On this blog I will talk about Rock´n´Roll women that I love. From Blues and Rockabilly, to Punk passing through 60s Garage Punk and 70s Glam, this is my tribute to the wonderful women of the Rock´n´Roll underground.
Please note that suggestions are welcome but there is no guarantee that I will publish it as this is a personal project.
Carla Ragin Bozulich (born December 24, 1965) is an American musician based in Los Angeles, known as the lead singer, lyricist and founder of The Geraldine Fibbers and Evangelista as well as a founding member of Ethyl Meatplow and Scarnella.
Her musical career began at age 17 in a garage in Lawndale, California, with her first band, The Neon Veins. Under the name Carla Noelle, she also contributed to a recording by artist Gary Kail titled "Zurich 1916", which was released in 1984 as part of the album Creative Nihilism. The Geraldine Fibbers recorded two albums for Virgin Records.
Bozulich's Evangelista project began in 2006. The album was under her own name and titled Evangelista. The album was released by Montreal, Quebec-based Constellation Records and was that label's first release by a non-Canadian artist. Various members of Godspeed! You Black Emperor contributed to arranging, recording and additional collaborative songwriting. The line-up of Evangelista changes each time they play or record. The Hello, Voyager album features 14 musicians over various pieces.
Bozulich has used the name Bloody Claws for one-off concerts and tours, including 45 International concerts with Francesco Guerri, with whom she toured Europe in 2009. She has also contributed to recordings by Mike Watt, Hadda Brooks and Lydia Lunch. She has performed live with Watt, as well as with Thurston Moore, Christian Marclay; Carla Kihlstedt, Wayne Kramer, Wilco, Agathe Max, and Italian guitarist Simone Massaron. On August 16–17, 2009 she performed live with Marianne Faithfull and Marc Ribot in Düsseldorf as part of the 2009 Ruhrtriennale. Willie Nelson performed on her 2003 album The Red Headed Stranger, a song-by-song cover of his album of the same name.
The Belles were a garage rock group from Miami Beach, FL who released two singles on Tiara. Is one of the slew
of mysterious, mostly forgotten all-girl beat groups and garage rock
crews predating hard rockers and proto-punks like the Shaggs, Fanny and
the Runaways.
Formed in Miami Beach, the Belles played dances and an area Air Force Base, garnered a local newspaper feature and some radio appearances and recorded two 7" inches on Hollywood, Florida-based label Tiara.
The A-side, version of Them’s
“Gloria” with the genders swapperd for a boy named Melvin; the B-side,
the raucous “Come Back,” written by 14-year-old guitarist Debbie
Teaver.
The Pussywillows were a group that featured Elinor Blake, Lisa Dembling and Lisa Jenio. Their recordings have appeared on the Kill the Moonlight soundtrack, and the Rutles Highway Revisited album.
The Pussywillows were originally from New York City. It consisted of three friends—Elinor Blake, Lisa Dembling and Lisa Jenio—who liked singing together girl-group style. Through Todd Abramson of the Telstar label they got some gigs, which led to them recording Spring Fever!, released on Telstar. The tracks on the album were, "The Boat That I Row", "Come On Now", "Don't Say He's Gone", "Turn Her Down", "Everyone Will Know", "My Baby Looks But He Don't Touch" and "Baby Baby (I Still Love You)". With "The Boat That I Row", the song was written by Neil Diamond and became a hit for Lulu. Another song they covered was "Turn Her Down". It was recorded by girl group The Cupons in the 1960s and released on the Impact label.
The group also did some recordings with Raunch Hands. A big fan of the group was Ronnie Spector who would one day have them backing her on a set of recordings. In December 1990, they played at the Funhouse in Bethlehem covering songs like Neil Diamond's "The Boat That I Row" and "My Baby Looks But He Don't Touch". In January 1991 with their backing band, which included guitarist Ward Dotson on guitar, Will Rigby on drums and Spike Priggen on bass, they played at the CBGB club in Bleecker Street, Manhattan.
