
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came to reaching out to these women for this book? Were they hesitant at
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first to talk or was it just the opposite? Had they wanted to share
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their story and were happy that you reached out Because John of LeBlanc's story,
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I'm assuming she was happy that you reached out, knowing that she got shut
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out by Stevie's family. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's been a variety of
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responses. Early on, I started reaching out through social media. There was
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a time when I subscribed to a service that would allow me to look up
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addresses and I would just send a handwritten letter and not expect anything in return.
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But you know, a few weeks after sending a letter, to Gretchen
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Parsons Carpenter. I received a phone call from her and she wanted to talk.
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And I think that most of them have not really been asked for their
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story, which it amazed me. You know. Around the same time that
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I was making my list, I kept looking for this book. It has
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to be there has to have been a book already written like this, and
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I was really surprised that there wasn't. So I certainly received some nos,
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some women did decline, but for the most part, they were eager to
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chat with me. They were thankful that someone wanted to just listen as someone
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who understood, especially the loss part of their relationships and their lives, and
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so it's it really has not been as difficult an experience as I thought it
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would be to find women who wanted to share their stories. The story of
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Gloria Jones talk about persevering through adversity. She was a girlfriend of t Rex's
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Mark Bolan and they had a son together, Roland. The car accident that
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took Mark's life was driven by Gloria. She was fortunate to have survived.
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Not only did she have to deal, however, with the loss of someone
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she loved, but she was being blamed for his death. Talk about how
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she was able to come through all of that and what you learn from her
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story, because you learned something from each person you talked to. I did,
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yes, and I think from Gloria, I just you know, I
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learned about perseverance. It was so that was my first interview, and I
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had reached out to her, I believe, on social media and saw kind
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of the way in which she had been treated on social media still, you
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know, some forty years later, and then we met in Hollywood on sunset.
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She was going to be in Los Angeles. I got this phone call
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with a string of numbers, and you know, couldn't figure out who it
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could be, but it was Gloria calling me from Sierra Leone, West Africa,
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where she had I believe she kind of divides her time now, but
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at that point that's where she was living, running the Mark Bowl and School
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of Music and Film, and and we met and it was just such an
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amazing story of again perseverance, of continuing to go on when she had lost
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everything. She was injured, she had to spend time in the hospital.
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When she kind of came to his funeral, Marx funeral had already taken place,
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and then you know, she after weeks is released from the hospital and
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finds that no one quite knows what to do with her, and there is
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this backlash by some people, and so she eventually left the UK. You
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know, she returned from time to time, and things have for the most
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part settled down. But you know, I look today at Gloria and this
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amazing story, and she still is putting most of her time and energy into
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Mark's legacy. He's now with t Rex in the Rock and Roll Hall of
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Fame. There are some really wonderful documentaries that have been made, and so
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you know, here's a woman who is deserving of her own story and a
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documentary film about her life. I think, you know, she came out
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of Motown. She wrote If I Were Your Woman for Gladys Knight and received
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a Grammy nomination for that. She was in Twenty Feet from Stardom, the
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really wonderful film about backup singers, and so she has had a very,
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very full life, but much of it is dedicated still to Mark and tomorrow
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legacy and Roland did the speech for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
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Yes, yes, I remember that. Yeah, it was recorded,
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you know, it wasn't in person because of COVID at the time, but
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yes, he was there for the induction. So so that's one thing I
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guess maybe that you learned throughout this process too. It's when somebody, when
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somebody passes away in an incident like that, like a car accident, it's
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like there's this need to blame you. It's it seems to be that way
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because she was saying, I mean she had like a glass of wine or
13:33
something, but I don't even if that, but it was just like we
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we all feel like we need to blame somebody for something like that, and
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you can't. Yes, the amount of not always blame, but just difficulty
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that these women had had to go through. For whatever they do, they
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quite often they cannot make a right move, you know. There's things that
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one widow who's not and so I conducted twenty four interviews, and fourteen are
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in this book, and I'm hopeful that the other interviews will be in a
14:11
second volume. But one of the women that I spoke to who's not in
14:16
this book, was telling me about her husband. Her partner passed away in
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the winter and they had the funeral and of course they could not mark the
14:26
grave at that time because because it's winter and ground, you know, heaves
14:31
and settles, and so they had everything ready to go in the spring,
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and within days fans were online saying, you know, this woman has left
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him in an unmarked grave and just saying terrible things that aren't true. And
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so it's it's just so often a situation where they find themselves unable to do
14:54
anything that pleases everyone, and so that's very difficult. And that was the
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case, certainly with Gloria and with several others. Forgiveness. That's the focus
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of the chapter on Crystal Zyvonne Warren, Yvonne's ex wife. If not for
15:07
his battle with alcoholism, I think they would have been together till the end.
