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.
Las Ultrasónicas is a Mexican feminist rock and punk band formed in 1996. Drummer Jenny Bombo with Tere Farfissa started the band which they spent
several singers, guitarists and bass players, until Suzy Vox (vocals),
Jessy Bulbo (bass) and Ali Gua Gua (guitar) came. They begin to play as a
quintet, until Tere leaves in 1997 and stay as a quartet with that
lineup in 1998. In 2002, Jenny Bombo stays in drums and vocals, Jessy Bulbo in bass and vocals, and Ali Gua Gua in guitar and vocals.
Motivated to create an all-female band, among their initial influences were Mexican all female bands like Loba and the sound of bands like The Sonics and The Kingsmen, based on rock, rock and roll, garage rock, surf, and punk; the influence of the riot grrrl movement with lyrics that were openly libertarian, confrontational, and sexually explicit in a style that challenged gender roles, the sexual objectification of women in rock, and femininity. The band was a success on the local independent scene and their songs and stage attitude would bring them notoriety in Mexico.
In 1996 they recorded a demo of what would later be their album "Yo fui una adolescente terrosatánica" released in 2000 was recorded in two days. The concept of the album was influenced by science fiction and presented the group as extraterrestrial and space beings, taking advantage of these metaphors to criticize aspects of the lack of space for rock.This album included hits such as "Vente en mi boca" (a surfing song that refers to oral sex inspired by "Come into my mouth" by Thee Headcoatees) "Quiero ser tu perra" (Iggy Pop's cover) and "Monstruo verde", a song that was included in Marise Sistach's film Perfume de violetas, released in 1997. After this album the band took a break. In 2002, in recognition of their talent, the musician and producer Alejandro Marcovich called on them to record an album on the Sony Music Discos Termita sub-label, thus releasing the album Oh si más, más from which the hit single "Qué grosero" emerged. Because of its explicit language, the group edited some of the censored songs to be broadcast in the Mexican media.The members and ex-members would narrate that in this album the over-intervention of producer Marcovich in the band's decisions would cause irreconcilable internal conflicts that led to the departure of Jessy Bulbo from the band in 2002, who embarked on a solo career.
In 2008 they released the album Corazón rocker, which included songs like "El rock de la pájara Peggy" and "Ñero".
Gail Ann Dorsey (born November 20, 1962) is an American musician. With a long career as a session musician mainly on bass guitar, she is perhaps best known for her lengthy residency in David Bowie's band, from 1995 to Bowie's death in 2016.
Dorsey grew up in the 1970s in West Philadelphia. She played guitar from the age of nine and cites Mark Farner of Grand Funk Railroad, Terry Kath of Chicago, Jimi Hendrix, and Nancy Wilson of Heart as early influences. She acquired a bass shortly after her 14th birthday but didn't consider herself a bass player until she was 20. At the age of 22, Dorsey moved to London to pursue her musical career, where she was in a musical collaboration/band 20To with keyboard player/composer Pete Stern. Their first demos were engineered and produced by Paul "Doc" Stewart at Village Way Studio in London. Stewart was responsible for their introduction to CBS Records, which led to her first recording deal. She also composed the music for the Theatre of Black Women play Chiaroscuro in 1985, and was in the band for the show. She then established herself through collaborations with artists such as Boy George, Ann Pigalle, and Donny Osmond. Dorsey's first high-profile job was as a guest vocalist in the original line up of The Charlie Watts Big Band and its 1985 premiere at London's famous West End jazz club, Ronnie Scott's. A crucial point in Dorsey's solo career was her appearance on The Tube, a weekly music television hosted by Jools Holland and Paula Yates.
In December 1987, Dorsey signed with Warner Music Group and in 1988 released her first solo album, The Corporate World. The album was produced by bassist Nathan East of the jazz quartet Fourplay and included appearances by artists such as Eric Clapton. It received a 5-star review and was voted one of the Top 50 Albums of the Year by London's Q magazine. She moved to Island Records in 1991, signed by founder Chris Blackwell. In 1992, she released her second solo album entitled Rude Blue, which featured trumpeter Mark Pender and trombonist Richie "La Bamba" (from Conan O'Brien's house band), Carla Azar on drums (from Wendy & Lisa), Carol Steele on percussion, and the famous James Brown horn section of Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley, and Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis. After almost 12 years in England, Dorsey relocated to the artist community of Woodstock in upstate New York in 1994.
