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.
Sylvia Lee Barton (June 14, 1941, Wabbaseka, Arkansas - February 28, 1992 Chicago, Illinois), was a Chicago blues bassist and vocalist. She learned to play the piano as a girl, encouraged by her Gospel music-loving grandmother, who tried to curb her granddaughter's bursting passion for Chuck Berry and Lloyd Price. While still underage joins the professional gospel group called "The Southern Echoes Gospel". In the early 60's she decided to move to Chicago where she started working in some clubs.
It was there that she met guitarist Johnny Embry, who taught her the basics of the electric bass. She began to sing in Johnny's band, "The Blues Kings", with whom she recorded the album "Troubles". At the same time, she met bluesman Lefty Dizz, who was a regular guest at the Checkerboard Lounge, who asked her to join his show.
She took part in the Willie Dixon Mississippi Festival in Greenville where she performed with Sam Myers, 'Honeyboy' Edwards and Robert Jr. Lockwood, then she joined guitarist Jimmy Dawkins with whom he toured the USA and Europe. In 1983 her solo album "Midnight Baby" was released.
Sylvia even appeared in a film, Mississippi Delta Blues. She
returned to gospel music but her health declined and she died of cancer
February 28. 1992.
The Linda Lindas are a punk rock band from Los Angeles. The band consists of Eloise (bass, guitars, lead vocals), Bela (guitars, vocals), Lucia (guitar, vocals), and Mila (drums, vocals). Bela is the oldest member at 16 as of May 2021, and Mila the youngest, at 10.
Taking its name from the 2005 Japanese film Linda Linda Linda, (or the Blue Hearts song "Linda Linda" that the film is named after) the band formed in January 2018 as a pickup band of "inexperienced kids" for Kristin Kontrol's performance at Girlschool LA. By fall, they were playing Save Music in Chinatown matinee gigs alongside artists such as Phranc, the Dils, the Gears, and the Alley Cats, and other shows with bands such as Best Coast, Alice Bag, and Bleached. They wrote a song for the Netflix documentary The Claudia Kishi Club. After Amy Poehler watched the Linda Lindas open for Bikini Kill on April 26, 2019, at the Hollywood Palladium, she had them record songs for her film Moxie.
In May 2021, the Los Angeles Public Library posted a video of the band playing "Racist, Sexist Boy" at a "TEENtastic Tuesdays" event. The song was about an experience Mila, the band's drummer, had when a schoolmate made a racist comment before the COVID-19 pandemic. The video became a viral social media hit, earning praise from Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, Red Hot Chili Peppers's Flea, Thurston Moore, Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna, and author Viet Thanh Nguyen who said, "'Racist, Sexist Boy' is the song we need now".
On May 22, 2021, Epitaph Records announced that it had signed the Linda Lindas. On June 3, 2021, the band made their late night television debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live. On July 21, 2021, the band released the single "Oh!" with an accompanying music video. The song also was featured in the trailer released for the Netflix series The Chair, which was also released that same day.
Sleater-Kinney is an American rock band that formed in Olympia, Washington, in 1994. The band's current lineup features Corin Tucker (vocals and guitar) and Carrie Brownstein (guitar and vocals), following the departure of longtime member Janet Weiss (vocals, drums, and harmonica) in 2019. Sleater-Kinney originated as part of the riot grrrl movement and has become a key part of the American indie rock scene. The band is also known for its feminist and left-leaning politics.
Sleater-Kinney was formed in early 1994 in Olympia, Washington, by Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein. The group's name derives from Sleater Kinney Road, in Lacey, Washington, where signs for Interstate 5 exit number 108 announce its existence. One of the band's early practice spaces was near Sleater Kinney Road. Tucker was formerly in the influential riot grrrl band Heavens to Betsy, while Brownstein was formerly in the band Excuse 17. They often played at gigs together and formed Sleater-Kinney as a side-project from their respective bands. When Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17 disbanded, Sleater-Kinney became their primary focus. Janet Weiss of Quasi was the band's longest lasting drummer, though Sleater-Kinney has had other drummers, including Laura MacFarlane, Misty Farrell, and Toni Gogin.
