BONNIE RAITT: BORN TO SING THE BLUES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnie_Raitt

Born in 1949 in Burbank to a show biz family, Bonnie Raitt plays the slide guitar like she was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her first exposure to the music scene was classical piano (her mother’s forte), her father’s Broadway show tunes, and the Beach Boy harmonies she grew up with. A Christmas gift changed Bonnie’s life—at age eight, she received a guitar and worked diligently at getting good at playing it. The first time she heard Joan Baez, Bonnie went the way of folk and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to be a part of the folkie coffeehouse scene. Unfortunately for her, folk music was on its last legs. Instead she hooked up with Dick Waterman, a beau who just happened to manage the careers of Bonnie’s musical icons: Son House, Fred McDowell, Sippie Wallace, and Muddy Waters. By the age of twenty, she was playing with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells—opening for the Rolling Stones with two blue greats.

Bonnie’s road to fame, however, was very long and winding. It had to come on her terms. Always more interested in artistic integrity than commercial
success, she had exacting standards and tastes. She demanded authenticity in playing the blues she loved and reinterpreting those riffs through the influences of country and rock. She didn’t play the game and, a musician’s musician, she rarely got radio air play. Thus she made her living traveling the country, performing in small clubs. Bonnie was also very outspoken on political causes. Raised as a Quaker, she has always been involved in political causes, doing many benefit concerts; in 1979, she cofounded Musicians United for Safe Energy.

The stress of the road, and of being a novelty in the music industry—a female blues guitarist—eventually took its toll, and Bonnie drowned her sorrows for a time in drugs and booze. In the mid-eighties, when her record label dumped her, she bottomed out, became clean and sober, and made the climb back up. In 1989, her smash album “Nick of Time” won her a Grammy and garnered sales in excess of four million.

Since then, she hasn’t stopped making her great earthy blend of blues, folk, pop, and R&B, or working on behalf of the causes that are meaningful to her. Bonnie Raitt is a consummate musician who loves to perform live, loves to pay homage to the blues greats, and continues to speak her mind. In an interview in Rolling Stone, she laid it on the line about the current looks-dominated music industry: “In the 70s, all these earthy women were getting record deals—you didn’t have to be some gorgeous babe. There’s been some backsliding since.”

“Any guy who has a problem with feminists is signaling a shortage in his pants. If I had to be a woman before men and women were more equal, I would’ve shot somebody and been in jail.”

— Bonnie Raitt

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

HELEN REDDY: “I AM STRONG. I AM INVINCIBLE.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Reddy

Along with Led Zeppelin, art rockers Yes and Fairport Convention, one of the artists Alison Steele played on her nationally popular radio show was Helen Reddy. Both of these women struggled for years to make it. Reddy’s songs were embraced as anthems for a nation of women collectively committed to shattering the glass ceiling. For the time, Helen Reddy’s achievement was stunning. She wrote a hard-core feminist song and took it to the top of the charts; “I Am Woman” was the number one hit on the charts in 1972. In clear ringing tones, Helen declared a message that empowered and encouraged women around the world, “I am woman, hear me roar. I am too strong to ignore…if I have to, I can do anything. I am strong. I am invincible!”

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

YOKO ONO: AVANT SAVANT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ono

One of the most controversial figures in rock history, Yoko Ono was an acquired taste for those willing to go with her past the edge of musical experimentalism. Unfairly maligned as the woman who broke up the Beatles, she is a classically trained musician and was one of New York’s most cutting edge artists before the Fab Four even cut a record. Born in Tokyo in 1933, she moved to New York in 1953 and attended Sarah Lawrence, but even then had trouble finding a form to fit into; her poetry was criticized for being too long, her short stories too short. Then she was befriended by avant-garde composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage.

Soon, Yoko was making a splash with her originality in post-Beatnik Greenwich Village, going places even Andy Warhol hadn’t dared with her films of 365 nude derrieres, her performance art (inviting people to cut her clothes off her), and her bizarre collages and constructions. Called the “High Priestess of the Happening,” she enthralled visitors to her loft with such art installations as tossing dried peas at the audience while whirling her long hair. Yoko Ono had an ability to shock, endless imagination, and a way of attracting publicity that P.T. Barnum himself would’ve envied!

