Permanent Damage: Memoirs of an Outrageous Girl

Mercy Fontenot

Jul 2021 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Natasha Soudek

About this audiobook

Mercy Fontenot was a Zelig who grew up in the San Francisco Haight-Ashbury scene, where she crossed paths with Charles Manson, went to the first Acid Test, and was friends with Jimi Hendrix (she was later in his movie Rainbow Bridge). She predicted the Altamont disaster when reading the Rolling Stones's tarot cards at a party and left San Francisco for the climes of Los Angeles in 1967 when the Haight "lost its magic." Miss Mercy's work in the GTOs, the Frank Zappa-produced all-female band, launched her into the pages of Rolling Stone in 1969. Her adventures saw her jumping out of a cake at Alice Cooper's first record release party, while high on PCP, and had her travel to Memphis where she met Al Green and got a job working for the Bar-Kays. Along the way, she married and then divorced Shuggie Otis, before transitioning to punk rock and working with the Rockats and Gears. This is her story as she lived and saw it. Written just prior to her death in 2020, Permanent Damage shows us the world of the 1960s and 1970s music scene through Mercy's eyes, as well as the fallout of that era-experiencing homelessness before sobering up and putting her life back together. Miss Mercy's journey is a can't-miss for anyone who was there and can't remember, or just wishes they'd been there.

About the author

Mercy Fontenot ran away to the Haight-Ashbury at sixteen in 1965. In 1967, Fontenot moved to Los Angeles, where she fell in with the GTOs, an all-female band whose album Permanent Damage was released in 1969. The two songs she wrote for the band were eventually recorded by Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, and Lowell George.

Natasha Soudek's voice is as distinct and memorable as the range of characters she's played on-screen, which gives listeners an immediate familiarity to connect to, along with a warmth and intimacy that spans and uplifts any genre.

Lyndsey Parker is the music editor at Yahoo Entertainment and cohost of the daily SiriusXM Volume show Volume West. Considered an expert in music and pop culture, Parker is an Online Journalism Award nominee and has written for Elle, MOJO, Rolling Stone, NME, and Guitar.