15:09
I mean, they really seemed like they had that connection. They were
15:13
meant to find each other, it seems the story she tells about how they
15:16
met, it's like they just kept running into each other. It was like,
15:20
you guys got to get together. Can you tell about how they met
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and why their marriage fell apart? And then how was she able to forgive
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Warren after he passed. Yeah, a really wonderful story. And again,
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Warren was early on the list because he was very important to my husband and
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I and we had seen him multiple times. We really loved his music.
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I think he's again another underrated, very you know, very talented person,
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genius level, absolutely totally, but difficult to live with, as Crystal attested,
15:52
and he would admit to that too in his later years. I think
15:56
so. Yeah, But they had She was dating the session musician Watti walked
16:03
Hell at the time, and Watty had taken Warren out on the road with
16:07
him, and so she picked them both up at the airport and just felt
16:11
this kind of instant connection with Warren, just even on that drive. And
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then they kept bumping into each other around Los Angeles, which is a big
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city, and yet you know, they kept finding each other here and there,
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and I think they went out one night and he found a way to
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sit next to her and then they danced, and even though Wattie was with
16:32
them, they dropped him off and they continued on to what became their home
16:37
and he moved in with Crystal and that was it, and they were together
16:41
for several years. They had a daughter, Ariel. But you know,
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as you say, at some point she had to decide that the substance abuse
16:53
was too much, and physical abuse as well, but it was it became
17:00
important for her after she had some time and space to forgive him for all
17:07
of it. And the things that is very interesting about that relationship was that,
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well one thing, once Warren was diagnosed with cancer, he had mesothelioma,
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which has never quite been figured out either because that's a very specific type
17:23
of lung cancer and should not have stricken him, but it did. But
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once he got his diagnosis, even though they had been apart for about fifteen
17:32
or sixteen years, she was one of the first calls that he made and
17:36
wanted her to come back to La She was living on the East Coast at
17:40
the time, but he wanted her to come back and care for him.
17:44
And it was because, you know, neither of them had ever remarried.
17:48
They had both kind of come close, they had dated people, but they
17:51
didn't do it. And he was that one love for her and she will
17:55
always consider him to be, you know, the husband, the father of
17:59
their child and the grandfather of their children. And and then he asked her
18:04
to write his biography after he passed away, and she did that and and
18:11
read and learned some very difficult things and in the end decided that it was
18:17
best for her to forgive him and just just love him and miss him.
18:22
And that's quite a quite a lesson to learn, you know, the idea
18:26
of forgiveness. You know, once the person has passed away, you can't
18:32
have those conversations and so it's really up to you to decide if you want
18:37
the forgiveness or not. And for Crystal, you know, she said it
18:41
was really the best gift she could have given herself, and I agree.
18:45
I think that that brought her peace. That closure is hard unless you choose
18:48
to find that closure on your own. Yeah, and that Walter Lax was
18:52
Keith Mouon's girlfriend during the last four years of his life. There's another guy,
18:56
Keith Moon. His issues with alcohol is wild behavior so well known.