Blake moved to LA and by 1991 was using the name April March. Lisa Jenio became a member of and bass player for Candypants and The Liquor Giants.
Joyce Olivia Green (born March 2, 1940) is an American rockabilly musician. She is best known for her song Black Cadillac.
Joyce learned to play guitar from her brother, Glenn, at age nine. The Green siblings frequently performed together in church. Joyce participated in various talent competitions, which she often won. She made her radio debut in 1957 with fellow musician Jimmy Douglas. She continued to perform with Douglas on the radio and at local Arkansas establishments. She was hired by Leon Gambill to perform regularly at Oasis Club in Bald Knob, Arkansas and soon began touring locally.
In 1959, Joyce wrote the song Black Cadillac with her sister Doris. She played the song for Arlen Vaden who arranged a recording session for her at KLCN in Blytheville, Arkansas. Joyce sang and played rhythm guitar on the record which included the song Tomorrow on the A-side and Black Cadillac on the B-side. The other musicians on the record included Tommy Holder on guitar, Teddy Redell on piano, Scotty Kuykendall on bass and Harvey Farley on drums. The record was released on Vaden Records in March 1959. Joyce embarked on a promotional tour with Larry Donn and Carl Perkins to support the record. The record was never commercially successful and Joyce did not record again until the 1970s. These later recordings were lost in a fire.
Joyce's record later became highly sought after by Rockabilly collectors. In 2006, Rhino Records released Rockin' Bones: 1950s Punk & Rockabilly, a four-disc box set that included Black Cadillac.
Amy Rigby (born Amelia McMahon, January 27, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter. After playing with several New York bands she began a solo career, recording several albums.
Rigby was born in the Pittsburgh suburbs and moved to New York City in 1976. During the late 1980s and early 1990s recorded with New York bands such as The Shams and Last Roundup. Rigby released her first full-length recording under her own name, Diary of a Mod Housewife, in 1996. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau praised the album, calling it "concept album of the year". Spin voted Rigby "Songwriter of the Year" for 1996. Middlescence and The Sugar Tree (like Mod Housewife, recorded for Koch Records), also were well received by critics and listeners. Koch also released Rigby's compilation album, 18 Again.
In 1999 Rigby moved to Nashville to pursue a publishing deal, and continued to record and tour. After leaving Koch, she recorded for the Signature Sounds label, and also sold live CD and DVD material through her website. Til The Wheels Fall Off, with its opening track, "Why Do I," produced by Richard Barone, was released on Signature in 2003, and Little Fugitive in 2005.
Rigby met Eric Goulden, also known as Wreckless Eric, in Hull, England, where she was performing one of his songs. She later relocated to Cleveland Ohio, and in late 2006 she and Goulden moved to France. In the fall of 2011 they moved back to the USA, settling in a town in upstate New York. Rigby and Goulden collaborated on albums.
Skeeter Davis (born Mary Frances Penick; December 30, 1931 – September 19, 2004) was an American country music singer and songwriter who sang crossover pop music songs. One of the first women to achieve major stardom in the country music field as a solo vocalist, she was an acknowledged influence on Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton.
During her junior year of high school, Skeeter and Betty Jack won a local yodeling contest, whose prize was a time slot singing on a local daytime television show. The two were billed as the Davis Sisters, with Skeeter adopting Betty Jack's last name, despite their being unrelated. Their appearance on the local program led to them receiving singing opportunities on the Detroit radio station WJR's program Barnyard Frolics. After graduating from high school in 1949, Davis relocated to Detroit with Betty Jack, where they completed demonstration recordings for Fortune Records; among these were the song "Jealous Love", which was released as a single in 1953. Between 1954 and 1956, The Davis Sisters released a total of nine singles for RCA, which they recorded in New York City and Chicago, and toured the United States as a part of the RCA Caravan of the Stars alongside Minnie Pearl, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and Chet Atkins, among others. The Davis Sisters formally disbanded in 1956.
