wilkie

Welcome to the world of wilkie. If you are not related to me by blood, marriage or adoption, what the heck are you doing here?

Well, I was born in 1957, at the height of the Christmas shopping season. Some say I was born in Duluth and raised in Memphis. Others contend that I went to grade school with Keith Richards. But the real truth is that I was born a coal miner's daughter and drove my Daddy's truck every day to the docks at Liverpool as a young child. Then my Mom bought me my first guitar, and I played till my fingers bled. A loner as a child, I got my first taste of the road when I left New Jersey and made the pilgrimage to New York City to visit Woodie Guthrie. The year was 1968, and the man was long since dead, but I learned so much from him anyway. I headed to LA, and everything changed for me when I met Stephen Stills. The sixties were real crazy times. For example, I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Some of us survived, others weren't so lucky. Me, I was saved by a little ad in the paper calling for a composer. By chance, a guy by the name of Bernie Taupin was answering a similar ad for a lyricist. It wasn't long before we replaced our drummer with a guy named Ringo, and things really started to take off. But fame is fleeting, and when the fans stopped buying the records, I began using downers to sleep, uppers to wake up, and pasta from Mama Leoni's while watching Three's Company on ABC. After a few minor roles on Broadway, and a few months in detox, I was diagnosed with tennis elbow. Amid rumours surrounding my sexuality, I decided to call the guys together for one last tour. I know, I vowed never to play with them ever again, but it was the eighties and we were being sponsored by the only corporate giant that supported both gay rights and the American farmer - Dairy Queen. We seemed to get that old feeling back, so we cut a new album and did an episode of "Behind the Music". It didn't seem to matter that John, Brian, Keith and the Big Bopper had all died in a plane crash in the late fifties. The sound was still there. In the nineties I artificially inseminated a lesbian synchronized swimmer, cut a record with my estranged triplet daughters from two former marriages and worked with Nelson Mandella and Sonny Bono for human rights and fresh pasta. Today, between touring, recording and golfing with Alice Cooper and David Cassidy, I've joined president Bush and the rest of the free world in the hunt for Bobby Goldsboro, and I won't rest until I've done a duet with that guy. Bobby, I miss you.

Oh, absolutely! In my house, I'm constantly playing. Sometimes you can find me on my front lawn, disrupting the neighbourhood, getting dirty looks from the kids on the street... but they should really be in school, shouldn't they?

Well, I prefer Paul to John. That probably says it all.

I use a guitar.

Anything else? Are you saying that's it? The interview's over? What the F#@%*!! I was told there'd be a film crew, a documentary, a TV special. This sucks. This really sucks. You people will definitely be hearing from my lawyers.