19:03
The music media really loved those stories since they sold newspapers and it was it
19:07
was almost celebrated like this rock and roll lifestyle. But for a net being
19:12
there for these incidents was they were scary. Can you share some of what
19:15
she told you about some of the things that she witnessed. Yeah, she
19:19
witnessed quite a bit. And you know, it has happened. I think
19:25
in more than one or two instances where the woman gets to know the man
19:32
kind of away from or apart from that rock and roll thing and finds that
19:37
they're lovely people and they have long conversations. Many times, someone you know,
19:44
a rock star and his future wife kind of connect over some long conversation
19:49
at night. You know, we talked into the night, and then I
19:52
knew he was it and and that's you know, multi times that story came
19:59
up and was repeated. In her case, she was out at a discotheque
20:04
with a date and Keith paid off the date to leave and brought a net
20:10
over to his table, and that was pretty much it. He kind of
20:14
installed her in his apartment building, in his apartment that night, and that
20:19
was it. They were together for four years, but she saw some really
20:23
wild things, and you know, the first time he trashed a hotel room,
20:30
she thought, you know, what is going on and she asked Pete
20:33
Townsend, what's going on here? And he said, yeah, that's Keith,
20:36
that's what he does. So and it's She was one of several as
20:44
well that really helped me to understand how young these women were, and quite
20:48
often the man was young too, you know, and so this is someone
20:53
in their early to mid twenties trying to navigate having a lot of money,
21:00
having a lot of fame, having everyone take care of you, and that's
21:04
just a lot for someone to deal with at that age. Through most of
21:11
these interviews I had, my own children were in their early twenties, and
21:18
I thought, there's no way they could have handled these situations. There's no
21:22
way I could have handled a situation like this in my early twenties. And
21:26
Annette was quite young going through all of this, and really the times when
21:32
it was just the two of them together, in quiet times, the vacations
21:36
they took, she got to see this person away from the stage and away
21:41
from what became expected of him, which was this kind of manic personality,
21:48
and he was just a sweet person and they enjoyed those times together. And
21:53
the photo that is in the book was taken all the two of them were
21:59
on Vaca, and they clearly are happy and in love and so so it's
22:04
it's interesting to see how often there was the on stage person versus the off
22:12
stage person, but they have to deal with both of those. Yeah,
22:18
what could have been to because he was turning things around, which leads to
22:21
the night he died. So I'm trying to say that Keith took his life,
22:23
but she says no, what happened on the night he died. So
22:27
they had been out at a movie premiere that and party that Paul McCartney had
22:36
had put together, and Keith had been at that point on for a few
22:41
weeks on a medication, uh that was to help him stop drinking. So
22:47
he really was trying to get past this and to find a way to to
22:53
kind of, you know, manage his alcohol consumption. The problem was that
22:59
he consumed so much alcohol all the time that he kind of equated that with
23:06
also needing to take multiple of these pills that he was taking to keep him
23:11
from from drinking. So the thought was, you know, he has three
23:17
bottles of brandy and a bottle of champagne every day, then he shouldn't take
23:21
just one pill, he should take eight or ten. And that is not
23:25
the case, unfortunately. And what she came to find out later was that,
23:30
you know, those pills should have been given to him in a very
23:33
controlled environment, in an impatient rehab environment in fact, and and and you
23:41
know we're not I mean, he had access to them, and so it
23:45
really is very sad that he was trying his best to change that behavior and
23:53
he was finding a way that was working for him. But but it isn't
24:00
managed as as it should have been. Some mental health issues there, they
24:04
think when on diagnosed, unrecognized, unresolved. Yeah, yeah, it's been
24:11
interesting to learn that. You know. Again, there is this kind of
24:15
on stage versus soft stage persona. I think that the idea of getting up
24:21
on stage every night with this expectation of being really wild or really you know,
24:27
on is a hard thing for a lot of people. And it's we
24:33
expect I think, or from our vantage point in the audience, we think,
24:37
these are people who love doing this. They must love it, they
24:41
must really get into, you know, being like this, and I think
24:45
quite often that's not the case. Quite often they are very highly intelligent and
24:51
creative people who find themselves in these situations where they have to perform, and
24:57
that's sometimes a challenge. And then it's during the down times when it's quiet,
25:03
Yes, when it's really difficult because their mind is running a million miles
25:07
an hour. When he's drumming, he's doing all that stuff, he's you
25:10
know, he's he's in the moment he's you know, that was when he
25:12
was probably his happiest, when he was hanging away on the drums. Yeah
25:17
yeah, And she said that, you know, when he was behind his
25:19
drum kit, he was so happy. Yeah, yeah, No, she
25:23
was in shock of course when he died. How did she move on?
25:26
How was she able to process all that? It took time, it did,
25:32
And I will say it's one of the best stories that I heard of
25:36
the response from the band. He Townsend and Roger Daltrey took care of her.
25:41
They put her up first in a hotel and then in an apartment.