When her relationship with Island became strained, Dorsey began to concentrate on session work and in 1995 was recruited for David Bowie's Outside Tour. Throughout the remainder of the 1990s and into the 21st century she performed and recorded with artists such as Gang Of Four, Louise Goffin, world music stars Rachid Taha, Faudel, and Khaled (on their live album 1, 2, 3 Soleils), Sophie B. Hawkins, Tears For Fears, The The, The Indigo Girls, Canadian artist Jane Siberry, Jeffrey Gaines, Italian blues man Zucchero, Dar Williams, Catie Curtis, Toshi Reagon, Joan Osborne, The B-52s, and Michael Hutchence of INXS. Dorsey is perhaps best known for her contribution to the David Bowie band. After the Outside Tour she provided vocals and bass for Earthling (1997), Heathen (2002), Reality (2003) and The Next Day (2013). She recorded "Planet of Dreams", a duet with Bowie on the 1997 EMI UK benefit CD release, Long Live Tibet, as well as several other live recordings and videos. She has been on board for the last six tours and performed with Bowie at "The Concert For New York" at Madison Square Garden.
About a decade after Rude Blue, Dorsey released her third solo album in 2003. The album entitled I Used To Be is a collection of previously unreleased material spanning the past 18 years of Dorsey's songwriting archives. She wrote all songs herself with the exception of a few collaborators, namely Roland Orzabal and singer-songwriter Kristen Hall. I Used To Be was produced by Dorsey and engineer/producer Brandon Mason, with long-time friend and fellow bassist Sara Lee as executive producer. In 2017, Dorsey joined the Celebrating David Bowie tour from January 2, 2017 to February 2, 2017, alongside other musicians and collaborators of David Bowie.
Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 - October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter who sang rock, soul and blues music. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was known for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence.
Joplin cultivated a rebellious manner and styled herself partly after her female blues heroines and partly after the Beat poets. Her first song, "What Good Can Drinkin' Do", was recorded on tape in December 1962 at the home of a fellow University of Texas student. She moved to San Francisco in 1963 and in 1964, Joplin and future Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen recorded a number of blues standards, which incidentally featured Kaukonen's wife Margareta using a typewriter in the background. This session included seven tracks: "Typewriter Talk", "Trouble in Mind", "Kansas City Blues", "Hesitation Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", and "Long Black Train Blues", and was released long after Joplin's death as the bootleg album The Typewriter Tape. Approximately a year before Joplin joined Big Brother and the Holding Company, she recorded seven studio tracks with her acoustic guitar. Among the songs she recorded were her original composition for the song "Turtle Blues" and an alternate version of "Cod'ine" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. These tracks were later issued as a new album in 1995, titled This is Janis Joplin 1965 by James Gurley.
In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury. The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, "Blindman" and "All Is Loneliness", were added to the remaining eight tracks. When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included "Coo Coo" and "The Last Time", and put "featuring Janis Joplin" on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles "Down on Me", a traditional song arranged by Joplin, "Bye Bye Baby", "Call On Me" and "Coo Coo", on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.
For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. During the recording sessions, produced by John Simon, Joplin was said to be the first person to enter the studio and the last person to leave. Footage of Joplin and the band in the studio shows Joplin in great form and taking charge during the recording for "Summertime". The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb. Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on "Combination of the Two" and "I Need a Man to Love", only "Ball and Chain" was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song "Turtle Blues". Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with "Piece of My Heart" and "Summertime".
After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band. She appeared at the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song "Me and Bobby McGee", which reached number 1 in March 1971. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording.
Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970 at the age of 27, after releasing three albums. A fourth album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death.
Cosey Fanni Tutti (born Christine Carol Newby; 4 November 1951) is an English performance artist, musician, and writer, best known for her time in the avant-garde groups Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey.
Tutti was a performer with COUM Transmissions of which she was a founding member in 1969. Her addition changed the nature of the group, which, when she joined, was still mostly a musical venture. From that point on, COUM performances became events or, in 1960s parlance, happenings, involving props, costumes, dance, improvisation and street theatre. As an installation artist, she was selected in 1975 to represent Britain at the IXth Biennale de Paris. Tutti worked for two years on the 'Prostitution' project as part of COUM Transmissions in which she created a revealing exhibition about the porn and sex industry. For this project, she worked as a model for sex magazines and films (see section on Pornography below). It was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 1976. Censorship restrictions were imposed on the exhibition so only one image could be viewed at a time. The project also involved a performance and discussion events in which women working in the sex industry and the public could enter a dialog about issues surrounding this industry and prostitution.
