Patty!
On February 4, 1974, 19-year-old heiress Patricia Hearst was kidnapped from the Berkeley, California apartment she shared with her fiancé Steven Weed by a left-wing urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Two months later Hearst announced on an audiotape that she had joined the SLA and assumed the name "Tania" (inspired by the nom de guerre of Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, Che Guevara's chick). Soon after she was photographed wielding a rifle while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank at 1450 Noriega Street in San Francisco. A warrant was issued for her arrest and and in September 1975, she was arrested in an apartment in the Mission district with other SLA members. While being booked into prison, she listed her occupation as "Urban Guerilla" and asked her attorney to relay the following message: "Tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there." Hearst refused to give evidence against the other captured SLA members and was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment, but her sentence was later commuted to seven year by President Jimmy Carter, and Hearst was released from prison on February 1, 1979, having served just 22 months.
The other day a good man by the name of Greg C. threw up a nice post on WFMU's Beware of the Blog. Seems kidnap victim-turned-revolutionary Patty Hearst inspired a couple musical odes during her brief tenure as a fugitive bank robber and sock thief accomplice. Greg was kind enough to share his finds, the first being Al Cartwright's "Patty," a great countryish number that has "Patty on the rampage again.". Good 'ol Al with his pardner Doris Schrock were also known for their not-so-much-of-a-hit "Overdrawn Love Account." Even more disturbing is Sue Lloyd & William O'Donnell's "The Ballad Of Patty Hearst (Listen To Tania)," which includes lifelike gunshot sound effects and a great spoken intro where a perky Tania asks, "Steven, is that you?" before the funk kicks in.
Now there's been a lot of talk going around that Patty's ex Steven Weed who got cold-cocked in the kidnapping was the same Steven Weed that was a member of the L.A.-via-Washington group the Velvet Illusions, best known for their anti-drug side, "Acid Head." Well, those rumours are unfounded as it's a totally different Steven Weed involved.
BUT, there is a psychedelic connection to Patty in the world of obscure garage rock afterall. Seems Patty's future husband and post-jail stay bodyguard Bernard Shaw was a member of a group called Dust who cut a 45 for a label called Yas in '69 or so. The group featured Marion, IN, musician Art Titus who was also a member of the combo Titus & Ross who cut a handful of odd (and scarily collectable) sides before disappearing at the end of the decade. Two singles, in particular, were notable for being composed for use by ABC's Wide World of Sports program -- "Cycle Thing" being created to accompany ABC's coverage of the 1969 Pepperell Motocross race, and "Jean Claude What's-His-Name" accompanying coverage of a 1969 French slalom skiing competition.