25:45
They made great Yes, it really is most times the band, you know,
25:52
I mean, the band is often in shock too, and you know,
25:55
and the who managed to go on and move forward and continue to make
25:59
music after Keith's passing, But they did. They did take care of Annette
26:03
as well. She eventually remarried. That marriage lasted a few years, but
26:11
she realized that she really felt she needed to go back home and back to
26:15
Europe and to figure out what she wanted the rest of her life to look
26:22
like. And she ended up working as a psychologist and uh and that helped
26:26
her, I think to understand what she had been through as as a very
26:30
young woman, and so yeah, it was really really wonderful to speak with
26:34
her. And she has connections now with with fans. She is on social
26:41
media and connects with many of Keith's fans and is happy to do that.
26:48
Booked on Rock Podcast. We'll be back after this it can? I go?
26:53
All right, you sit down, I'll be right back. Laurie Tucker
26:59
Sullivan is you? I can't remember if I cried Rock Widows on Life,
27:03
Love and Legacy. And I still remember the day, Still remember where I
27:07
was when I heard the new Stevie Ray Vaughn died August twenty seventh, nineteen
27:10
ninety thirty five. Remember hearing it on the radio. And what's heartbreaking about
27:15
Stevie Ray's story is similar to Keith Moon. He got clean and sober after
27:19
battling alcohol addiction and just like that he's gone dies in a helicopter crash.
27:23
And you say that Johanna suffered Stevie's lost twice, she lost them physically,
27:29
but also had her existence erased from history. Talk about that why Stevie's brother
27:34
Jimmy didn't acknowledge her. This is disappointing. I was. I was bummed
27:38
to read this. Yeah, it's you know, according to Janna, I
27:45
think it had a lot to do with her being very young. They were
27:48
together for for almost five years. When Stevie realized he needed to get into
27:53
rehab, that was the second call he made. The first was to his
27:57
mother, and she Rona, left her family in New Zealand and flew to
28:03
London and she was there with him and they were together until his passing.
28:10
But they weren't married, and as a result, you know, that's what
28:15
happens. I mean, the family has to decide what's right for them.
28:18
You know, I'm not going to kind of get too much into that,
28:23
but you know, it's I think she was most hurt by what happened at
28:29
the Rock Hall and at his induction. They were, you know, together,
28:34
they and she has put together a book called four Years in Pictures,
28:41
her time with Stevie Ray and the book is no longer in print, but
28:47
you look at those photos of the two of them, and they were clearly
28:52
so happy together and and I think he often credited her with keeping him sober,
29:02
and you know, she had an understanding of that herself from her own
29:06
background, and so I think that, you know, it's just unfortunate.
29:12
It's very unfortunate that she wasn't able to have more of a say in his
29:18
legacy and and what you know, how that's continued and doing so is very
29:26
important to all of these women. It really is often their primary focus.
29:33
Yeah. Yeah, it was the rock call. Jimmy said something about it.
29:36
It's a shame that he didn't find the true love. It was some
29:40
common that he made and she was there, wasn't she. Yes, So
29:44
she's in the audience hearing him say, I can't remember what the quote was.
29:48
Yeah, yeah, And she went on her own with friends. She
29:52
was not invited to be there, but she got a ticket and was there,
29:56
and and that was just really hard for her to hear because it wasn't
30:02
true. They were very much in love and he was very happy to have
30:07
her with him. She traveled most of his tours. She was with him,
30:11
and then they traveled separately. They went to New Zealand and met her
30:15
family and so there was you know, it was a full, complete relationship
30:22
in every sense, and to have it ignored was very painful. Judy van
30:29
Zant, the widow of Leonard Skinner front man Ronnie van Zant, and you
30:33
planned on meeting her in Jacksonville, Florida. This is the town where she
30:36
met Ronnie and that's where the band formed and where they're from. But she
30:40
said, no, different plans talk about that first meeting. Yeah, So
30:45
I was set up to travel to Florida and meet with her. I was
30:48
also going to meet with Johanna, who at that time was living in Saint
30:51
Augustine. She has now gone back to and is living in New Zealand.
30:56
And then I was going to travel up to Athens, Georgia and talk with
31:00
barbatt Hauser, who was married to Mikey Hawser from widespread Panic again another story
31:04
that hopefully will be in the next book. But I called Judy and said,
31:10
here are the dates. You know, I'd like to come down at
31:11
the state and spend some time. And she said, you know, if
31:15
you can back things up a little bit, when don't you come down and
31:18
we'll go up to Gilsburg, Mississippi. So we met in New Orleans instead
31:23
of Jacksonville and drove up to Gilsburg, which would not be on anyone's map.
