Tucson woman tells amazing tale of touring with Beatles, Rolling Stones and more

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Josh Benson - View Bio

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It was an infestation of America. The Beatles had landed in New York City. On the opposite shore, 20-year-old Chris O'Dell was settling into Los Angeles after leaving Tucson.

She was bored and one night, she got the invitation of a lifetime.

"You should come to London and work for the Beatles," O'Dell remembers. She received the invitation from Beatles publicist Derek Taylor in 1968.

Such begins the rather unbelievable tale of Miss O'Dell, working to fit into the world of music. In the music business, most started in the basement. Miss O'Dell was already in the penthouse.

There were immediate highlights.

"I remember being on the roof when they recorded their last concert," she says. "I sang on ‘Hey Jude' on the chorus."

Miss O'Dell spent two short years in London at Apple Corps, the Beatles headquarters. During that time O'Dell spun a web of rock star revelations of sex, drugs and rock and roll. But this was no cliché or an understatement.

Who else do you know has had a Beatle write a song about them?

George Harrison wrote a song for O'Dell, appropriately called "Miss O'Dell". There are even a few parts where Harrison starts laughing.

"He forgot the lyrics," O'Dell laughs.

The rock and roll life wouldn't stop there.

After living in London, O'Dell scored a gig with the Rolling Stones. There was an opening, so she applied.

The 1972 tour wore on Miss O'Dell. She says the Rolling Stones had much more of an edge than the Beatles, and she was starting to feel it.

"I was pretty non-functioning," she recalls. "I was depending on drugs to get through the day more or less."

But Miss O'Dell didn't stop. There would be more tours, more bands and more rock star soirees.

She would go on to tour with Fleetwood Mac, Phil Collins, John Denver, Queen, and many others.

One day while working with an English band she wasn't familiar with, she made a slip-up.

"One of the guys said, can you get me a towel? And I said, get your own towel," She remembers. "Whoops. It's over, I'm done, I'm fried."

O'Dell had a child and was married and she realized it was time to settle down and restart her life. She found that the beauty and easy-living in Tucson called her back.

20-years after moving back to Tucson, Chris O'Dell started helping young women as a substance abuse counselor.

"I understand what they're going through," she says. "I know how hard it is."

She's penned her rock-and-roll tale in her new book ‘Miss O'Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with The Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved'.

"If you lived in that circle you didn't write or talk about it," she recalls. "And I was loyal to that."

But now it's her time to tell the stories, and give us all a chance to live the rock and roll dream.