Music was used in some of Tutti's performance art. The use of music led to Tutti's interest in the concept of 'acceptable' music and she went on to explore the use of sound as a means of physical pleasure or pain.[12] In 1976 she co-founded the group Throbbing Gristle with Chris Carter, Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson and Genesis P-Orridge. They are widely regarded as pioneers of industrial music. They made their public debut in October 1976 on COUM exhibition Prostitution, and, the following year, released their debut single, "United / Zyklon B Zombie", followed by an album, The Second Annual Report (1977).
The band released several subsequent studio and live albums- including D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978), 20 Jazz Funk Greats (1979), and Heathen Earth (1980) - on their own record label Industrial Records, building a notorious reputation with their transgressive and confrontational aesthetics; they included the extensive use of often disturbing visual imagery (such as fascist and Nazi symbolism, and pornography), as well as that of sound manipulation (noise; pre-recorded tape-based samples) influenced by works of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
Following the disbanding of Throbbing Gristle in 1981, Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson went on to form Psychic TV, while Tutti and Chris Carter continued to record together under the moniker Chris and Cosey. In honour of the dawn of the 21st century, Chris and Cosey changed their stage name to Carter Tutti.
In 2004, after twenty three years apart, all four original members of Throbbing Gristle reunited, and issued a new 12" recording, TG Now. The band continued to collaborate sporadically, and began to perform live shows together for the first time in over two decades. In April 2009, Throbbing Gristle toured the US, appearing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and playing shows in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.Carter and Tutti performed with Nik Colk Void of Factory Floor at Mute's Short Circuit Festival on 13 May 2011. A live album of the show, with an additional studio track, was released as Transverse in 2012, under the name Carter Tutti Void. Tutti continues to release solo recordings, including a retrospective deluxe box set with many photos and text, called Time To Tell, and she continues to work as a performance artist in the Dada tradition. She co-edited (with Richard Birkett) and published (Koenig Books, 2012), Maria Fusco's Cosey Complex, is the first major publication to discuss and theorise Tutti as methodology. In April 2017 she published her autobiography Art Sex Music.
Betty Davis (née Mabry; born July 26, 1945) is an American funk and soul singer. She is a performer who was known for her memorable and noteworthy live performances.
As Betty Mabry, she recorded "Get Ready For Betty" b/w "I'm Gonna Get My Baby Back" in 1964 for DCP International. Sometime in that same era, she also recorded a duet with Roy Arlington and under their joint name "Roy and Betty," released a single for Safice entitled, "I'll Be There." Betty's first major credit was writing "Uptown (to Harlem)" for the Chambers Brothers, 1967.
In 1968, when she was still involved with Hugh Masekela, she recorded several songs for Columbia Records, with Masekela doing the arrangements. Two of them were released as a single: "Live, Love, Learn" b/w "It's My Life." Her relationship with Miles Davis began soon after her breakup from Masekela and in the spring of 1969, Betty returned to Columbia's 52nd St. Studios to record a series of demo tracks, with Miles and Teo Macero producing. At least five songs were taped during those sessions, three of which were Mabry originals, two of which were covers of Cream and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Miles attempted to use these demo songs to secure an album deal for Betty, but neither Columbia nor Atlantic were interested and they were archived into a vault until 2016 when they were released in the compilation, The Columbia Years, 1968–1969, by Seattle's Light in the Attic Records.
After the end of her marriage with Miles, Betty moved to London, probably around 1971. She wrote music while in the UK and, after about a year, returned to the US with the intention of recording songs with Santana. Instead, she recorded her own songs with a group of West Coast funk musicians. Davis wrote and arranged all her songs. Her first record, Betty Davis, was released in 1973. She released two more studio albums, They Say I'm Different (1974)[16] and her major label debut on Island Records Nasty Gal (1975). None of the three albums was a commercial success, but she had two minor hits on the Billboard R&B chart: "If I'm in Luck I Might Get Picked Up," which reached no. 66 in 1973, and "Shut Off the Lights", which reached no. 97 in 1975.
She had success in Europe, but in the U.S. she was barred from performing on television because of her sexually aggressive stage persona. Some of her shows were boycotted, and her songs were not played on the radio due to pressure by religious groups and the NAACP. Both Betty Davis (1973) and They Say I'm Different (1974) were reissued by Light in the Attic Records in 2007. In 2009, Light in the Attic Records reissued Nasty Gal and her unreleased fourth studio album recorded in 1976, re-titled as Is It Love or Desire?. Both reissues contained extensive liner notes and shed some light on the mystery of why her fourth album, considered possibly to be her best work by many members of her last band (Herbie Hancock, Chuck Rainey, Alphonse Mouzon), was shelved by the record label and remained unreleased for 33 years. Material from the 1979 recording sessions was eventually used for two bootleg albums, Crashin' from Passion (1995) and Hangin' Out in Hollywood (1996). A greatest hits album, Anti Love: The Best of Betty Davis, was released in 2000.