31:30
It's a very tiny town in Mississippi. But for the fact that it's
31:34
the site of the plane crash, and so Judy and I met there on
31:40
the anniversary of the crash and we walked the field. There was also an
31:47
installation, a memorial service and installation on that day. So many fans were
31:52
there and they've erected a very large granite and marble monument to the to all
32:00
of the band member's pilots and everyone that was lost in that crash. So
32:07
it was a very intense experience. And again to listen to Judy's story of
32:13
being so young and with a two year old daughter and to lose everything and
32:19
have to have to travel and take care of things, it was a very
32:24
difficult time. Yeah, what was that like? You were with her as
32:29
she's walking through that that site. Yeah. October twentieth, nineteen seventy eight,
32:34
I want to say, was when the plane crash occurred. But what
32:38
was that like? I mean for her emotional, right, it was quite
32:42
emotional. Her daughter was with her, and Steve Gaines's daughter was there as
32:49
well. Judy had become quite close with Steve's wife, Teresa. Teresa unfortunately
32:58
passed away a few years ago, and so it was Judy and her daughter,
33:02
Melody uh, and then Steve's daughter and and and Judy's grandchildren as well.
33:10
Melody has has almost adult children now, but they were all there with
33:17
the fans, and so it's, yeah, it's a pretty intense experience to
33:22
look out. And and she had not I don't believe she had been there
33:28
since the time of the crash, or maybe one other time. She had
33:30
traveled there, but not very frequently at all. And I think it,
33:37
you know, there was a balance between what could have been a very intense
33:43
individual experience but understanding that there were fans there as well, and and so
33:51
kind of again striking that balance with fans who wanted to talk with her and
33:55
and meet her and so so it was quite an afternoon. I wanted to
34:01
find it. The part in the book too, where she talks about I
34:04
think to this day she'll still see a bird fly by like signs that that
34:09
maybe he's there. Yeah. Yeah, to walk into a restaurant and Sweet
34:15
Home Alabama is playing right, right, And I thought it was sad.
34:20
She said, you know, I don't I don't remember his speaking voice.
34:24
Yeah, just just know from from the music now him singing right, because
34:28
it's been that long. Yeah, And that's you know, I would say
34:31
that as well. I don't know that I remember my husband's speaking voice.
34:37
We have some videos from holidays and things like that that I could go back
34:42
and look at and and and those are the things that that widow's experience,
34:49
you know. I think that it's important to me that this be seen as
34:52
a book about grief as much as about music and how these women really coped
34:59
with those things and how they continued to deal with some of those experiences.
35:04
Yeah, and then after the plane crash, this is where the legal battles
35:07
begin. There was a pack that Judy made after the plane crash that took
35:13
Ronnie's life, along with the guitar Steve Gaines, singer Cassie Gaines' assistant road
35:17
manager, Dean Kilpatrick. The pact was that there would be no more Leonard
35:22
Skinner. That pact ended. Of course, eventually Judy experiences that that ugly
35:25
side of music, it's the business side, it's the legal side. This
35:29
is where you learned about continuing in the face of grief with strength and courage.
35:34
If you could talk about the battles that she had faced with the surviving
35:37
band members and what you learned from that experience. Sure, yeah, there
35:43
was this pact that was made with the surviving band members. Everyone felt that
35:47
Ronnie was Leonard Skinnerd. He founded the band, he wrote most of the
35:52
songs, and everyone felt as though that was it. And you know,
35:58
there was the Russington Collins Band for several years for a couple of years,
36:02
didn't of course have the success that Leonard SKINNERD had, But you know,
36:07
they all got together and said that was it. The band wouldn't happen anymore,
36:12
wouldn't exist anymore because it was so much based on Ronnie as the foundation
36:19
of the band. And then a promoter came along ten years later and suggested
36:24
they go out on the road, and she was okay with that, you
36:29
know, let's do something to mark the anniversary. But then they saw that
36:34
how easily they could kind of pick up where they left off, and of
36:38
course they were making a lot of money. The band was organized as a
36:43
corporation, with each band member having an equal share, and they gathered together
36:47
and told her that she was being voted out of the company and she wouldn't
36:53
stand for it. So she did have to take them to court. And
36:58
what I found most compelling was heard talking about that experience and about how she
37:06
was going to be in court every day. The lawsuit happened in New York,
37:12
and she was there every day. No one else necessarily was. There
37:16
were attorneys there, you know, representing the other people, and she would
37:22
be there every day, and at lunchtime she'd go into the bathroom and be
37:25
sick and throw up. And she got down to about ninety pounds. And
37:30
I can imagine what it's like to go through something like that with people who
37:36
had been your friends and had been so close. And I think it also
37:42
she talks about how there was really nowhere to go for comfort from grief because
37:49
all of the people closest to her were also grieving. She couldn't go to
37:52
Ronnie's parents because they were grieving the loss of their son, and she couldn't
37:58
go to band members because they were grieving also. And you know, there
38:01
were friends of the family who had helped the band, who were you know,
38:07
roadies here and there, and a few of them left and were not
38:12
part of this last tour, and they suffered terrible guilt because they weren't on
38:17
that plane. And so it really was something that affected many many people.
