Famous Muses & Groupies in Rock Music Pt. 2
MUSE: Charlotte Martin (born Catherine Martin)
Charlotte was born on September 20th, 1948 in Paris, France, and spent most of her education as a youth in local boarding schools. When she was 17, she moved to London, England and changed her first name from ‘Catherine’ to the more feminine ‘Charlotte’ when she started modeling. Charlotte’s impressive work as a model includes numerous photoshoots for Vogue, Petticoat, Apple Boutique and ’19.’ She can also be seen on the inside sleeves of the album cover for Cream’s ‘Disraeli Gears’ from 1967.
Not long after she crossed over to the UK, Charlotte met up-and-coming guitarist Eric Clapton in the summer of 1966 around the time drummer Ginger Baker asked Eric to join his new hard rock trio Cream. Eric and Charlotte became instantly attached to each other and she tagged along to nearly every social event and tour date as his girlfriend for the next two years. As Eric and Charlotte were falling in love, Eric also formed a close friendship with Beatle George Harrison. Both Eric and Charlotte can be seen sitting behind John Lennon in the live promo video for ‘All You Need is Love’ in 1967.
By October 1968, Cream had imploded, and the trio not only disbanded, but Eric broke up with Charlotte. Infamously, Eric found himself growing an attraction to George’s own model wife Pattie Boyd and it caused a tiff in all four’s personal lives. Pattie originally denied Eric’s advances, and instead she and George invited Charlotte to stay in the couple’s guest room after the separation. Some sources claim that George and Charlotte secretly had an affair before the break-up, but in Pattie’s 2007 memoir Wonderful Tonight, she suggests that George and Charlotte’s brief affair was only a few days in between Christmas and New Year’s ’68. In Eric’s own 2007 book, Clapton, he makes no mention of George at all and states he only left Charlotte because he couldn’t stop thinking about Pattie.
On January 9th, 1970, Charlotte was invited to attend Led Zeppelin’s iconic Royal Albert Hall concert and met lead guitarist Jimmy Page backstage (coincidentally his 26th birthday). It was love at first sight once again for Charlotte, and Jimmy spent the next four months of all his personal time with her. Charlotte even traveled with the band on their short UK tour in early ’70. By the time the couple moved in together that summer, Charlotte was pregnant with their daughter Scarlet, later born on March 24th, 1971. During a 1994 Page & Plant show, Robert Plant cheekily commented that the Zeppelin ballad ‘That’s the Way’ was written “a half hour before Scarlet was conceived.” Charlotte and Scarlet also briefly appeared during one of the fantasy sequences in the band’s concert movie The Song Remains the Same (1976). Unfortunately, Jimmy eventually went back to his womanizing rockstar ways by 1971 and would carry on with groupies when out of town, including infamous flings with Pamela des Barres, Lori Maddox, Bebe Buell and Jenny Dino.
According to friends and acquaintances close to Jimmy and Charlotte, the couple’s relationship began rather tempestuously and the two would argue heatedly sometimes. Though some articles label Jimmy and Charlotte as a married couple, both Zep’s head tour roadie Richard Cole and rock journalist/LZ acquaintance Lisa Robinson recall Charlotte and Jimmy not being interested in marriage. Some pieces even erroneously claim that Charlotte left Jimmy after she discovered he was having an affair with Ronnie Wood’s wife, Krissy in 1974. This is also false, as Jimmy and Charlotte didn’t officially separate until 1983 (though Jimmy and Krissy’s affair was real). Amazingly, Jimmy and Charlotte got along better in the second half of their relationship, and Jimmy was by Charlotte’s side when she had to spend a week in the hospital seriously ill in 1976. Charlotte also made sure to stay with Jimmy until he was completely clean of his heroin addiction in spring 1983.
These days Charlotte is happily married in a lowkey, comfortable life as a painter in Maidenhead, England. She is one of the few famous rock girlfriends to have never done an interview on her relationships, and is still on good terms with both Eric and Jimmy.
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