She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul PDF
Preview She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul
She Bop II This page intentionally left blank She Bop II The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul LUCY O'BRIEN ontinuum LONDON • NEW YORK CONTINUUM The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London, SE1 7NX 370 Lexington Avenue. New York, NY 10017-6503 First edition published as She Bop in Great Britain by Penguin Books 1995 This edition published by Continuum 2002 © Lucy O'Brien 1995, 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-8264-7208-3 Typeset by Kenneth Burnley.Wirral. Cheshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPD Wales, Ebbw Vale. Contents Acknowledgements vii Prologue ix Introduction 1 1 Riffin'the Scotch 9 FROM BLUES TO THE JAZZ AGE 2 Stupid Cupid 39 DREAM BABES IN 1950S POP 3 The Real Thing 66 MOTOWN, SPECTOR AND 1960S SVENGALIS 4 Can the Can 99 WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE ROCK CHICK? 5 Final Girls 132 PUNK, PERFORMANCE ART AND PMT POP 6 Ladies of the Canyon 179 FEMALE SINGER/SONGWRITERS OF THE GRAND HOTEL 7 Lipstick Traces 210 MADONNA, MANIPULATION AND MTV 8 She Wears the Trousers 249 ARTISTRY, ANDROGYNY AND THE LESBIAN QUESTION vi CONTENTS 9 I Wanna Dance with Somebody 278 DECONSTRUCTING THE DISCO DIVA 10 In Search of Our Mothers'Gardens 315 THE TRUE STORY OF WOMEN IN RAP AND REGGAE 11 Oye Mi Canto 350 HEAR MY VOICE: WOMEN IN WORLD MUSIC 12 Talkin' Tough 382 THE ENEMY WITHIN: WOMEN AND PROTEST POP 13 Talkin'Business 412 NUTS 'N' BOLTS AND ALL THE NECESSARIES 14 Girlpower! 459 THE NEW GENERATION Notes 493 Selected Discography 508 Selected Bibliography 510 Index of Names 513 Index of Albums and Singles 522 Acknowledgements Many thanks to all the women who were interviewed for this book, and particularly to Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper (Ms She Bop herself!), Suzanne Vega, Kristin Hersh, Miriam Makeba, Vicki Wickham, Peggy Seeger, Gracie Cole, Adele Bertei, Rosetta Reitz and Regine Moylett for being so helpful. I also thank Fred Dellar for his invaluable support and patience, Ann Munday, Charles Shaar Murray, Jools Holland, Neville Farmer, Delilah Jackson and her Black Patti Archive, Paula Shutkever, Gaylene Martin, Pat Baird, David Terrill, Tony Gregory, Victoria Rutherford, Marilyn Botheras, Pennie Smith, Emily Andersen, ValWilmer, Mick Patrick for access to his awe- inspiring knowledge of 1960s girl groups, and Lucy Duran, Debbie Golt, Alexa Dalby and Lois Darlington for their help with the Oye Mi Canto chapter. Thanks also to my family. Special thanks to Ann, Naomi and Paul, and Fenton and Randy at World of Wonder for their hospitality when I was in New York, to Soul Coughing for making me laugh, and to Cathy Capozzi in Boston for showing me just how hard girls can rock. And lastly, a bigYo! to all my girlfriends, the best a girl could wish for. This page intentionally left blank Prologue IT ALL BEGAN IN 1979, when a girl gang got together, spurred by the political activism that exploded that year after the Conservative General Election victory. They were from Southampton, a city perched at the top of the Solent, a day's crossing away from Le Havre, France, and home of the QE2. It was a town of former glories, with sprawling docks, where cargo ships once unloaded exotic cargo and luxury liners would slide in from abroad. Bombed remorselessly during the Second World War, Southampton had a detached, prefabricated air long after the bleak restructuring of the post-war years. Ken Russell, the maverick film director, was born there, as was comedian Benny Hill - but like all good So'tonites, they escaped early. Tm from Southampton' doesn't quite have the same ring as 'I'm a Geordie' or 'I'm from Glasgow'. It was never cool or hip to come from Southampton - but maybe that was a blessing, as it became important to invent your own identity. In the late 1970s Southampton had a culture bypass. Excite- ment, allure, difference, were all things to be resourcefully manufactured in a recession-hit area where venues had closed down and nightclubs, apart from a second-rate one for divorcees, didn't exist. Into that vacuum leaped The Catholic Girls (before the Frank Zappa song, incidentally).Tina was our Siouxsie Sioux - hair dyed jet black, a member of the Anti-Nazi League, always wearing black when the school uniform was navy blue. Maddy, whimsical yet astute, and her older sister Judith, then a nihilist and the one most openly unimpressed with authority, were both hunt saboteurs and members of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. And me, casually leaving copies of Spare Rib on the school common-room table
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