Rock Music’s Sisterhood: The Scott Herold Dispatch
We asked Rock the Cause CEO Scott Herold to submit a special profile for us on the unique and often over looked role that women have played as primary architects for one of today’s most popular art forms; Rock n Roll. His analysis takes us back decades and introduces us to some women that many people have never been made aware of.
Many people draw the assertion that Rock and Roll has always been a boys club. Women who played guitars were novelties. Prior to 1967 women in Rock and Roll who relegated to being wholesome pop role models or fashionable singers. Even by today’s standards it would seem not much has changed. Perhaps the wholesome female pop star has given way to the singing porn star. On the surface it would seem it rock and roll is a “man’s world“.
Minneapolis Rock Critic Andrea Swensson gave me her thoughts about women, seen by many fans as novelties, “I’d say that women have shown men that rock and roll isn’t just a boys club. I think it’s finally gotten to a point where a woman fronting a rock band isn’t seen as a novelty, and that people are listening to music with more of an open mind rather than focusing on whether the musicians are male or female. But it certainly hasn’t always been that way, and it took some very brave women persevering through a lot of sexism for things to be the way they are now.”
Andrea could not be more fucking correct!
I’m going to become pretentious here for a moment. There are times I really enjoy being a fucking art snob, simply because I can. Allow me to draw from mythology to make a point that Rock and Roll has and always will belong the Sisterhood.
Robert Graves, an early 20th century scholar of mythology, wrote an essay called The White Goddess. Graves’s basis for the essay was that all true revolutionary inspiration and poetic vision comes from a female deity known as the “White Goddess.” This deity is white light and made from pure love and creativity. All the woes of the modern world are all due to the worship of a male monotheistic deity.
Let’s get some clues fellas. Hell, even the Legendary Les Paul had his muse in Mary Ford. We have a lot of ground to cover. Here are a few women who I think are the unsung heroines of Rock and Roll.
One of the very first women guitarist and band leaders to let the boys know she meant business was Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a pioneering performer of Gospel. During the 1930’s and 1940’s she crossed all lines of secular and religious music with her self-proclaimed “Light in the Darkness”. The result was a revolution known as “Soul Music”. One of my favorite videos of all time is Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing her White Gibson SG, with a Gospel Choir behind her, directing the band, calling forth salvation Above my head there is music in the air. This video would make a lasting impression on Soul performers for years to come and is prominently featured in the Stax Museum of soul.
Around the same time (1960) a sweet faced girl from Oklahoma named Wanda Jackson was breaking down the gender barrier in Rock Roll music and paving the way for other women who would follow. Her first top 40 hit Lets Have a Party stood out against the more wholesome female pop stars of the time. She led her own band known as The Party Timers and briefly toured with and dated Elvis Presley. She was one of the first women to bring glamour into rock music wearing and array of outrageous costumes, fringe dresses, and high heels. Wanda was a shit kicking party girl who would eventually find herself in the Rock a Billy Hall of Fame for such hits as He’s A Mean Mean Man and Fujiyama Mama. In my opinion, Wanda Jackson paved the way for the greatest gender revolution of all time, Glam Rock.
Women in Rock and Roll music did more to progress women’s equality than any other movement. Yes, women had to fight through exploitation, abuse, and sexism. There is no doubt of that. But these women did just that. The Girl Groups like The Ronnettes, Shirelles and most importantly The Shangri-Las made it possible for women to be bad asses. With these girls, we did not see color. The Sisterhood was definitely all inclusive. And what a fucking revolution it was! Virginal girls singing about dead bikers (my sentimental favorite) , teenage runaways, doomed love affairs, and unrequited love. Yes, this was powerful stuff in the age of June Cleaver. No man stood a chance for happily ever after as King of his own castle when The Shangri-Las sang and meant He cried.
The 1960’s ushered in a decade of women artists who were seen as thoughtful, intelligent, and nurturing. Women no longer had there songs chosen for them. They were in control of their destinies. Women like Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Carole King took the art of songwriting out of the hands of Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel making a social statement of how the Goddess really viewed the world.
In 1975 all hell would break loose when the greatest female rock and roll warrior of all time, a teenage Joan Jett would form a Girl Group called The Runaways. At first considered a “novelty act” and a “slutty jail bait fantasy”. Over time The Runaways would throw a long shadow of straight guitar driven rock and roll. Their biggest single Cherry Bomb is one of the top downloads for both the Guitar Hero and Rockband video games. Her long awaited biopic called The Runaways is scheduled for 2010 and will star Kristen Stewart in the lead role.
Joan Jett would then pave the way for future female rockers like L7, The Donnas, The Launderettes, and Sahara Hotnights. In fact ,The Launderettes have a single called “What Would Joan Jett Do?” Joan Jett would teach women in Rock and Roll to never compromise. When it comes to the boys “No means No”.
One of my favorite current Guitar Heroine’s is Priscilla Priebe of indie punk group Maudlin. Priscilla’s girl next door looks, wreck the train style of playing, and deep down rock and roll crazies make her one of the most exciting young performers today. I asked Priscilla to sum up her attitude toward women in Rock and Roll,
“Women songwriters should really be recognized for their ability to write some of the most triumphant love & revenge songs of our time. No one writes a better song than a woman who has put everything into a man,only to be drug through the dirt and left there to die! I think often that male song writers are just a little more guarded with their feelings but a woman..she’ll tell you who hurt her, what they did, and how they’re gonna’ pay. Carly Simon’s “you’re so vain” is a great example of a passionate song, a subtle song that packs an emotional punch. It is honest and straight to the point; I don’t know a single girl who couldn’t identify with her”.
The Sisterhood, like all great churches and temples, is incorporated as a non-profit. Women in Rock is a non-profit organization that works to develop women artists. They are dedicated to helping independent women performers with career advice, marketing and PR. The list of female artists on their web site is incredible, sublime, and dangerously beautiful.
Women are essential to the survival of not only rock and roll, but our emotional, cultural and spiritual well beings. If the gifts of the White Goddess, The Mother, Maiden, Crone, Joan Jett, The Shangr-Las or what ever you call it come through a stack of Marshall Amps and high heals then “thy will be done.”
-
http://realurl.org/twitted.php?id=3520849844 Twitted by AshleyandWine
