The Story

Theme from Pamela's Song

In the fall of 1966, Billy Turner and the Lightning crashed out of Southwest Texas into Rock and Roll legend with their classic hit song Pedal to the Metal. In March of the following year Billy Turner was murdered in Los Angeles by persons unknown. He was 24 years old.

    Forty years later, an anonymous British music journalist intent on solving the mystery of Billy’s death tracks down Turner's longtime girlfriend from El Paso. For a very good reason she has never talked about him, but now, dying of cancer, Pamela decides to speak about her sunny days and wild nights with Billy, about the men she tried to love after he was gone and finally, the truth about the mobsters and the dark side of the Hollywood music business that took his life.

    Ethereal and profane, poignant and terrifying, Pamela’s Song is the story of a beautiful young woman who had almost perfect love in her hand, only to lose it in a moment. Her voice will echo around in your mind long after the words are gone.

Author's Note

This world once existed, although actual people, places, songs and dates have been impossibly rearranged, even distorted, by Pamela to tell her story. An entirely fictional account about the tragic arc of Billy Turner's short life, it is definitely a tribute to the music of so many of the lively inspired people who brought us Rock and Roll. 

    Pamela's Song is also a thank you to the women I have known who answered my unasked questions. Without them, my life would be much poorer. In the end, perhaps like Patsy Cline, Pamela is singing about the courage and desperate dignity of the broken hearted. There are so many, maybe every one of us in some way or another at some moment in our lives. Come what may, she and Patsy know that it is better to have loved and better still, to try to love again.