Tammi Terrell (born Thomasina Winifred Montgomery; April 29, 1945 - March 16, 1970) was an American recording artist, best known as a star singer for Motown Records during the 1960s.
In 1960, Terrell signed under the Wand subsidiary of Scepter Records after being discovered by Luther Dixon, recording the ballad, "If You See Bill", under the name Tammy Montgomery and doing demos for The Shirelles. After another single, Terrell left the label and, after being introduced to James Brown, signed a contract with him and began singing backup for his Revue concert tours. In 1963, she recorded the song "I Cried". Released on Brown's Try Me Records, it became her first charting single, reaching No. 99 on the Billboard Hot 100.
After this tenure ended, Terrell signed with Checker Records and released the Bert Berns-produced "If I Would Marry You", a duet with Jimmy Radcliffe, which Terrell co-composed. Following this relative failure, Terrell announced a semi-retirement from the music business and enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania where she majored in pre-med, staying at the school for two years. In the middle of this, Terrell was asked by Jerry Butler to sing with him in a series of shows in nightclubs. After an arrangement was made by Butler to assure Terrell that she could continue her schooling, she began touring with Butler. In April 1965, during a performance at the Twenty Grand Club in Detroit, she was spotted by Motown CEO Berry Gordy, who promised to sign her to Motown. Terrell agreed and signed with the label on April 29, her 20th birthday. Before releasing her first single with Motown's Tamla subsidiary, "I Can't Believe You Love Me," Gordy suggested a name change. "I Can't Believe You Love Me" became Terrell's first R&B top forty single, followed almost immediately by "Come On and See Me". In 1966, Terrell recorded two future classics, Stevie Wonder's "All I Do (Is Think About You)" and The Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)". After the release of her first single on Motown, Terrell joined the Motortown Revue opening for The Temptations.
In early 1967, Motown hired Terrell to sing duets with Marvin Gaye, who had achieved duet success with Mary Wells and Kim Weston as well as having recorded duets with Oma Heard. At first the duets were recorded separately. For sessions of their first recording, the Ashford & Simpson composition, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough", both Gaye and Terrell recorded separate versions. Motown remixed the vocals and edited out the background vocals, giving just Gaye and Terrell vocal dominance. The song became a crossover pop hit in the spring of 1967, reaching No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the R&B charts and making Terrell a star. Their follow-up, "Your Precious Love", became an even bigger hit, reaching No. 5 on the pop chart and No. 2 on the R&B chart. At the end of the year, the duo scored another top ten single with "If I Could Build My Whole World Around You", which peaked at No. 10 on the pop chart and No. 2 on the R&B chart. The song's B-side, the Marvin Gaye composition "If This World Were Mine", became a modest hit on both charts (No. 68 pop, No. 27 R&B). Gaye would later cite the song as "one of Tammi's favorites". All four songs were included on Gaye and Terrell's first duet album, United, released in the late summer of 1967. Throughout that year, Gaye and Terrell began performing together and Terrell became a vocal and performance inspiration for the shy and laid-back Gaye, who hated live performing. The duo also performed together on television shows to their hits. They were voted the No. 1 R&B duo in Cash Box magazine's Annual Year-End Survey in 1970.
Terrell's career was interrupted when she collapsed into Gaye's arms as the two performed at a concert at Hampden–Sydney College on October 14, 1967, with Terrell later being diagnosed with a brain tumor. She had eight unsuccessful surgeries before succumbing to the illness on March 16, 1970 at the age of 24.
Eve Libertine (born Bronwyn Lloyd Jones) is a British singer. She is best known for her role as co-lead vocalist in Crass (alongside Steve Ignorant) - the seminal anarchist punk band who, in the late '70s, launched a cultural attack on all social fronts; God, Queen and Country. Libertine wrote and performed most of the songs on the group's third album, Penis Envy, which concentrated exclusively on feminist issues and featured only female voices.