In the late 1950s she resumed performing as a solo act, touring with Ernest Tubb, and co-wrote and recorded the song "Set Him Free" for RCA, produced by Chet Atkins.In 1958 Davis recorded "Lost to a Geisha Girl", an answer song to Hank Locklin's hit "Geisha Girl", which reached the country number 15 and became her first solo hit. She subsequently co-wrote and recorded another top-20 hit called "Homebreaker", which peaked at number 15 on the Hot Country Songs chart in November 1959. The same year, Davis joined the Grand Ole Opry. From 1960 to 1962, Davis had top-10 hits with the songs "(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too", "My Last Date (With You)", "Where I Ought to Be", and "Optimistic". "(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too" marked Davis's first entrance as a solo artist onto the Billboard pop charts in 1960 and resulted in her being invited to perform on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The song went all the way to the top 40, unheard of for a female country singer at the time. In 1961, she scored a second pop hit with a lyric version (written by Skeeter) of Floyd Cramer's instrumental country pop smash "Last Date" called "My Last Date (With You)" which did even better, making the top 30 on the pop charts. Both of these songs did exceptionally well on the country charts, peaking at number two and number five, respectively.
In 1963, Davis achieved her biggest success with country pop crossover hit "The End of the World". The song just missed topping the country and pop charts that year; however, it did top the adult contemporary charts. The single sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. Davis's success continued with "I'm Saving My Love" and 1964's Gonna Get Along Without You Now. In 1967, Davis was back in the top 10 with "What Does It Take (To Keep a Man Like You Satisfied)". Davis only achieved two other major country hits the rest of the decade, "Fuel to the Flame" (written by Dolly Parton, to whom Davis paid tribute with an album called Skeeter Sings Dolly in 1972), and "There's a Fool Born Every Minute". In 1970, Davis had another top-10 hit with "I'm a Lover (Not a Fighter)". The following year, she had a hit with the autobiographical "Bus Fare To Kentucky". Subsequently, however, her chart success began to fade. Davis returned to the recording studio in 1976 with a brief stint on Mercury Records, which produced two single releases, including her last song to make the national charts, 1976's "I Love Us". In 1978, she recorded the first of several albums for minor record labels which she did on occasion into the 1990s. She recorded the album She Sings, They Play with bassist Joey Spampinato and his band, NRBQ.
She died of breast cancer in a Nashville, Tennessee, hospice on September 19, 2004, aged 72.
Martha Elaine Wash (born December 28, 1953) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, and producerknown for her distinctive and powerful voice.
Wash first achieved fame as half of the Two Tons O' Fun, who sang backing vocals for the disco singer Sylvester including on his signature hit "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". After gaining their own record deal, they released three consecutive commercially successful songs which all peaked at number two in the dance charts.
The duo was renamed the Weather Girls in 1982 after they released the top-selling single "It's Raining Men", which brought them to mainstream pop attention. The Weather Girls released five albums and were heavily featured on Sylvester's albums. After disbanding in 1988, Wash transitioned to house music as a featured artist on several successful songs. Her success on the Billboard dance chart has earned her the honorific title the Queen of Clubland, with a total of fifteen number-one songs on the chart to date.
Wash is also noted for sparking legislation in the early 1990s that made vocal credits mandatory on CDs and music videos. Starting in the late-1980s, her studio vocals were used in several successful dance songs without her permission or proper credit. Models lip-synced to her voice in music videos and during live performances, obscuring Wash's contributions and hiding Wash's size as a full-figured woman. As a result, she was denied credit and royalties for many of the songs she recorded. This included platinum-selling song "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)". Subsequently, in Rolling Stone, music critic Jason Newman described Martha Wash as "The Most Famous Unknown Singer of the '90s". In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 58th most successful dance artist of all time.
