We use cookies to improve our services and remember your choices for future visits. For more information see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. I was born and reared in southern Illinois, in a rural community so small that by the time the back of the bus entered town, the front of the bus was already leaving it. Their tunes and stories captivated me, and by the time I was fourteen I had written ten or eleven songs that I sang around the supper table and at our local pool hall.
I knew that the music I loved came from Nashville, Tennessee, so after high school and a number of dead-end jobs, I packed up my guitar and suitcase and hitchhiked down to Music City. I live on Music Row in a cockroach-infested apartment with no heat or air conditioning, and I spend all my money on demos and food. I have sold my blood at the Church Street plasma center to feed my songwriting habit. It could be Music Row politics, or my lack of contacts, or the changes in the industry, or bad timing.
Or maybe my songs just suck. But then again, there was nothing for me to do in my hometown. I would rather be one step away from the gutter in Nashville than living a comfortable life back there. I do now. I moved to Paris when I was nineteen with the goal of becoming an actress or a model. I was pretty and on the tall side at five feet nine β though not tall enough by New York standards.
I had an agent waiting for me in Paris. Well, maybe not waiting , exactly. I got his number, packed my suitcases, and headed for France.
It all went well at first. Every day I walked for hours through the cold gray city, practicing my high-school French. The star was the aging singer Johnny Hallyday. I was to be an extra in a bar scene. I arrived at the studio early and, after hair and makeup, moved to the soundstage, where the other extras and I were placed around a bar facade.
