Grace Jones sang at Pacha, at the Flower Power party that Piti Urgell created in 1980 and that I promoted with twenty-four editions of the Flower Power VIP.
I met Grace Jones in Formentera when she was a model. And we met again during the seventeen consecutive autumns I spent in New York.
In 1979 I interviewed and photographed her at Sudio 54 nightclub, for Lecturas magazine. We used to meet Andy Warhol and his fun group at Studio 54. And a year later I played her on Monica Randall’s TV show ‘Things’.
When, in 1985, Cinzano hired her to shoot a commercial in Barcelona, Grace called me and I took her to dinner and dancing at Up&Down nightclub.
During her performance I was glued to the Pacha stage and suddenly she bent down and shook my hand. I was thrilled.
On stage he changed his look several times, with big hats and headdresses. And at half past three in the morning she received me in her dressing room, and I showed her all the photos I have with her in the past. There was Paul, the son she had with Jean Paul Goude. Paul has made her a grandmother and accompanies her in all her concerts with keyboards.
She performed several songs suited to disco style, so she did not sing La vie en rose, which I would have liked to hear.
Grace is staying at the Pacha Hotel. And she told me that she would like to rent a boat to go swimming in Formentera, the only day she has left in Eivissa.
Grace was born in Spanish Town, in British Jamaica. And in America they call her ‘The Jamaican Hurricane’.
She had a very free and somewhat wild childhood. Her parents left Grace and her siblings in the care of her grandparents. On her mother’s side she was the niece of a bishop and her father was a politician, so Grace told me she should be doing a totally different life.
As a child she was fascinated by costumes and shows. And at nine years old she wanted to be a bullfighter. She had a feeling that one day she would be famous.
The most important person in her life, in her adolescence, was Christian, her late older brother. And she told me: “Something must have happened to my mother during the pregnancies. Because while I was playing with fire he was having fun with my dolls. I was the big brother and he was my little sister.”
At the age of fifteen they went to America to be reunited with their parents. And they took Grace to school.
“Socially maladjusted”
On her report card they put, “Socially maladjusted.” Because of her lousy behavior. She dropped out of school and ran away to Philadelphia, where she studied drama and sang with soul groups.
She told me that in Philadelphia a bishop fell in love with her and she had to leave. With her brother they traveled to Japan and Brazil, where Christian fell in love with a bodybuilder and Grace had to continue her journey alone.
At the age of 22, she moved to Paris to become a model. And, being a model for Yves Saint Laurent, she went to a nightclub wearing boxer shorts and bare-chested, covered in glitter. And it was her best advertising campaign.
Because of his androgynous appearance some thought he was a man and others thought he was a transsexual. And he became a gay icon.
Obsessed with singing and filmmaking, she abandoned her successful modeling career in Paris and Milan and settled in New York. Tom Moulton offered to produce her music and thus were born That’s the trouble, I need a man and the fantastic La vie en rose.
She has worked for television and in several motion pictures. The costumes of her shows are impressive. I remember some where he looked like a snake or a black devil. And one show, at Studio 54, where she landed on a UFO with a cobra snake head, and Grace would come out tasting through the snake’s mouth.
She told me, “I create my own costumes to externalize my strength and energy. And to achieve an aggressive and provocative image. And that’s why they say I’m like a goat”.
Her very masculine haircut is very fashionable nowadays among men.
She admits that she went too far with drugs, alcohol and sex, but has come out of it quite well.
For Grace the most exciting thing is singing in public. “I don’t see them because the lights prevent me. But I feel them very attentive.”
She gives so much of herself when she sings that she almost loses consciousness. In one performance, dressed as Cleopatra, she planned to fake a fainting spell at the end of the act, to be carried away by some white slaves, but there was no fiction and she lost consciousness.
In Japan she sang, dressed as a bride, I need a man in front of twenty thousand people and ended up on the floor on the verge of a heart attack.
Arrival in Ibiza
In Spain she only knows Barcelona, Ibiza and Formentera. In 1989, the famous producer Pino Sagliocco brought her to Ibiza to sing at the KU discotheque. I remember her in a black leather outfit, similar to the one she wore at Pacha.
In the book El Baile de Pacha, which I did with Toni Riera, we put a nice picture of Grace Jones.
She likes to write her lyrics and has written her autobiography, entitled Nunca escribiré mis memorias, published by Ségnier publishing house.
Grace is an icon of disco music and has received many, many awards. She currently lives in Jamaica. And it is an honor that she has come again to sing in Ibiza. At the end of her performance, microphone in hand, she said: “Ibiza is a magical island”