Clinton Heylin

‘There were no rules then’: Dana Gillespie’s 1960s childhood

In an eye-popping memoir, the singer describes going to bed with Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Roman Polanski, Michael Caine and Sean Connery while still in her teens

Dana Gillespie is at pains to point out that she was first and foremost a blues singer. Credit: Alamy 
issue 16 January 2021

Although I can understand why Dana Gillespie might choose to call her memoir after her most famous album, for the first 170 pages I remained convinced she should have taken a leaf from John Cleland and called it Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. For hers has been an extraordinary life (or perhaps half life, as the trail of hi-jinks runs its course by the end of the 1970s).

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