Following Breadcrumbs

Book excerpt: As an LA tween in the mid-1960s, Jamie Johnston—free-spirited, fiercely independent Hollywood brat and daughter of ’40s/’50s actor-singer Johnny Johnston (“Rock Around the Clock”)—had two significant events forever frozen in her mind. The first of these memories she would share with millions—the era-defining appearance of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1964. The second memory, however, was much more intimate. It was a bright summer’s day in 1966 when she stood rapt, watching one of the undisputed kings of the Sunset Strip, the Byrds’ Gene Clark, coolly entering the legendary Whisky a Go Go. Little did Jamie know that a mere nine years after having her life changed by the Fab Four, her female duo, the Skiffles, would be signed to a record deal with Beatles producer, George Martin, or that twenty years hence, she would embark upon a passionate affair with the ill-fated ex-Byrd Clark, who died at the age of forty-six in 1991. What begins as an up-close-and-personal commentary of an era that changed the world, with many of its famous players traversing through the pages, evolves into a tragic love story. Praise for Following Breadcrumbs “Following Breadcrumbs is a tell-all rock-and-roll memoir with a conscience” (Tom Sandford, the Clarkophile Blog, Toronto, Canada).