38:28
This was a close knit but large group of people that were in the band.
38:31
There were former members of the band, there were you know, the
38:36
lineup of the band had changed over time, but it was a large group
38:40
of a large circle of people that were affected by that crash. And and
38:45
I think we don't really understand, especially when the band kind of picks up
38:51
and moves on, we don't understand how that how how deeply that fallout,
38:57
you know, can really affect people and relationship. Did not know that story
39:01
at all, didn't know that she went through that difficult of an experience.
39:05
And by the way, it is October twenty, nineteen seventy seven. That
39:07
was a lancash and then ten years later the reunion in eighty seven. And
39:13
I know Artemis Pyle, the drummer, he's had his issues with the band
39:15
as well, a lot of legal issues. But I did not know it
39:19
was it got that bad with Judy. But it seems like she's in a
39:23
good place now, Yes, yes, I think so. Yeah. Jamie
39:27
Wiland talked about Scott Wiland being like quicksand this is interesting to me because Scott
39:32
Wiland, the image of him. I think I think that this this book's
39:37
important to kind of change in the narrative on Scott Wiland. She said he
39:40
was like Quicksand what does she mean by that? Very very quickly you got
39:45
pulled into Scott's life. She certainly got pulled in very quickly to his life,
39:52
realizing that she felt that there was really no one who had his best
39:58
interests at heart, and no one who had a back. And he was
40:00
a difficult person and so he, you know, may have pushed some people
40:07
away. You know, he wasn't easy to get along with, but but
40:10
he you know, again, she saw the best of him. Uh.
40:15
Their relationship began before he was performing. She met him as a photographer on
40:22
set at a video shoot and and got to know him during a quiet period
40:29
in his life. And so then she sees him on stage and realizes that
40:34
he is a very different person when he's on stage. And and I think
40:38
she quickly learned that he had some health issues and she wanted to help him
40:45
with those. She really was his partner in every sense. And and so
40:52
it really that that that interview caused me to think about a lot of things.
40:58
You know, she was she was a very brave woman, and I
41:00
believe acted from from a deep love for him and all that she did,
41:06
and it was a challenge and he he really tried hard to get sober.
41:10
I remember Duff mccagan, the bassist for Velvet Revolver, had helped Scott a
41:16
lot to get in shape and do some things that will that would that would
41:22
take his mind away from that that desire to go down that path again.
41:27
And he was doing good for a while, but then it's it's it's the
41:30
addiction that really it takes a hold, yeah, and it's hard to it's
41:36
hard to get away from that. Plus if they get clean and sober,
41:38
they go back to it. A lot of times they go back to it
41:42
at the level that they did before they got clean, and your body just
41:46
can't take that. But let's go there because there's a hard issue. There
41:50
was something this I didn't know about. There was a hard issue with Scott
41:53
that that was the cause of death. So there's a misunderstanding there that there's
41:59
this idea that it was an overdose. That's not what happened. Well,
42:02
so just to clarify that, and that was the case in a few instances
42:07
actually that the amount of drugs was not perhaps enough to cause an overdose in
42:15
someone who was very healthy to begin with, and Scott was not physically healthy,
42:21
so you know, I guess there would be maybe an overdose. But
42:25
and the coroner's report says there was an underlying heart issue, arterial sclerosis.
