Famous Groupie Connie Hamzy Passed Away At 66

RIP

Connie Hamzy, the famed rock ‘n roll groupie from Arkansas, passed away at the age of 66 in her hometown of Little Rock. She was immortalized as “sweet, sweet Connie” in Grand Funk Railroad’s 1973 classic hit “We’re an American Band”. According to the director for Little Rock’s Griffin Leggett Healey & Roth funeral home, Allen Taylor, she was in hospice before she died. Her cause of death was not available.

Hamzy achieved fame after a shoutout in the first verse of the aforementioned song. Drummer Brewer sang the lines, “Out on the road for 40 days/Last night in Little Rock put me in a haze/Sweet, sweet Connie, doin’ her act/She had the whole show and that’s a natural fact.”

In one interview with KTHV, she recalled the first time she heard it. She was swimming at Lake No 1 in Little Rock after her high school graduation.

“‘Folks, you’re not gonna believe what we just got in the studio, it’s the new release from Grand Funk Railroad!'” she recited. “‘And you know that dark-haired girl we see backstage a lot wandering around? Listen to the first few lyrics!’ …I was determined to become a famous groupie. I really was.”

She was interviewed several times, and she claimed to have been with some of the biggest names in rock like Joe Walsh, Eddie Van Halen, Don Henley, ZZ Top members, Huey Lewis, Peter Frampton, Paul Stanley, and many more. She even published her own memoir in 1995 titled “Rock Groupie: Intimate Adventures of “Sweet Connie” From Little Rock.”

“I became a groupie at 15 and since then it has become an addiction,” she told the London Sun in an interview. “No matter how hard I try, I just can’t give it up. It’s the thrill, the chase, the challenge of getting to meet a famous star that lures me back time and again.”