Who was in The GTOs? The world’s first groupie supergroup
Back in the 1960s, the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood was the place to be for any budding music obsessives, hippies, or members of murderous cults. Thanks to its high number of now-iconic music venues, including the Whiskey a Go Go, The Roxy, and Gazzarri’s, the area attracted legendary rock musicians from around the world. At any given time of day, you might find Led Zeppelin, The Byrds, or Frank Zappa hanging around the local bars. As you might imagine, the area also attracted its fair share of groupies.
The term groupie, in essence, refers to any music fan who follows an artist on tour and actively tries to meet them. In practice, however, the term is often used derogatorily to refer to young female music fans who pursue romantic relationships with those artists – or, as the case often was, young women who were exploited for sex by their male musical heroes. The 1960s was a period in which groupie culture was really kicking off, spurred on by artists like The Rolling Stones, The Doors, and even Frank Zappa.
In fact, Zappa invited many of his female fans to live with him at his infamous Laurel Canyon log cabin. Initially, the songwriter moved into the cabin with his wife in 1968, but it soon became akin to a commune used by Zappa fans and other free-love hippies. Some truly bizarre things happened at Zappa’s short-lived home, including an assassination attempt. However, perhaps the greatest thing that arose from the musician’s time in Laurel Canyon was the formation of The GTOs.
With an acronymous name that had been cited as meaning anything from ‘Girls Together Occasionally’ to ‘Girls Together Orally’, The GTOs were formed from the rotating pool of women that inhabited Zappa’s cabin at one point or another. As a result of their origins, the group are often referred to as a groupie band, but their existence was far more vibrant and interesting than that term gives them credit for.
Indeed, when you look into the personnel that made up the band, The GTOs featured some key players within California’s rock music scene. In total, seven women were in the band at one point or another, and they referred to themselves by the honorific ‘Miss’ followed by their name, or a nickname. The most well-known member of the band was Miss Pamela, or Pamela Des Barres to use her usual name.
Nowadays, Barres is probably best known for her tell-all memoir I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, but back in the 1960s, she was a key member of the Sunset Strip scene, forming friendships with everybody from Noel Redding to The Rolling Stones.
Also in the band was Christine Ann Frka (Miss Christine), who used to be a babysitter for Frank Zappa’s daughter, Moon Unit Zappa, and is often credited with giving Alice Cooper his stage persona. Elsewhere, the band contained Cynthia Sue Wells (Miss Cynderella), who went on to marry The Velvet Underground founder John Cale following the break-up of The GTOs in 1970.
During their short time together, between 1968 and 1970, The GTOs produced only one album, 1969’s Permanent Damage. Created with an ensemble cast of songwriters and contributors, notable inclusions being Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, as well as Zappa on production duties, the record is among the most diverse and original that the 1960s had to offer.
Neither the album nor their handful of live performances made much of an impact on the musical mainstream at the time. However, the innovative nature of that record, and the band in general, was certainly enough to cement The GTOs as an iconic group of the late 1960s Sunset Strip scene. They might often be written off as a groupie band, but there are many prominent male artists of that era who failed to create anything nearly as exciting or interesting as The GTOs did during their short tenure.
All original members of The GTOs:
- Miss Pamela (Pamela Des Barres),
- Miss Sparky (Linda Sue Parker),
- Miss Lucy (Lucy Offerall)
- Miss Christine (Christine Frka),
- Miss Sandra (Sandra Leano),
- Miss Mercy (Mercy Fontenot)
- Miss Cynderella (Cynthia Sue Wells)