When John Lennon climbed the ladder on that fateful day to peer at the artful affirmation Yoko created in her piece “Yes,” rock history was made. Their collaborations—The Plastic Ono Band, Bed-Ins, Love-Ins, Peace-Ins, and son Sean Lennon—have created a legacy that continues to fascinate a world that has finally grudgingly accepted and respected this bona fide original. Yoko’s singing style— howling and shrieking in a dissonant barrage—has been a major influence on the B52s and a generation of riot grrl bands.

Now Yoko Ono and her talented son, Sean, tour together and work on behalf of causes they are committed to— the environment, peace, and Tibet. Ono, whose sweet speaking voice belies the steely strength underneath that has enabled her to endure for so long, explains her sheroic journey in the preface she contributed to Gillian G. Gaar’s excellent book on women in music, She’s a Rebel. In it, she relates her pain at her father’s discouragement of her dream of becoming a composer, doubting her “aptitude” because of her gender. “‘Women may not be good creators of music, but they’re good at interpreting music’ was what he said.” Happy that times have changed, she points to the valiant efforts made by “women artists who kept making music despite overwhelming odds till finally the music industry had to realize that women were there to stay.”

In retrospect, Yoko Ono was breaking real musical ground when others were cranking out bubble gum pop and imitating—who else—The Beatles. Yoko’s feminism gets lost in the shuffle of the attention to her as an iconoclast.

She was an enormous influence on awakening John’s interest in the women’s movement, and together they attended the international feminist conference in June of 1973 and together wrote songs inspired by the women’s movement, including “Woman is the Nigger of the World.” Much of Yoko’s musical output in the seventies was on the theme of feminism; her song “Sisters O Sisters” is one of her finest works, a reggae-rhythm number. Yoko’s sheroism lies in her intense idealism and her commitment to making this a better world.

“I’m a Witch. I’m a Bitch. I don’t care what you say.”

— Yoko Ono in 1973

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

JOAN BAEZ: NOT JUST BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Baez

Folk shero and guitarist Joan Baez was one of the women musicians who benefitted from Peggy Jones’ career. Joan tapped her muse young —as a college tapped her muse young—as a college student at Boston University. In 1960, at age nineteen, she became a household name overnight with her album Joan Baez. Fiercely political, her recordings such as “We Shall Overcome” point to her alignment with civil rights, and she was one of the best known Vietnam War protestors and worked for the No Nukes campaign as well. Oddly enough, one of the causes Joan never aligned herself with was feminism. “I don’t relate with feminism. I see the whole human race as being broken and terribly in need, not just women.” With her inspirational voice and her long dark hair, she gave a generation of women a model of activism, personal freedom, and self- determination. Baez lives by her own light—and in so doing, encourages us all to follow our consciences.

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

PEGGY JONES: LADY BO

https://sheshreds.com/lady-bo-mother-of-rock-n-roll-dies-at-75-years-old/

A woman who followed her own star and in so doing shattered several music stereotypes, Peggy Jones had music in her soul from the beginning; a dancer in her toddler years, she had performed in Carnegie Hall by the age of nine. As a youngster, the New Yorker was intrigued by the ukelele and moved onto the guitar. It never occurred to her that it would seem unusual for a woman to play guitar in the forties. “Little did I know that a female playing any instrument was like a new thing. I was breaking a lot of barriers.”

By the age of seventeen, she was producing and cutting singles such as “Honey Bunny Baby/Why Do I Love You?” and “Everybody’s Talking/I’m Gonna Love My Way.” In the late fifties, she and her friends and future husband Bobby Bakersfield formed The Jewels, a band made up of men and women, which was very unusual for the time; even more unique, the band included both black and white members. The Jewels got a lot of flack for their disregard for gender and racial boundaries, but they persisted in performing to enthusiastic audiences. Jones recalls fighting past the objections, “I just hung in there because this is what I wanted to do, and I had a real strong constitution as to the way I thought I should go about it.”

Peggy’s singular instrumentation is one of the components of Bo Diddley’s successful albums and national tours throughout the fifties and sixties. Diddley, famous for his signature rhythm, saw Jones walking down the street with her guitar one day, and, ever the savvy showman, recognized that having a pretty girl playing guitar in his band would be a very good thing for ticket and record sales. Peggy was ushered into the world of professional musicianship full-time with Diddley’s touring band. She learned a great deal, perfecting her guitar playing to the point where Diddley himself was a bit threatened by her hot licks. She also saw the hardships of the road and experienced firsthand the color line that existed even for music stars. When they hit the South in the hearses they toured in, the band often had to stay in nonwhite hotels and had to use separate bathrooms for “coloreds.” They even figured out a way to cook in the car when they couldn’t find a restaurant that would serve black people.