42:31
So he had this blockage in his heart and and you know, Jamie admits
42:37
that he didn't he wasn't in the best help, He didn't take great care
42:39
of himself. But it you know, kind of it's the combination. And
42:45
I think that's what's important to her that without that underlying heart issue, he
42:50
probably would still be here. But he had that it was something they hadn't
42:55
taken care of, and so it it became a deadly combination. She struggles
43:04
with that because she felt she could have done something about it, but she
43:07
shouldn't really feel that way. Again, I think she did all that she
43:10
could possibly do. And and again it's it's legacy. You know, how
43:15
do we want these men to be remembered and we want them to be remembered
43:19
in the best possible way, And so that's a struggle and Peggy Sue Honeyman.
43:23
Scott talks about that a little bit as well with James, and you
43:29
know, he I believe most records now show that it was a cocaine intolerance
43:34
because he had heart and liver issues. And so again something that would not
43:39
have been fatal for another person became fatal because of these underlying things. And
43:45
and so you're left with what is easy to you know, put out there
43:52
for the public, and what is more nuanced and what has you know,
43:57
some some other issues to talk out. And and I think, you know,
44:01
given the difficulty in trying to parse that out, you know, when
44:07
it's just easier to say the drug overdose is something that is very challenging for
44:13
these women because they want that legacy to be there. It's important for them
44:17
that the legacy be right. And so so that is a struggle. Yeah,
44:22
I want to ask about one more. That's Sandy Chapin, widow of
44:25
Harry Chapin. And this is a story of a widow carrying out their husband's
44:30
mission, the mission that that he was really serious about when he was alive.
44:36
Tell us about Sandy's story. Yeah, Sandy's lovely, lovely, And
44:40
you know, Harry, Harry gave away a lot of what he made.
44:46
It became very important for him to have a legacy and make his mark while
44:51
he was alive, and so he became very active in hunger issues. There
44:55
are arts organizations in the Long Long Island where they lived that bear his name,
45:04
and and so when he passed away, it became very important for Sandy
45:07
to continue that work and to make sure that that what he started, you
45:14
know, continued, and so she's worked tirelessly to do that. And you
45:21
know, one of the lessons early on that I learned was from Sandy,
45:24
and that was when she talked about the gravesite and you know, they brought
45:30
the Chapin brothers brought this large stone down from upstate New York where they had
45:37
they had some land and a house that was in their family, and they
45:40
brought it down and it was etched with, you know, the information for
45:45
Harry and at Marx's grave, and when she goes there, there are always
45:51
notes that people leave and stones, people leave smaller stones there and and my
45:58
response was alwaysn't that lovely that people do that, That his fans, you
46:01
know, come and kind of mark that and kind of want to show that
46:08
they were there and that they visited. And she said, you know,
46:13
it's very lovely that fans do that. But on the other hand, there
46:16
are times when I just want to be alone with Harry and I can't.
46:21
And I think Nancy Jones, George Jones widow of has had some of those
46:25
similar experiences as well. And so you know, if I want to do
46:31
that, if I want to be where my late husband's ashes are, I'm
46:37
there and it's just me or anyone that I bring along. But these women
46:43
can't do that. There always they had, They had to share them with
46:45
the world when they were alive, and they got to do the same when
46:46
there's not around. Yeah, And you know, I came to this as
46:52
a music fan, So I don't want to sound like I'm lecturing or admonishing
46:58
fans, you know, two much, because I'm a fan too. But
47:00
it really has shown me how lines get blurred and how you can love an
47:08
artist you know a lot, but there is still respect and there are still
47:15
lines that that you really have to be careful. Well, maybe you know
47:20
the story about Ronnie van Zant's They had to move his what was it it
47:29
was it was at the cemetery, was initially yet Yeah, so he was
47:34
initially in a mausoleum. Right, Very difficult for Judy to think about putting
47:39
him in the ground. She just couldn't bring herself to do that. But
47:44
then fans broke in and and she realized that that wasn't going to work.
47:50
So now he is buried, and that's what she had to do. Yeah,
47:57
yeah, yeah yeah. How was your life changed after speeding with these
48:00
amazing women and completing the book? Well, I started out wondering, you
48:05
know, what's my new purpose? And I certainly have found that just telling
48:09
these stories, kind of archiving the stories and relating what they've been through and
48:19
how they have survived and even thrived afterwards, has been extremely inspirational for me.
