It’s 10:00pm on a Saturday night. You have just finished watching a gruelling 1987, Top of the Pops episode. You check what else is to come on BBC Four. Great…Another late evening of music documentaries only celebrating the work of men in rock music.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Most of these documentaries talk about my favourite artists and their work which I love. In fact, I am mad because I have seen the exact same documentaries repeatedly for the last few years. And lets face it, there is only so much of the all white male band you can watch before you’ve had enough of the blinding blue jeans and long flowing locks.
So, it has recently come to my attention, that we always seem to forget to mention the women who were behind the music or inspired their work.
I will be talking about five women who I believe helped change and create the world of rock music as we know it today.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Sister Rosetta Tharpe has been described as the ‘Godmother of Rock n Roll’. And this is true, as without her, the likes of Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and others would have had very different careers. Chuck Berry admitted to borrowing her guitar sound. And Little Richard said she was responsible for his career. In 1938, Sister Rosetta became famous with a record called “Rock Me.” She was a huge star through the 1940’s, and had a very unique style of singing gospel music to the accompaniment of her own driving electric guitar – howling and stamping. We can see how powerful she was from this recorded performance of ‘Didn’t It Rain, Children’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NFywQdeKSo
Big Mama Thornton
Back in the 1950s, the music industry was a hard time for the black community. Many black artists were used by the companies, and were cheated out of their royalties. R&B and Rock ‘n’ Roll popularised “black” music and many African-American musicians were able to reap the benefits of their work, however many others were forgotten or denied access to audiences through segregation. Companies stole music from African-Americans and capitalised on it for their own benefit in a way that the original artists could not. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton was an American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog”, in 1952, which became one of the biggest and most instantly recognisable pop songs in history. It stayed seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in 1953 and selling almost two million copies. Despite all her success with the single, Willie Mae earned very little from it. Hound Dog is so closely associated with the King of Rock n Roll, Elvis Presley. In fact, it assumed by many that it was a Presley original. In a time dominated by white males, Big Mama Thornton opened the field for black women in music by projecting power in an era of hate and inequality. She opened the doors for females to discuss sexuality in music where it was once taboo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frsBq9MCNVg
The video linked above is her performance of the song ‘Hound Dog’. Even down to the stage performance of Elvis you will find Big Mama Thornton rocking the guitar the same but she was first before all these men who supposedly founded Rock and Roll.
Carol Kaye
Carol Kaye was not only an innovator in the male-dominated world of pop recording sessions, but she also broke many musical barriers down. Kaye is a female bassist session musician and, is actually one of the very few in her field. She is someone who you may not recognise. However, her work you will be bound to be familiar with. Now at 83 years old, Kaye has laid down some deeply iconic bass tracks in a career spanning 55 years and something in the neighbourhood of 10,000 recording sessions. Here are a few examples of her work:
- Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright”?
- The Beach Boys hits “Good Vibrations”, “Help Me, Rhonda,” “Sloop John B,” and “California Girls.”
- The theme song to The Brady Bunch
- Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'”
If you want to learn more about Carol Kaye, watch the following video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOXHxIz065g
Suzi Quatro
Suzi Quatro is an american singer songwriter who rose to fame in the 70s. She was the first female bass player to become a successful rock star. And has been proclaimed as the ‘Queen of Glam Rock’. Quatro sold 55 million records, with number one singles including Can The Can and Devil Gate Drive; while starring on TV sitcom Happy Days as Leather Tuscadero, the rebellious younger sister of The Fonz’s girlfriend, Pinky. Suzi Quatro broke through mainstream audiences and conveyed the message that women rock ‘n’ rollers belonged on stage. She was a direct influence to The Runaways and Joan Jett.
The video linked shows her star quality and how direct her influence is on Joan Jett! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYoogY-UGio
Fanny (the Band)
Fanny is an all American-female band from the 1970s. They were one of the first notable rock groups to be made up entirely of women, the third to sign with a major label, and the first to release an album on a major label. They achieved two top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and released five albums. They never were self-described as being musicians first and women second. But the fact that they were women, and that they reached a level of success previously unheard of for a rock band composed solely of women, was a remarkable achievement. David Bowie praised the band in an 1999 Rolling Stones interview and said, “they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them. They’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time.”
In 1973, lead vocalist and guitarist June Millington suffered a nervous breakdown resulting in the end of the band. However, despite their short lived journey of being the first successful all female band, they managed to create a template that many female rockers could emulate such as The Runaways.
Here is a video of their performance of their song, ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’ in 1972, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imZUqkPlUaQ
And that concludes this blog post. I hope you enjoyed reading about these remarkable women and now I hope you will go on to remember how significant their role was in the world of rock n roll.
Until next time…
Mhairi
