About A Girl

Los Angeles, 1957. In the time of drive-in movies and sock hops, high school student Donna Ludwig liked to sneak out of the house to have fun with her friends. On one night out, she met a young guitarist named Richard Valenzuela and was immediately smitten. As Ritchie Valens, he would have a chart-topping hit with a song he wrote for her, before his life was tragically cut short. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In rural Alabama circa World War II, a farm girl named Audrey Mae Sheppard was at the tail end of a series of bad decisions. An ill-fated marriage and a pregnancy made her a single mother at the age of 18, and she’d had to move back home. An aspiring singer herself, she one day discovered an unassuming, lanky singer-songwriter named Hank Williams, and they fell in love. Their tumultuous union was defined by her singular, driving ambition to make them both stars. SOURCES: \\Still in Love With You\\ by Lycrecia Williams \\Hank\\ by Mark Ribowsky \\The Hank Williams Museum\\ \\Hank Williams A&E Biography\\ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1959, an American teenager named Priscilla Beaulieu, daughter of an Air Force officer, was living in West Germany. Lonely and bored, she was introduced to another American who understood the feeling. Elvis Presley, already a huge star, was serving a stint in the U.S. Army, and fell in love with the beautiful, though very young girl. The troubling relationship only became more complicated as the years passed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1962, the Caribbean island of Jamaica gained independence from Great Britain, and the fledgling nation yearned to establish an identity of its own. Two years later, Rita Anderson was a teenage single mother living in the impoverished Kingston suburb of Trenchtown, in search of something beyond her circumstances. She would find it as a singer in a rocksteady group. That would lead her to discover her twin flame: a shy young man who also saw music as his ticket out of Trenchtown. His name was Bob Marley. SOURCES: Elvis and Me by Priscilla Presley Biography article Elvis Presley: The Searcher (Documentary) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

By the time she was seventeen, London actress Jane Asher had already made a name for herself, onstage, in films, and in 1963 as a panelist on the BBC’s Juke Box Jury, a popular musical variety show. Due to her youth and popularity, she was offered an opportunity: interviewing The Beatles after their upcoming Royal Albert Hall concert. This simple assignment would be the start of a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney and a wild journey through the eye of Beatlemania and the 1960s cultural revolution, during which Jane would truly find herself. SOURCES Shout: The True Story of the Beatles by Philip Norman Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman The Beatles: Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years (Documentary) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1970s, actress Peggy Lipton was at a crossroads. She was the beautiful star of The Mod Squad, admired by girls and desired by men. And yet, she could not make a real relationship last, not until she met Quincy Jones, bandleader, record producer, and composer of Oscar-winning films. Sure, he was 13 years her elder, twice (and still) married with four kids. And never mind the roiling legacy of racism in America that would haunt their relationship. She knew he was the one. SOURCES: Breathing Out: A Memoir by Peggy Lipton Quincy (Documentary) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Austin, shopgirl. Farrokh Bulsara, art student. They formed a bond that didn’t have a name and couldn’t be defined. Even as he metamorphosed into the superstar the world would know as Freddie Mercury, their connection would last until the end. SOURCES: The Freddie Mercury Story: Who Wants To Live Forever (Documentary) Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story (Documentary) Mary Austin interview with OK! Magazine Mary Austin interview with Daily Mail 39th birthday party footage See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the mid-1960s, Los Angeles was a mecca of American music, and it was where Pamela Courson decided she wanted to be, escaping her suffocating conservative community in nearby Orange County. Pam was an intelligent but restless young woman, and she found a home among the outcasts of her generation who frequented the nightclubs and parties all over town. On one of these nights, she’d meet a sensitive and handsome poet who’d been thrust into the role of lead singer of a strange rock band called The Doors. Pam and Jim would quickly fall in love and over the next few years; their time together would be a rollercoaster. Ultimately, it would lead them to Paris. SOURCES: Jim Morrison: Life, Death, Legend by Stephen Davis When You’re Strange (2009, d. Tom DiCillo) Jim & I: Friends Until Death (Alain Ronay essay) Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison by Patricia Butler See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 1969, people all over the world were gripped by space fever in the wake of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, which would successfully land men on the moon. In London, nineteen year old Angie Barnett, freshly out of boarding school, was searching for an identity of her own. She found it one evening in an up and coming singer named David Bowie, whose single “Space Oddity” was rocketing to the Number #1 spot in the UK charts. While their marriage a year later was one of convenience above all else, she would help him bring his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, to life, and the relationship they developed was unique indeed. SOURCES: Angie Bowie, PleaseKillMe.com article Angie Bowie interviews: On David’s death (2016) Post-divorce (1980s) David Bowie - The Story Of Ziggy Stardust (Documentary) David Bowie - Sound and Vision (Documentary) Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie by Angela Bowie See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About A Girl is a new podcast about the influential women behind the musical legends - women who inspired, supported, and challenged icons like David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, and Bob Marley on their way to greatness. About a Girl is executive produced by Jake Brennan of Disgraceland and premieres November 30th, 2020. Search for and subscribe to About A Girl on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices