I was blonde.
This is something that happened to me because of something that happened to me.
I was in Buffalo New York before the world had heard of Buffalo Chicken wings.
The first time I had seen Buffalo Chicken wings I was puzzled. I didn't think they were going to be chicken wings I thought it must have something to do with the unique presentation of something made from or shaped like a buffalo.
It was a restaurant in New York City next to the Ginger Man, our favorite.
More of a go out and order Chateaux Neuf Du Pape dinner type place. This one was right on the corner, rather large and most, if not all the wait staff roller skated your order to you. I still had brown hair with a little prematurely gray white streak in the middle of my bangs.
I ordered the Buffalo Chicken wings for fun .
Shortly after, swearing I would never go to a beauty styling salon I went to LA.
And I was sold on this idea of what stylist called a root perm .so your hair wouldn't be curly but it would give your hair volume as the perm would be only at the root. I thought 'oh a solution '
I had always had a lot of very fine hair. by the end of a performance or the end of the day, it would just cling and fall close to the head and do nothing but hang there (I never was I hairspray person) so I went for this new age perm.
I did this several times and liked it. Then… I went to Buffalo. The liner notes read "recording an album in Buffalo is not as glamorous as one might think. " Which was funnier then. It was before Buffalo was developed into a cool place, with eating establishments, venues people who knew more than iron and coal, steel and big strong men. The anchor bar, where Buffalo Chicken wings were invented was still just a corner bar. Only locals knew the legacy. Now Mrs Teressa Bellissimo, the inventor of the Buffalo Chicken wing because of a mistake the restaurant suppliers made.
She had ordered chicken legs and thighs and when she opened the package there were chicken wings.
I believe she was going to make chicken cacciatore for this meeting of businessman that night(probably the iron whole steel and big strong men business)
and all she had was chicken wings.
So the immediate need became a mother of invention. She came up with this legendary sauce. Yes now they bottle it and sell it all over the world. And there's always a wait time to get into their larger location.
Recording this album
Am I Real, or What?
With brown hair that had gotten into a salon in LA and received a root perm....
Well the recording process took a lot longer .I ended up in a famous Blizzard. We couldn't leave the hotel as snow peaked the top of the front door!
After the blizzard my perm needed to be "refreshed"
Finding an updated salon in Buffalo at that time was a challenge or rather impossible. 'Blanche 'at the salon assured me she knew what she was doing.
I was covered in heavy duty plastic cape and two people began to work on my hair. There were tiny little metal rollers. I have memories of these from when I was a child and my mother wanted me to be The Next Shirley Temple, with the same smell, hideous poison and foxiness of that first perm that I had as a child. I became alarmed. "uh umm, I think these little metal rods have been in long enough, I only want the roots permed. these are very tiny... "
“Don't worry honey we know what we're doing”
"My head is burning and I think we need to take these out"
“I'll check it,” she said.
I was then whisked to the rinse bowl where they began to take out the little metal rods with the horrible smelling solution, there was a little bit of mumbling as my hair began to come out with the rods and she said: "we have a little "breakage" but nothing to worry about.”
When I looked at my hair whole clumps had come out, the rest was orangey brown, Burnt…
"My Hair!!!!!!!"
“Oh we'll just put some color in there don't you worry”.
In one fell swoop my almost virgin dark brown hair with the natural white prematurely gray streak in the front was mutilated. Recovery from this trauma was painful and slow.
Then off to New York City, Ze French hair dresser Thierry "Ee weel fix" “Ee Weel make you ze 80s woman”. And so he did. Check out (rock 'n' roll heart video, good God!) He cut off all my fried hair in a very asymmetrical shaved on one side longer on the other. I was miserable and entrapped .All I wanted was my old hair back. That was never to be . Off to LA where the father of the old Hollywood studio blondes (he had done Lana Turner )worked in a small unassuming shop in Hollywood where he methodically painstakingly removed all the burnt, orangey black shoe polish color from my hair with my prematurely gray white streak still in the front yet hardly showing .
Hair grows slowly I became blonde hence this cover photo" freedom knows my name". my hair had grown and I continued being blonde.
Dependent on hair colorists and stylists .
In the system, the trap.
Never completely finding a way out "freedom knows my name", indeed my dear ones indeed