The rock groupie from Little Rock who never stopped rolling with the band.
YoutubeGrand Funk Railroad, the band who mentions Hamzy in their song “We’re an American Band.”
As long as there’s an American band around, Connie Hamzy will keep “doin’ her act.”
Connie Hamzy, born Jan. 9, 1955, in Little Rock, Ark., has collected several nicknames over the years. Some call her Connie Flowers, “Sweet” Connie Hamzy, “Sweet Sweet” Connie, or just simply “Sweet Sweet.” A prominent rock groupie, her celebrity status was solidified in two lines from the Grand Funk Railroad’s 1973 song, “We’re an American Band,” which became the group’s first number one single:
“Sweet, sweet Connie, doin’ her act
She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact.”
Connie Hamzy’s early escapades
KTHV/YouTubeConnie Hamzy.
Bands she was allegedly associated with include Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Bad Company, ZZ Top, and the Doobie Brothers. In 2005, Spin dubbed her “the world’s most notorious rock’n’roll groupie.” But she wasn’t just a 70s groupie. Hamzy was in it for the long haul.
Hamzy got started in the scene at a very young age – before she was even a legal adult. Hamzy supposedly got with her first rock star, the drummer Jerry Edmonton of Steppenwolf, at only 15 years old. He would have been in his mid-twenties at the time.
From there, she became a sort-of staple in Little Rock. Then she moved onto to Keith Moon of The Who and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.
“I was determined to become a famous groupie,” Hamzy told KTHV in 2019. “I really was.”
Drummers soon became her niche. “The drummers gravitated to me because they wanted to hear about John Bonham and Keith Moon,” she told Howard Stern in an interview. There was one drummer who got away, though. “I haven’t had Neal Pert. That I regret,” she said.
Findagrave.comHamzy looked back on her escapades fondly.
In 1973, Connie Hamzy became a household name. The band Grand Funk Railroad released We’re an American Band, which featured the teenage girl in the lyrics.
The lyric “Sweet, sweet Connie, doin’ her act,” earned her the nickname sweet, sweet Connie. The single also launched the band into stardom.
Hamzy was 17 years old when she was told about the lyric for the first time. She apparently didn’t believe the band’s manager when he told her.
“He called me and said you’re never going to believe this,” Hamzy recalled, “But Grand Funk’s written a song called We’re an American Band and your name is in the first lyrics.”
That wasn’t the last time Connie Hamzy was mentioned in the lyrics of a rock song. The Guess Who mention her in their song Pleasin’ For Reason from their 1974 album. Her name also shows up in the title track of Cheap Trick’s 1985 album Standing on the Edge.
Connie Hamzy’s affair with politics
YouTubeConnie Hamzy
In the 1980s, while her fellow groupie comrades like Pamela Des Barres and Bebe Buell slowly drifted out of the scene to start families or write books about their wild exploits, Hamzy continued her groupie lifestyle into the 90s.
In fact, some of the biggest waves she made came in 1991, shortly after Bill Clinton declared his candidacy for the presidential nomination. In a tell-all published by Penthouse magazine, Hamzy alleged that in 1984 she had an encounter with Clinton in a North Little Rock hotel while he was governor of Arkansas and married to Hillary Clinton. Hamzy said Bill spotted her while she was sunbathing by the hotel pool. The two of them went into the laundry room and fondled each other until they were abruptly interrupted.
Hamzy said that the incident fell on deaf ears. Political journalist George Stephanopoulos got affidavits from three individuals who said she approached Clinton and he rebuffed her. CNN picked up the story but dropped it after the affidavits were produced.
The scandal was back in the news in October of 2016, when she rehashed the sexual episode with Bill Clinton. She took a polygraph test about the alleged Clinton scandal and mailed the results over to Donald Trump’s campaign, who she gave her full support to.
Connie Hamzy Continued To Be Active In The Scene
Art MeripolHamzy in 1985 waiting at the backstage of a Black ‘n Blue and KISS concert.
In 1995, Hamzy wrote a book titled Rock Groupie: The Intimate Adventures of “Sweet Connie” from Little Rock, but her love for rock stars didn’t stop. In her 2005 interview with Spin, when she was 50 years old, she told a story of a recent encounter with Neil Diamond while she was hanging on a tour bus.
“Then he gets high with us and disappears backstage. A few minutes later, his manager says he wants to see me in his dressing room. So I knock on the door, and there’s Neil waiting for me in a blue robe.”
It wasn’t an unlikely encounter, given that Hamzy was reportedly backstage at every Arkansas gig well into the new millennium. “She’s a legend in Little Rock,” said Chris King, owner of the local music venue Sticky Fingerz.
In 2010, she told Howard Stern, “Every now and then I give a good blowjob to somebody coming through town, but all the damn venues around here hassle me all the time.” Apparently because of her age, which she said was considered “inappropriate.”
Howard asked if Connie ever felt insulted that the rockers just passed her around like a plate of potatoes. “Well, a plate of good potatoes,” she replied.
Hamzy reportedly enjoyed recounting her stories with famous rockstars at a bar in Little Rock. Michael Hibblen, the news director at KUAR, said he’d run into her there sometimes.
“She would sit there at the bar at The Town Pump and openly share her escapades with rock stars,” Hibblen said. “She still had fun telling those stories.”
In August 2021, Hamzy died at the age of 66. The cause of her death was not released to the public, however she died two days after being admitted to hospice care. She was an only child and had no children.
Don Brewer, who wrote and sang lead vocals on We’re An American Band, told the Associated Press, “So sorry to hear of Connie’s death. My memory of her is of a very outgoing ‘sweet’ girl that wanted to be famous. That was her goal in life. May she rest in peace!”
If you found this story interesting, you may also enjoy the story of Cynthia Plaster Caster, the groupie who made molds of rock musicians’ penises. Then you can check out these rock and roll groupies who changed music history.