The band released seven studio albums between 1994 and 2005: Sleater-Kinney (1995), Call the Doctor (1996), Dig Me Out (1997), The Hot Rock (1999), All Hands on the Bad One (2000), One Beat (2002) and The Woods (2005). They went on hiatus in 2006 and devoted themselves to solo projects. They reunited in 2014 and released No Cities to Love on January 20, 2015, and Live in Paris in January 2017. Their second studio album after their reunion, The Center Won't Hold, was produced by St. Vincent, and released in August 2019. The band's tenth studio album and their first self-produced album, Path of Wellness, was released in June 2021.
Brie Howard-Darling (also known and credited as Brie Darling, Brie Howard, Brie Brandt, and Brie Berry) is an American drummer, singer, percussionist, songwriter, artist and actress of Filipino and European descent. She has recorded with such recording artists as Carole King, Ringo Starr, ELO, Keith Moon, The Temptations, Jimmy Buffett, Melissa Manchester, Janiva Magness, and Glen Campbell. She has toured extensively with Martin Mull, Kiki Dee, Jack Wagner, Bruce Willis, Robert Palmer, Carole King, Jimmy Buffett, Robbie Nevil, and Duran Duran. She has been a band member of Fanny, American Girls, Boxing Gandhis, Fanny Walked The Earth, and Cherie Currie & Brie Darling.
Howard-Darling was born (August 9, 1949) in Stockton, California and raised in Folsom, California, a suburb of Sacramento. She began performing professionally at fourteen years old with the band, The Kee-Notes, and became a member of the Sacramento Musician's Union in 1964. In 1965 the band recorded three songs for Esar Records, making Darling one of the first female rock drummers to record rock music. She credits her younger and older brothers as her greatest early influences, as they were both musicians, and there was a drum kit in their living room where she could practice. In 1966, she joined the all-female Sacramento band The Svelts, which would later evolve into Fanny, becoming the first all-woman band to be signed to a major record label to record a full album.
Howard-Darling rejoined Fanny in 1974, recording Rock and Roll Survivors released on Casablanca Records. The first single, "I've Had It" reached #79 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their second single, Butter Boy, spent 11 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #29 on April 5, 1975. In 2018, original band members Jean Millington (bass), June Millington (lead guitar), and Howard-Darling reunited as Fanny Walked the Earth, releasing an eponymous album, their first recording together in more than 40 years. It features several female musicians who have credited Fanny with helping open the door for them decades ago, among them the Runaways’ Cherie Currie, the Go-Go's Kathy Valentine, the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Vicki and Debbi Peterson, veteran rock singer and musician Genya Ravan and former Fanny member Patti Quatro, the sister of Suzi Quatro.
American Girls (band) were an American all-female band based in California, United States.[6] The band consisted of Howard-Darling (vocals, drums, percussion), Hilary Shepard (vocals, percussion), DB Tressler (guitar), Miiko Watanabe (bass, backing vocals) and Teresa James (keyboards, backing vocals). Original members included Louise Goffin (rhythm guitar, lead and backing vocals) and Daryl Hannah (keyboards). American Girls released one album, in 1986 titled American Girls. The video for their single "American Girl" received some airplay on MTV. Their song "Androgynous" appeared in the 1986 film Tough Guys and the song "American Girl" appeared on the soundtrack for Out of Bounds. They also opened for The Lords of the New Church on 1986 tour dates.
Aside from Howard-Darling's own music projects and bands, she has toured extensively with other successful recording artists, most notably with Carole King, Jimmy Buffett and Robert Palmer. Starting in 1990, she toured with King as a percussionist and vocalist for five years in the U.S. and internationally. Darling performed with Jimmy Buffett on five tours over a span of five years and with Robert Palmer for two U.S. tours and one international tour. Cherie Currie and Howard-Darling (credited as Brie Darling) recorded The Motivator, a full-length album that was released on August 2, 2019 on Blue Elan Records.
