Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard was primarily known, and rightly so, as a major playwright and actor. He was also -- if only briefly -- a rock musician, and had some interesting associations with major rock performers. He was a drummer in <a href="spotify:artist:5ZjKW4JhcFuOXLpuJrr8wJ">the Holy Modal Rounders</a> for their third album, the crazed, cacophonous Indian War Whoop on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22ESP%22">ESP</a> in 1967. <a href="spotify:artist:5ZjKW4JhcFuOXLpuJrr8wJ">Holy Modal Rounders</a> mainstay <a href="spotify:artist:0bmSA4ENJ3mzCDQV1LnZZr">Peter Stampfel</a> has recalled that Shepard is not on the LP's cover shot because Shepard, as a statement against the hippie era, had gotten a crewcut at the height of the summer of love. <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22ESP%22">ESP</a> owner Bernard Stollman thus would not put him on the sleeve, as it was the wrong haircut for the band's image. <a href="spotify:artist:0bmSA4ENJ3mzCDQV1LnZZr">Stampfel</a> has also said that at one point, when the sessions for the second (and never-completed) <a href="spotify:artist:5ZjKW4JhcFuOXLpuJrr8wJ">Holy Modal Rounders</a> album on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Elektra%22">Elektra</a> were running into trouble, he was told that the record would be recorded only if Shepard composed an LP-length musical comedy piece for the band. That project was never fulfilled.

Shepard had an affair with <a href="spotify:artist:0vYkHhJ48Bs3jWcvZXvOrP">Patti Smith</a> in the early '70s, years before she became a recording artist, and the two co-wrote a play, Cowboy Mouth, in which <a href="spotify:artist:0vYkHhJ48Bs3jWcvZXvOrP">Smith</a> acted. Shepard also did some writing for <a href="spotify:artist:74ASZWbe4lXaubB36ztrGX">Bob Dylan</a>'s ill-fated documentary cum fictionalized reality movie Renaldo and Clara, and co-wrote a song with <a href="spotify:artist:74ASZWbe4lXaubB36ztrGX">Dylan</a>, "Brownsville Girl," on <a href="spotify:artist:74ASZWbe4lXaubB36ztrGX">Dylan</a>'s Knocked Out Loaded album. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi