Rock Music: Women
"A Girl Can Do What She Wants to Do": Women in Rock Music
A large portion of the rock music industry is rendered from a male perspective. These readings center on gender studies as well as women's voices and experiences to deliver a more accurate narrative of their role in the history of rock music.
Books
She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll by
Gillian G. Gaar's critically acclaimed, breakthrough book, the first full history of women in rock and pop ever written, became an instant classic upon its publication in 1992. Arranged chronologically and told with impassioned detail, She's A Rebel charts a half century of women performers from the early R&B singers of the 1950s, to the girl groups, Motown acts, folksingers, and rock chicks of the 1960s, to the punk rebels and pop divas of the 1970s, to the brash all-girl bands, rappers, and riot grrls of the 1980s and 1990s. This expanded ten-year anniversary edition features over 75 photos and includes three all-new chapters on all the major artists of the last decade as well as an insider's look at the music industry and the emerging power of women rock stars. With new preface by Yoko Ono and dozens of new profiles and interviews with performers such as Courtney Love, L7, Bikini Kill, the Breeders, Sarah McLachlan, Ani di Franco, Sheryl Crow, Sleater Kinney, Alanis Morrisette, Lucinda Williams, Mariah Carey, Destiny's Child, Lauryn Hill, Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado, Bjork, and many others, this book captures the amazing explosion of women's voices and talent in the music world. "She's A Rebel is as thoroughly entertaining as it is researched ... It's exhaustive and exhilarating."--Billboard
Call Number: ML394 .G284 2002ISBN: 1580050786Publication Date: 2002-11-29
We Gotta Get Out of This Place : The True, Tough Story of Women in Rock by
Rock and roll has traditionally been a boys' game. A male-controlled field, it forced female artists to work twice as hard, usually for half the recognition. No matter the obstacles, however, women have always been drawn to the restless life of the road, to the glamour of the stage, to the need to make a joyful noise. Beginning in the early days with Bessie Smith, Mahalia Jackson, and Maybelle Carter, Hirshey takes us on a wild ride through a century of popular music and the women who made it. We are whispered to in the dark night of Janis Joplin's soul and pinioned to the studio wall by Aretha Franklin's mighty pipes. We listen in as Phil Spector and Ellie Greenwich build the Ronettes' perfect pop moment, "Be My Baby". Joni Mitchell rewrites womanhood, and Debbie Harry and Patti Smith tear it down again. We meet Madonna at nineteen, debating what she's willing to do for a record deal, and hear what Tina Turner thinks of being called a victim. We hear from vitriol queen Courtney Love, country darling Dolly Parton, neohippie Sarah McLachlan, provocateur fatale Lil' Kim. Whitney Houston and Cher elucidate the meaning of diva. Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott look to the female rock star of the future. Through it all, one of rock's best journalists delivers a passionate history of women in rock that is deft, provocative, and always deeply entertaining.
Call Number: ML3534 .H58 2001ISBN: 0871138247Publication Date: 2000-10-01
Electric Ladyland: Women and Rock Culture by
With the explosion of rock music in the mid-1960s, women arrived--as performers, critics, and fans. While operating in radically different ways within rock culture, female musicians, journalists, and groupies rewrote women's roles on and off the stage in the 1960s and 1970s. Electric Ladyland is a social and cultural history of this formative era in rock and roll, examining how the changing roles of women were intertwined with the evolution of the music. Articles and reviews from Rolling Stone and the Village Voice provide a window on a time when female musicians such as Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and Joni Mitchell battled sexism from concert promoters and mainly male reviewers. Feminist rock journalists, however, were coming into their own. In particular, Ellen Willis, music critic for the New Yorker, and Lillian Roxon, author of the influential Rock Encyclopedia, transformed the way society perceived sometimes marginalized female performers. The groupie was born at the same time, and Rhodes devotes considerable attention to the rise of this phenomenon. Through journalistic accounts as well as personal interviews with groupies of the 1960s and 1970s, she explores these women's dual legacy of self-assertion and promiscuous behavior that resonates to this day through the popularity of such films as Almost Famous. Deeply informed by critical media studies and drawing on diverse and rich sources, Electric Ladyland assesses the lasting effects of cultural representations on female sexuality and gender roles.
Call Number: ML82 .R54 2005ISBN: 0812238400Publication Date: 2005-03-08
Women Make Noise: Girl Bands from Motown to the Modern by
In Women Make Noise musicians, promoters, journalists, and fans explore the best girl bands of the last fifty years. Includes interviews with members of the original '60s girl groups and classic punk outfits like The Raincoats and The Slits as well as household names of today.
Call Number: ML82.W66 M2 2012ISBN: 9780956632913Publication Date: 2012-12-11
Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender by
Sexing the Groove discusses these issues and many more, bringing together leading music and cultural theorists to explore the relationships between popular music, gender and sexuality. The contributors, who include Mavis Beayton, Stella Bruzzi, Sara Cohen, Sean Cubitt, Keith Negus and Will Straw, debate how popular music performers, subcultures, fans and texts construct and deconstruct `masculine' and `feminine' identities. Using a wide range of case studies, from Mick Jagger to Riot Grrrls, they demonstrate that there is nothing `natural', permanent or immovable about the regime of sexual difference which governs society and culture. Sexing the Groove also includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography for further reading and research into gender and popular music.
Call Number: ML3470 .S46 1997ISBN: 0415146704Publication Date: 1997-11-04
Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll by
African American women have played a pivotal part in rock and roll--from laying its foundations and singing chart-topping hits to influencing some of the genre's most iconic acts. Despite this, black women's importance to the music's history has been diminished by narratives of rock as a mostly white male enterprise. In Black Diamond Queens, Maureen Mahon draws on recordings, press coverage, archival materials, and interviews to document the history of African American women in rock and roll between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mahon details the musical contributions and cultural impact of Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Labelle, the Shirelles, and others, demonstrating how dominant views of gender, race, sexuality, and genre affected their careers. By uncovering this hidden history of black women in rock and roll, Mahon reveals a powerful sonic legacy that continues to reverberate into the twenty-first century.
Call Number: ML3534.3 .M346 2020ISBN: 9781478010197Publication Date: 2020-10-30
Fever: How Rock 'n' Roll Transformed Gender in America by
Tim Riley is the author of Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary, Hard Rain: A Dylan Commentary, and Madonna: Illustrated. His writing on pop culture has appeared in The Washington Post, Boston magazine, The Boston Phoenix, and the on-line journals Salon.com and Feed.com. He is currently the pop critic for NPR’s midday news-magazine, Here and Now. From the moment Elvis Presley started swinging his hips, social critics targeted rock ‘n’ roll as a broad threat to American morals. Parents worried that Presley’s style was a corrupting influence that would drive their children away from the wholesome ideals of ‘the greatest generation.’ In Fever: How Rock ‘n’ Roll Transformed Gender in America, renowned music critic Tim Riley turns that line of thinking on its head. Riley argues that instead of being a negative influence, rock ‘n’ roll provided new role models for an entire generation of Americans—liberating men from rigid, macho straitjackets and encouraging women to express the full range of their desires. Beginning with Elvis’s break from the John Wayne mold, Riley traces the development of men and women who challenged the status quo while articulating a new code of behavior. Rock’s code, Riley argues, allows men to explore their feelings more openly, while freeing women to let loose their lusty and aggressive impulses. Provocative and illuminating, Fever shows how rock stars from Tina Turner to Mick Jagger—and Lesley Gore to Bruce Springsteen—have taught men and women new ways to think about themselves, and about each other. “A fascinating look at the ways rock has shaped how we think about sexual identity in America. Riley presents serious academic points within a rock-critic analysis of icons that even a layperson would appreciate. Whether he’s dissecting ‘Tears of a Clown’ or calling Michael Jackson a ‘product of pop gone crazy,‘ Riley is always witty, acerbic, and smart.”—Charles R. Cross, author of Heavier Than Heaven “In his new book, Fever, Tim Riley goes beyond his unique fusion of technical music knowledge and stunningly perceptive emotional exegisis of lyrics to a wider-angle social vision... Riley is at his very best.”—Ron Rosenbaum, The New York Observer “Fever combines brainy and audacious cultural analysis with genuine musical understanding—a combination rare enough to inspire exhilaration.”—Tim Page, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Time Page on Music “A fascinating look at the ways rock has shaped how we think about sexual identity in America. Riley presents serious academic points within a rock-critic analysis of icons that even a layperson would appreciate. Whether he’s dissecting ‘Tears of a Clown’ or calling Michael Jackson a ‘product of pop gone crazy,‘ Riley is always witty, acerbic, and smart.”—Charles R. Cross, author of Heavier Than Heaven
Call Number: ML3918.R63 R55 2004ISBN: 0312286112Publication Date: 2004-06-01
Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution by Call Number: ML3534.3 .M37 2010ISBN: 9780061806360Publication Date: 2010-09-28
Let's Spend the Night Together: Backstage Secrets of Rock Muses and Supergroupies by
This intimate account of 24 legendary groupies reveals what went on behind the closed doors of rock stars from Elvis to Marilyn Manson. Consisting of Pamela Des Barres's revealing interviews with and profiles of other supergroupies, this book offers firsthand glimpses into the backstage world of rock stars and the women who loved them. The groupies--such as Miss Japan Beautiful, who taught Elvis how to dance; Cassandra Peterson (Mistress of the Dark), who tangled with Tom Jones in Sin City; Cynthia Plaster Caster, who redefined the art of Jimi Hendrix; and Miss B., who revealed Kurt Cobain's penchant for lip gloss--tell tales that go well beyond an account of a one-night stand to become a part of music history.
Call Number: OnlineISBN: 9781556526688Publication Date: 2007-07-01
The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by
"Jessica Hopper's criticism is a trenchant and necessary counterpoint not just on music, but on our culture at large." --Annie Clark, St. Vincent An acclaimed, career-spanning collection from a fiercely feminist and revered contemporary rock critic, reissued with new material Throughout her career, spanning more than two decades, Jessica Hopper, a revered and pioneering music critic, has examined women recording and producing music, in all genres, through an intersectional feminist lens. The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic features oral histories of bands like Hole and Sleater Kinney, interviews with the women editors of 1970s-era Rolling Stone, and intimate conversations with iconic musicians such as Björk, Robyn, and Lido Pimienta. Hopper journeys through the truths of Riot Grrrl's empowering insurgence; decamps to Gary, Indiana, on the eve of Michael Jackson's death; explodes the grunge-era mythologies of Nirvana and Courtney Love; and examines the rise of emo. The collection also includes profiles and reviews of some of the most-loved, and most-loathed, women artists making music today: Fiona Apple, Kacey Musgraves, M.I.A., Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey. In order for the music industry to change, Hopper writes, we need "the continual presence of radicalized women . . . being encouraged and given reasons to stay, rather than diminished by the music which glues our communities together." The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic--published to acclaim in 2015, and reissued now with new material and an introduction by Samantha Irby--is a rallying cry for women-centered history and storytelling, and a groundbreaking, obsessive, razor-sharp panorama of music writing crafted by one of the most influential critics of her generation.
Call Number: ML3534 .H673 2021ISBN: 9780374538996Publication Date: 2021-07-06
Articles
- "What's Happening on Music Television? A Gender Role Content Analysis" by Rita and John Sommers-Flanagan and Britta Davis, Sex Roles, 01 June 1993
- "Just a Girl? Rock Music, Feminism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth" by Gayle Wald, Feminism and Youth Cultures, Spring 1998
- "Rethinking Issues of Gender and Sexuality in Led Zeppelin: A Woman's View of Pleasure and Power in Hard Rock" by Susan Fast, American Music, Autumn 1999
- "Women's 'Cock Rock' Goes Mainstream" by Jennie Ruby, Off Our Backs, July-August 2005
- "Oppositional Consciousness within an Oppositional Realm: The Case of Feminism and Womanism in Rap and Hip Hop, 1976-2004" by Layli Phillips, Kerri Reddick-Morgan, and Dionne Patricia Stephens, The Journal of African American History, Summer 2005
- "The Write to Rock: Racial Mythologies, Feminist Theory, and the Pleasures of Rock Music Criticism" by Daphne A. Brookes, Women and Music, 2008
- "Gender and Cultural Consecration in Popular Music" by Vaughn Schmutz and Alison Faupel, Social Forces, December 2010
- "'It's a Man's Man's Man's World': Music Groupies and the Othering of Women in the World of Rock" by Gretchen Larsen, Organization, 10 May 2017
- "Record Collections as Musical Archives: Gender, Record Collecting, and Whose Music Is Heard" by Sophia Maalsen and Jessica McLean, Journal of Material Culture, 11 August 2017
- "Staging a ‘Real’ Masculinity in a ‘Fake’ World: Creativity, (In)authenticity, and the Gendering of Musical Labour" by Kai Arne Hansen, Cultural Studies, 10 December 2021
- Articles PlusIndex to hundreds of millions electronic resources, including journal and newspaper articles, e-books, dissertations, and media in campus library collections.
Suggested Subject Headings
"Feminism and music"
"Groupies"
"Riot grrrl movement"
"Sexism in music"
"Sex role in music"
"Women rock musicians"
Recommended Memoirs and Biographies
I'm with the Band by
The stylish, exuberant, and remarkably sweet confession of one of the most famous groupies of the 1960s and 70s is back in print in this new edition that includes an afterword on the author's last 15 years of adventures. As soon as she graduated from high school, Pamela Des Barres headed for the Sunset Strip, where she knocked on rock stars' backstage doors and immersed herself in the drugs, danger, and ecstasy of the freewheeling 1960s. Over the next 10 years she had affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Waylon Jennings, Chris Hillman, Noel Redding, and Jim Morrison, among others. She traveled with Led Zeppelin; lived in sin with Don Johnson; turned down a date with Elvis Presley; and was close friends with Robert Plant, Gram Parsons, Ray Davies, and Frank Zappa. As a member of the GTO's, a girl group masterminded by Frank Zappa, she was in the thick of the most revolutionary renaissance in the history of modern popular music. Warm, witty, and sexy, this kiss-and-tell#150;all stands out as the perfect chronicle of one of rock 'n' roll's most thrilling eras.
Diana Ross by
This definitive, up-to-date, and irresistible biography paints an unforgettable picture of one of America's most enduring celebrities from the New York Times bestselling biographer of Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna. 16-page photo insert.
Somebody to Love? by
A candid autobiography of the great rock diva of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship, revealing her wild life at the forefront of the Sixties and Seventies counterculture. She has been called rock and roll's original female outlaw, as famous for her bad behavior as for her haunting singing voice. In her 25-year career as a musician, Grace Slick charted dozens of hits and sold millions of albums. From "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love" to "Sarah" and "Miracles", the songs she performed became the anthems of a generation. Whether describing her antics at the White House with Abbie Hoffman or the unforgettable experience that was Woodstock, Slick's recollections have the same rich imagery found in her lyrics. In this provocative narrative, readers will discover the many sides of Grace Slick: as artistic pioneer; she records songs with Jerry Garcia and David Crosby; as practitioner of freedom and rebellion; she sleeps with Jim Morrison and gets arrested for DUI on three separate occasions (without actually being in a car); and as a loving mother to actress China Kantner, she tries to balance casual friendship with parental wisdom. Slick offers a revealing self-portrait of the complex woman behind the rock-outlaw image, and delivers a behind-the-scenes, no-holds-barred view of the people and spirit that defined a quarter-century of American pop culture. Wildly funny, candid, and evocative, Somebody to Love?tells what it was really like during, and after, the Summer of Love-and how one remarkable woman survived it all to remain today as vibrant and rebellious as ever.
Simple Dreams by
Tracing the timeline of her remarkable life, Linda Ronstadt, whose forty-five year career has encompassed a wide array of musical styles, weaves together a captivating story of her origins in Tucson, Arizona, and her rise to stardom in the Southern California music scene of the 1960s and '70s. Linda Ronstadt was born into a musical family, and her childhood was filled with everything from Gilbert and Sullivan to Mexican folk music to jazz and opera. Her artistic curiosity blossomed early, and she and her siblings began performing their own music for anyone who would listen. Now, in this beautifully crafted memoir, Ronstadt tells the story of her wide-ranging and utterly unique musical journey. Ronstadt arrived in Los Angeles just as the folkrock movement was beginning to bloom, setting the stage for the development of country-rock. As part of the coterie of like-minded artists who played at the famed Troubadour club in West Hollywood, she helped define the musical style that dominated American music in the 1970s. One of her early backup bands went on to become the Eagles, and Linda went on to become the most successful female artist of the decade. In Simple Dreams, Ronstadt reveals the eclectic and fascinating journey that led to her long-lasting success, including stories behind many of her beloved songs. And she describes it all in a voice as beautiful as the one that sang "Heart Like a Wheel"-longing, graceful, and authentic.
Reconsidering Yoko Ono by
(Book). John Lennon once described her as "the world's most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does." Many people are aware of her art, and her music has always split crowds, from her caterwauling earliest work to her later dance numbers, but how many people have looked at Yoko Ono's decades-spanning career and varied work in total and asked the simple question, "Is it any good?" From her earliest work with the Fluxus group and especially her relationship with John Cage, through her enigmatic pop happenings (where she met John Lennon), her experimental films, cryptic books, conceptual art, and her long recording career that has vacillated between avant-garde noise and proto-new wave, earning the admiration of other artists while generally confusing the public at large who often sees her only in the role of the widow Lennon, Reaching Out with No Hands is the first serious, critical, wide-ranging look at Yoko Ono the artist and musician. A must-read for art and music fans interested in going beyond the stereotyped observations of Yoko as a Lennon hanger-on or inconsequential avant noisemaker.
Why Marianne Faithfull Matters by
First as a doe-eyed ingénue with "As Tears Go By," then as a gravel-voiced phoenix rising from the ashes of the 1960s with a landmark punk album, Broken English, and finally as a genre-less icon, Marianne Faithfull carved her name into the history of rock 'n' roll to chart a career spanning five decades and multiple detours. In Why Marianne Faithfull Matters, Tanya Pearson crafts a feminist account that explains the musician's absence from the male-dominated history of the British Invasion and champions the eclectic late career that confirmed her redemption. Putting memoir on equal footing with biographical history, Pearson writes about Faithfull as an avid fan, recovered addict, and queer musician at a crossroads. She's also a professional historian unafraid to break from the expectations of the discipline if a "titty-centered analysis" or astrology can illuminate the work of her subject. Whether exploring Faithfull's rise to celebrity, her drug addiction and fall from grace as spurned "muse," or her reinvention as a sober, soulful chanteuse subverting all expectations for an aging woman in music, Pearson affirms the deep connections between listeners and creators and reveals, in her own particular way, why Marianne Faithfull matters.
Kicking and Dreaming by
The story of Heart is a story of heart and soul and rock 'n' roll. Since finding their love of music and performing as teenagers in Seattle, Washington, Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson, have been part of the American rock music landscape. From 70s classics like "Magic Man" and "Barracuda" to chart- topping 80s ballads like "Alone," and all the way up to 2012, when they will release their latest studio album, Fanatic, Heart has been thrilling their fans and producing hit after hit. In Kicking and Dreaming, the Wilsons recount their story as two sisters who have a shared over three decades on the stage, as songwriters, as musicians, and as the leaders of one of our most beloved rock bands. An intimate, honest, and a uniquely female take on the rock and roll life, readers of bestselling music memoirs like Life by Keith Richards and Steven Tyler's Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? will love this quintessential music story finally told from a female perspective.
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by
From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015-- a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life--and finding yourself--in music. Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be cited as "America's best rock band" by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock. HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era's flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later. With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding one's true calling through hard work, courage and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.
The Girl in the Back by
(Book). Nineteen seventy-seven. New York City. Dark. Dangerous. Thrilling. Punk Rock. Blondie. David Bowie. Drinking. Drugs. Happening at the speed of light. Seventeen-year old Laura, quaking within her skin while the bursting punk rock revolution explodes around her, starts a band with her teenage friends called the Student Teachers. She's the drummer. They play legendary clubs CBGB, Max's Kansas City, Hurrah they rehearse madly, write songs, and tour the East Coast. All between final exams at school. In comes Jimmy Destri from Blondie. He thinks the Student Teachers are terrific! And then he falls in love with Laura. He pulls her into the glamorous life of Blondie and introduces her to David Bowie. Bowie takes an interest in Laura's band, attends their rehearsals, and sets them up to open for Iggy Pop at the Palladium on Halloween 1979. It's exhilarating! It's the beginning of amazing success in rock 'n' roll! Until it all comes to a stunning stop. After playing a show at Town Hall in 1980, Laura is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Does it all fall apart? Later, at a dinner with Bowie, he whispers something to Laura. And it helps her save her life. In prose that flows like music, Laura Davis-Chanin presents a rich work of narrative nonfiction that is not only deeply personal but also revealing of the punk rock heyday in New York City. Infused with rare photographs, this book is a journey through a unique, ephemeral life experience.
The Only Girl by
A raucous and vividly dishy memoir by the only woman writer on the masthead of Rolling Stone Magazine in the early Seventies. In 1971, Robin Green had an interview with Jann Wenner at the offices of Rolling Stone magazine. She had just moved to Berkeley, California, a city that promised "Good Vibes All-a Time." Those days, job applications asked just one question: "What are your sun, moon and rising signs?" Green thought she was interviewing for a clerical job like the other girls in the office, a "real job." Instead, she was hired as a journalist. With irreverent humor and remarkable nerve, Green spills stories of sparring with Dennis Hopper on a film junket in the desert, scandalizing fans of David Cassidy and spending a legendary evening on a water bed in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s dorm room. In the seventies, Green was there as Hunter S. Thompson crafted Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and now, with a distinctly gonzo female voice, she reveals her side of that tumultuous time in America. Brutally honest and bold, Green reveals what it was like to be the first woman granted entry into an iconic boys' club. Pulling back the curtain on Rolling Stone magazine in its prime, The Only Girl is a stunning tribute to a bygone era and a publication that defined a generation.