The band was based around an anarchist commune in a 16th century cottage, Dial House, near Epping, Essex, and formed when commune founder Penny Rimbaud began jamming with Steve Ignorant. They produced "So What?" and "Do They Owe Us A Living?" as a drum-and-vocal duo. They briefly called themselves Stormtrooper before choosing Crass in reference to a line in the David Bowie song "Ziggy Stardust" ("The kids was just crass"). Other friends and household members joined (including Gee Vaucher, Pete Wright, N. A. Palmer and Steve Herman), and Crass played their first live gig at a squatted street festival in Huntley Street, North London. Guitarist Steve Herman left the band soon afterwards, and was replaced by Phil Clancey, aka Phil Free. Joy De Vivre and Eve Libertine also joined around this time.
Crass released their third album, Penis Envy, in 1981. This marked a departure from the hardcore-punk image The Feeding of the 5000 and Stations of the Crass had given the group. It featured more-complex musical arrangements and female vocals by Eve Libertine and Joy De Vivre (singer Steve Ignorant was credited as "not on this recording"). The album addressed feminist issues, attacking marriage and sexual repression.
After the dissolution of Crass in 1984, Libertine worked with her son Nemo Jones, a guitarist. She trained as a classical singer and has performed as part of Crass Agenda (renamed Last Amendment as of 2005) and with Penny Rimbaud, Matt Black, Christine Tobin, Julian Siegel, Ingrid Laubrock, Nabil Shaban, and Kate Shortt.
Thee Headcoatees was a garage band formed in Chatham, Kent, England in 1991. They were part of the Medway scene. The members were Holly Golightly, Kyra LaRubia, Ludella Black and "Bongo" Debbie Green.
Thee Headcoatees were formed by Billy Childish as a backing group for his band Thee Headcoats. Ludella Black's previous band The Delmonas had performed the same function for Childish's earlier bands, starting with The Milkshakes. Their songs were principally written by Billy Childish and were songs that did not suit his own acts. After Holly Golightly did a cameo appearance with Thee Headcoats, Childish added her to The Delmonas lineup; soon thereafter the band was renamed Thee Headcoatees.
As a backing band Thee Headcoatees initially would just do a few songs to warm up for Thee Headcoats. Their song "Headcoat Girl" on The Sisters of Suave even states "I wanna be a headcoat girl". In 1991 the band cut their first album Girlsville for Hangman Records. It consisted of songs all written by Billy Childish. In 1998 Debbie Green left the band, which was reduced to a three piece for their final album, Here Comes Cessation. Thee Headcoatees continued to tour with Thee Headcoats until the group folded in 1999.
Holly Golightly has gone on to pursue a solo career, recording more than ten LPs, and has worked with the bands The Greenhornes and The White Stripes and in her latter career has formed the band Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs. Kyra and Debbie went on to sing for The A Lines (featuring Delia from Mambo Taxi and Julie Hamper of Billy Childish's Musicians of the British Empire); Debbie and Delia currently play in Ye Nuns. Kyra and Ludella later appeared in The Shall I Say Quois alongside Julie Hamper, while Debbie also went on to play with Dutronc, Baby Birkin and The Speed of Sound; she also drummed and sang with Would-Be-Goods, and recorded in The Buffets, alongside Hamper.
Wendy Carlos (November 14, 1939) is an American musician and composer best known for her electronic music and film scores. Born and raised in Rhode Island, Carlos studied physics and music at Brown University before moving to New York City in 1962 to study music composition at Columbia University. Studying and working with various electronic musicians and technicians at the city's Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, she helped the development of the Moog synthesizer, the first commercially available keyboard instrument created by Robert Moog.
Carlos began her music career with Switched-On Bach, an album formed of several pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach performed on a Moog modular synthesizer. The idea came about around 1967, when Carlos asked Elkind to listen to some compositions written by Carlos and musicologist Benjamin Folkman ten years prior at the Electronic Music Center, one of them being Bach's Two-Part Invention in F major, which Elkind took a liking to. Plans for an album of several Bach compositions developed from there, leading to a recording contract with Columbia Masterworks through Elkind's contacts, a deal that lasted until 1986. The label had launched an album sales campaign named "Bach to Rock", though it had no album of Bach's works in a contemporary context in its catalogue. With a $2,500 advance, Columbia granted Carlos and Elkind artistic freedom to produce and release the album. Carlos performs with additional synthesizers played by Folkman and Elkind as producer. Recording was a dragged out and time-consuming process as the instrument could only be played one note at a time.