However, Jones wasn’t content with just backup and liner note credits and took a hiatus from the nonstop Bo Diddley road show. She again wrote her own material and performed with The Jewels again. In the late sixties, she formed her own band and went out on the road. Peggy Jones was a true pioneer for women in music. Because of her, the idea of a woman playing guitar—or any instrument in a band—became much more acceptable.

“I don’t think I went in with any attitude that ‘Oh, oh, I’m a girl, they’re not going to like my playing.’ So probably that might have been my savior, because I just went in as a musician and expected to be accepted as a musician.”

— Peggy Jones

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

BIG MAMA THORNTON: “STRONGER THAN DIRT”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mama_Thornton

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton checked out for good when the New Wave washed onto the music scene, dying of heart and liver failure in 1984. After fifty-seven years of hard living and a good deal of hard drinking, she was a mere shadow of herself in her last year, weighing only ninety-seven pounds. At the height of her careers, Thornton held center stage singing, drumming, and blowing harmonica with rhythm n’ blues luminaries Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Eddie Vinson, and Janis Joplin.

Her most remembered contribution to music history will always be the song “Hound Dog,” a number one hit in 1953 written especially for her by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. It was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of “Hound Dog.” “We wanted her to growl it,” Stoller later told Rolling Stone. Three years later, Elvis Presley covered Big Mama’s tune and took her signature song for his own. Like so many other black blues stars, she wasn’t mainstream enough; by 1957, her star had fallen so low she was dropped by her record label. And, like many other blues stars of the day, she was inadequately compensated for her work; although her incredible, soul-ripping rendition of “Hound Dog” sold two million copies, Big Mama received only one royalty check for $500.

Unstoppable, however, she hit the road, jamming with fellow blues masters, amazing audiences across America. Big Mama’s success came from her powerful presence on stage. She had begun performing publicly in the forties as an Atlanta teen where she danced in variety shows and in Sammy Green’s Hot Harlem Review. Thornton’s own musical heroes were Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, whom she always held as great inspirations for her decision to pursue music as a career. Thornton was a completely self-taught musician who learned through watching, “I never had no one teach me nothing. I taught myself to sing and to blow the harmonica and even to play drums, by watching other people.” James Brown, Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, and Janis Joplin helped create a resurgence of interest in the blues in the sixties. Janis covered “Ball and Chain,” making that a huge hit to millions of fans who never knew Thornton’s version. In a sad repetition of history, the royalties to Big Mama’s “Ball and Chain” were contracted to her record company, meaning she didn’t get a dime from the sales of Joplin’s cover of the tune. However, because of the popularization, artists like Big Mama began to enjoy a crossover audience, and the spotlight they had previously been denied by a record-buying public producers believed preferred black music sanitized by singers such as Presley.

With a new interest in the real thing, Big Mama started performing at blues festivals around the world, resulting in classic recordings such as “Big Mama in Europe,” and “Stronger than Dirt,” where she was backed by Muddy Waters, James Cotton, and Otis Spann. “Stronger than Dirt” featured Thornton’s interpretations of Wilson Pickett’s “Funky Broadway” and Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.” Big Mama’s final albums were “Sassy Mama!” and “Jail,” a live album recorded in prisons. In 1980, Thornton, Sippie Wallace, and Koko Taylor headlined at the unforgettable “Blues Is a Woman” show at the Newport Jazz Festival. Although Big Mama barely made enough money to live on through her music, her contribution to blues was enormous. She died penniless and alone in a Los Angeles boardinghouse, decimated by drink and disappointed by her ill-treatment from the music industry. But she received tremendous respect from her peers and influences dozens of musicians, even to this day.

“At what point did rhythm n’ blues start becoming rock and roll? When the white kids started to dance to it.”

— Ruth Brown

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

MADONNA: THE CULTURAL CHAMELEON

By chrisweger – Madonna Rebel Heart Tour 2015 – Stockholm, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52196466

Has there been anyone in American culture who has remade herself as often—or as well—as Madonna? Truly an artist of her own physical form and image, Madonna has been a vamp, tramp, scamp; a Brooke Shields look- alike, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, an Evita look-alike, and a Madonna (the original) look-alike. Her well publicized romances with Sean Penn, Warren Beatty, and her trainer Carlos Leon and filmmaker Guy Ritchie; the Material Girl; Girlie Show; and Sex Kitten—these incarnations almost seem like different women’s lives. And in each of them, Madonna has evoked controversy.

