Radio Gonzo

Pamela Windo was born in Brighton, England, in 1942. She left school at 16 to travel, first to Paris and Berlin, then to North Africa, where she lived with the family of a Tunisian student she had fallen in love with in London. While there, she worked in the U.S. Embassy and as a radio operator on the construction of a dam. Back in England, after a first marriage and divorce, and with two young sons, she married childhood friend Gary Windo, a gifted saxophone player who'd just come back from New York, and who encouraged her to play piano. Soon, she found herself alongside musicians like Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt, Brotherhood of Breath's Louis Moholo, and Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, with whom she recorded and played her first gig. When the couple immigrated to Woodstock, New York, Windo joined the Gary Windo Quartet with bass player Steve Swallow. She went on to form a band of her own, Pam Windo & the Shades, and after a showcase at the Whisky-a-Go-Go in L.A., was signed by Albert Grossman. In 1987, Windo bow