48:27
It really has been a life changing experience. I could, you know,
48:31
spend the rest of my life writing these stories and meeting these women.
48:36
They're extraordinary, they really are, and so it has given me a lot
48:40
of purpose, a lot of wonderful experiences and memories. I'm thrilled about the
48:46
book, but even if a book had never happened, just to have had
48:51
these experiences, you know, to sit at levon Helm's dining room table and
48:57
talk with his widow about you know, their extraordinary love for each other,
49:01
and what a wonderful person he was, what a great experience that is,
49:07
you know. So so the book is great. I'm excited and I love
49:10
that there is this record, but the experience itself has really I ten years,
49:17
oh it's been about six or seven years, So ten years ago,
49:22
I never would have expected that this would be, you know, the path
49:24
I'm on. And I'm grateful to the women for opening up. And yeah,
49:30
yeah, absolutely, yeah. We give credit to the women who stepped
49:34
up and gave you their story. So does this yeah, this this is
49:37
a continuing thing for you. Now have you had women come forward? The
49:43
book has just been released, so maybe this will happen, But have you
49:46
have plans for the next one? So we'll see. That will kind of
49:52
be up to the publisher. But there are some stories that didn't quite make
49:55
it into this one that I would love to be included. And we really
50:00
just looked at I submitted all of the stories to my publisher and kind of
50:06
asked them to make the decision on who would be included. And so they
50:09
wanted to make sure there was a good mix of kind of geography, of
50:16
age, of genre of music, all of those things, and so that's
50:21
where they ended up. But there are some really good stories that didn't make
50:24
it in so I'm hopeful that we can do that, and I would love
50:29
also to someday be involved in a documentary film. I see this as a
50:36
film like maybe twenty Feet from Stardom something similar to that, to just have
50:40
them together in a room sharing the stories of the experiences they've had that we
50:46
don't have, you know, being out of that spotlight and just living our
50:54
quiet, normal lives. You know, we don't have the same intense experiences
50:59
that they've had, and so I'd love to see that happen someday too.
51:02
I'd love to see that as well, And I think it's definitely worth pursuing
51:07
anybody out there who's looking to get behind a documentary that that would be it.
51:10
And also I would think an online website, like a continuing blog,
51:15
people come to you and you can tell their stories as they come to you,
51:20
because I'm thinking a lot of these women now will read this book and
51:23
they will want to tell the story to you and reach out to you.
51:25
I hope. So, I hope. So I have a few that have
51:30
that I've connected to just in the last couple of months, So I'm hoping
51:35
that that will continue and I will say not. Everyone wants to tell their
51:40
story. I did have some nose. I have a really lovely letter from
51:45
one of the widows. I won't say who because she didn't want to be
51:49
included, but she said, I met him at eighteen, we married at
51:53
nineteen, I had a baby at twenty, divorced at twenty one, and
51:58
got kicked out of our home minute twenty two. I buried him and I'm
52:01
not going to go back there, which you respect. You totally understand and
52:06
respect. Yeah. Absolutely, They've all been through very traumatic experiences and I
52:12
absolutely respect whether or not they wish to share that story. Well, let's
52:15
finish with this. What do you think Kevin would say to you about completing
52:20
this book. I think he'd be pretty excited and pretty happy. My kids
52:24
are both excited and happy about the book and the traveling that I'm doing and
52:30
this kind of new path I have to continue. My mom's an author.
52:35
That's cool brag. Probably my mom is right, and I think he would
52:44
be pretty happy about it. And you know, it's not lost on me
52:47
that I came to this idea because I was a widow myself, and were
52:53
he here, I may have never thought about this and so I, you
53:00
know, I owe him a lot, but yeah, I think he would
53:04
be happy with it, and I hope he is happy wherever he is.
53:08
Sure he is. I can't remember if I cried. Rock Widows on Life,
53:12
Love and Legacy and is out now through Backbeat Books and you can find
53:15
it wherever books are sold, all the usual places. And where can people
53:17
find you online, Laurie. I met Laurie Tuckersullivan dot com okay, and
53:24
also on Instagram at rock Widows Instagram as well, okay, so I could
53:29
put the links up on the show notes page. People can reach out to
53:30
you, Laurie. Thank you, Thank you so much. Eric. It
53:35
was great to talk with you. That's it. It's in the books.