She’s been a target for her open approach to sex and the presence of eroticism in her work. Her sheroism as a gay rights and AIDS activist received much less press than her pointy bras did. Madonna was threatened with jail on several occasions for her pro-gay stance; she took the challenge and remained steadfast in her solidarity with the gay community.

Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born into a staunchly Catholic home in Michigan in 1958. Her mother was extremely Puritanical; before she died when Madonna was six, she taught her that pants that zip up the front were sinful. By the time Madonna was a teen, she had fame on the brain and escaped to New York City as soon as possible to make it happen. Struggling as a dancer, she lived as a squatter until she hit the big time with “Lucky Star” in 1984. Since then, she has sold more than 100 million records, has appeared in fifteen films, had dozens of top ten hits, and penned a very controversial book, Sex.

Now on the right side of forty, Madonna has matured into her full glory. Beautiful, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Madonna has come into her own, removed the many masks, and dared to reveal her heart. Motherhood suits her well, and she has flourished as a businesswoman with her successful Maverick Records. After her highly praised performance as Evita in the musical drama, Madonna no longer has to prove herself in any arena and is relaxed, confident, and grounded. She is also more vibrant than ever, looking back over her Manhattan days as a starving squatter, her hard-earned stardom and musing at the changes daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon and son Rocco John Ritchie brought to her life. “Becoming a mother, I just have a whole new outlook on life. I see the world as a much more hopeful place.” She has adopted several children from Africa and has recently been a voice for the Trump Resistance. What is next in store for the former Material Girl? Stay tuned.

“I knew every word to Court and Spark; I worshipped her when I was in high school. Blue is amazing. I would have to say of all the women I’ve heard, she had the most profound effect on me from a lyrical point of view.”

—Madonna on pensive poetess and musical shero Joni Mitchell

 

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.

JONI MITCHELL: THE LADY OF THE CANYON

Nearly every significant contemporary musician, male or female, cites Joni Mitchell as a major influence. Born in Alberta to a Royal Canadian officer and a school teacher in 1943, Roberta Joan Anderson contracted polio at nine and spent much time inside her own head during her lonely convalescence. She remained introspective throughout
her life and developed a love of the arts that informs her sensibility still. Like other fifties teens, Joni danced to Elvis, Chuck Berry, and the Kingston Trio, buying a guitar to sing at Wednesday dance parties. She lost her taste for art school when the classes appeared to be assembly-line training for commercial artists. Instead she started singing in Toronto cafes where she met and married fellow singer Chuck Mitchell, a liaison that lasted for two years. Upon the breakup of their marriage, she rebounded to New York where she tried her hand at professional songwriting. She was soon successful; her material was selected by Tom Rush, Judy Collins, and Buffy Saint-Marie.

Like sister-shero Carole King in her opus Tapestry, the songwriter recorded some tracks of her own with great success. Joni Mitchell’s late sixties album Ladies of the Canyon was a moody sensation, followed immediately by Blue, Court and Spark and a subsequent catalog of impressive diversity and size. She branched out from her folk origins into jazz, blues, and electronic music, composing, singing, and recording, among other eclectic works, a vocal tribute to Charles Mingus. Joni Mitchell became a musician’s and critic’s darling (though some dismissed her more avant-garde work as self-indulgent noise) and a favorite with progressive radio listeners.

Cool and ethereally beautiful, Joni’s personal life drew much attention from the press, embarrassing her and her lovers with exposes tracking her numerous liaisons, including those with rockers Graham Nash, Jackson Browne, and horn player Tom Scott. This was echoed recently in extensive coverage of her reunion with the daughter she gave up for adoption in infancy.

Joni Mitchell, who thinks of herself as a poet of the prairies, has left an indelible mark on twentieth-century music herstory. Her smart, ironic, saturnine music is played by the serious listeners and musicians of each generation that comes along. For her part, Joni prefers simplicity, clarity, truth. “For a while it was assumed that I was writing women’s music. Then men began to notice that they saw themselves in the songs, too. A good piece of art should be androgynous.”

 

“A man in the promotion department criticized my music for its lack of masculinity. They said I didn’t have any balls. Since when do women have balls anyway? Why do I have to be like that?”

— Joni Mitchell

 

This excerpt is from The Book of Awesome Women by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.