Released in October 1968, Switched-On Bach became an unexpected commercial and critical success and helped to draw attention to the synthesizer as a genuine musical instrument. It peaked at No. 10 on the US Billboard 200 chart and was No. 1 on its Classical Albums chart from January 1969 to January 1972. It is the second classical album to sell over one million copies and was certified Gold in 1969 and Platinum in 1986 by the Recording Industry Association of America. Carlos performed selections from the album on stage with a synthesizer with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the first of only two live performances since her days as a student (the other being with the Kurzweil Baroque Ensemble for 'Bach at the Beacon' in 1997). In 1970, the album won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (With or Without Orchestra), and Best Engineered Classical Recording. Carlos released a follow-up, The Well-Tempered Synthesizer, with synthesized pieces from multiple composers. Released in November 1969, the album reached No. 199 on the Billboard 200 and received two Grammy nominations. The success of both albums allowed Carlos to move into Elkind's more spacious New York City home in 1971.
After the release of Switched-On Bach, Carlos was invited to compose the soundtrack of two science fiction films, Marooned (1969), directed by John Sturges, and A Clockwork Orange (1971) by Stanley Kubrick. When the directors of Marooned changed their minds about including a soundtrack, Carlos chose to work with Kubrick, as she and Elkind were fans of his previous films, adding: "We finally wound up talking with someone who had a close connection to Stanley Kubrick's lawyer. We suddenly got an invitation to fly to London."[5] Before Carlos knew about the offer, she read the book and began writing a piece based on it named "Timesteps". A soundtrack containing only the film cuts of the score was released as Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange in 1972, combining synthesized and classical music by Henry Purcell, Beethoven and Gioacchino Rossini with an early use of a vocoder. The album peaked the Billboard 200 chart at No. 146.
Carlos experimented with ambient music on her third studio album Sonic Seasonings, released as a double album in 1972, with one side-long track dedicated to each of the four seasons. Recorded as early as 1970 and finished in mid-1971. It combined field recordings of animals and nature with synthesized sounds, occasionally employing melodies, to create soundscapes. It reached No. 168 in the Billboard 200 and influenced other artists who went on to pursue the ambient and new-age genres in later years. By 1973, Columbia/CBS Records had received a considerable number of requests for Carlos to produce another album of synthesized classical music. She agreed to the request, opting to produce a sequel to Switched-On Bach, which began with her and Elkind seeking compositions that were most suitable for the synthesizer; the two picked selections from Suite No. 2 in B minor, Two-Part Inventions in A minor and major, Suite from Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, and Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major. The latter features a Yamaha E-5 Electone organ for certain passages, as a reliable polyphonic keyboard had not been developed. The result, Switched-On Bach II, was released in 1973 and sold over 70,000 copies in the US during the first five weeks of its release.
Following Switched-On Bach II, Carlos changed musical directions once more. In 1971, she and Elkind had asked Columbia Records to attach a pre-paid business reply card in each new pressing of her albums, which resulted in a considerable amount of suggestions from the public regarding the subject of her future releases. Released as By Request in 1975, the album includes pieces from Bach, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, two of Carlos' compositions from the 1960s, and renditions of "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles and "What's New Pussycat?", originally sung by Tom Jones. The final track, a "witty and serious" set of variations based on themes by Edward Elgar, was replaced with tracks from The Well-Tempered Synthesizer on UK pressings after members of Elgar's estate refused to have his music presented in this style, which "devastated" Carlos. By Request was followed by Switched-On Brandenburgs, a double album containing all six of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos played on a synthesizer, in 1980.
Carlos reunited with Kubrick to compose the score for his psychological horror film The Shining (1980). Before filming began, Carlos and Elkind read the book, as per Kubrick's suggestion, for musical inspiration. Carlos recorded a considerable amount of music, but Kubrick ended up using existing music by several avant-garde composers he had used as guide tracks in the final version. The Shining (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), released in 1980 on Warner Bros. Records, features two tracks credited to Carlos and Elkind: the main title theme and "Rocky Mountains", the former a reinterpretation of the "Dies Irae" section of Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz. Some of Carlos' music had some legal issues regarding its release, but much of it was made available in 2005 as part of her two-volume compilation album Rediscovering Lost Scores.
Since then she has worked on several movie soundtracks like Tron (1982) or Brand New World (1998). That same year she released her most recent studio album, Tales from Heaven and Hell, for the East Side Digital label and also digitally remastered her studio albums, culminating in the Switched-On Box Set released in 1999 featuring her four synthesized classical albums. In 2005, the two-volume set Rediscovering Lost Scores was released, featuring previously out-of-print material, including the unreleased soundtrack to Woundings and music recorded for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining and Tron that was not used in the films.