Rhonda Smith is a Canadian bassist, best known for her work with Prince. She was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her family moved to Montreal when she was a child.
She and her three siblings were encouraged to play music and she began playing baritone horn, keyboards, guitar, and eventually electric bass. In addition to taking private classical training on upright bass, Smith attended McGill University in Montreal studying jazz performance. After gaining some experience in the local rock scene, she moved on to work with Canadian artists Claude Dubois, Daniel Lavoie, Robert Charlebois and James Blovin. She won a Juno award for "Best Contemporary Jazz Album", for her work with Jim Hillman and The Merlin Factor.
While attending a music convention in Germany, Smith met Sheila E. and gave her a press kit after learning Prince was putting a new band together. Two months later, Prince called and Smith went to Paisley Park to record on the Emancipation album. Smith recorded and toured with Prince for almost 10 years. Other musicians she has worked with include Chaka Khan, Beyoncé, T.I., Erykah Badu, Lee Ritenour, Jeff Beck, and Terri Lyne Carrington.
In 2000, she released her first solo record, Intellipop.
The Teen Queens were an American musical group from the 1950s, most remembered for their hit single "Eddie My Love", which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 3 on the R&B Best Sellers charts in March 1956.
The group consisted of sisters Betty and Rosie Collins, sisters of Aaron Collins, who was a singer with the doo wop group The Cadets. Their debut song and the single that became their biggest hit. "Eddie My Love" was released by RPM Records, and, following its success, was followed by a string of other releases. These included "Baby Mine", "Billy Boy", "Red Top", "Rock Everybody" and "I Miss You".
Consequently, the group left RPM in 1958 and signed a one record recording contract with RCA Records, who released "Dear Tommy". This also failed to make much of an impact on the charts. There then followed a later contract with Antler Records and a further two singles, "There's Nothing on My Mind" (an answer song to "There's Something on Your Mind") and "I Heard Violins". Again, however, these songs enjoyed little success and by 1961, the group decided to stop recording music.
"Eddie My Love" was also recorded by The Chordettes and The Fontane Sisters, both of which also made the charts in 1956.
The Au Pairs were a British post-punk band that formed in Birmingham in 1978 and continued until 1983. They produced two studio albums and three singles. Their songs were said to have "contempt for the cliches of contemporary sexual politics" and their music has been compared to that of the Gang of Four and the Young Marble Giants. The band was led by Lesley Woods.
Au Pairs formed in Birmingham in 1978. Their first album, Playing with a Different Sex, is considered a post-punk classic, with strong, sarcastic songs such as "It's Obvious" and "We're So Cool" taking a dry look at gender relations. Other songs, such as "Armagh"—with its refrain, "we don't torture"- criticized the British government's treatment of Irish Republican prisoners during the troubles in Northern Ireland.In 1980 the band were filmed live for the concert film Urgh! A Music War.
The band's second album, Sense and Sensuality (1982), showed a greater influence of jazz, soul, funk and disco on the band's sound, but was less well received. Following the departure of Jane Munro in 1983, the band recruited Nick O'Connor who also played piano and synthesizers. At this time the group were further augmented by Jayne Morris (percussion and backing vocals), Graeme Hamilton (trumpet) and Cara Tivey on additional keyboards. The band were scheduled to record a third album with producer Steve Lillywhite in 1983 but broke up. Woods has intimated that that the hostility and violence she and other women faced playing music was a factor in the group's demise.
Woods formed an all-woman band called the Darlings in the late 1980s, but then left the music industry. Guitarist Paul Foad published a guitar technique book, co-written with Stuart Ritchie, titled The Caged Guitarist (2000). Bass player Jane Munro works as an alternative therapist in Birmingham. Pete Hammond also remains an active musician and teaches percussion in Birmingham.
The What Four was a garage - beat group, formed in Manhattan and comprised of Elizabeth Burke (drums), Cathy Cochran (guitar), China Girard (rhythm guitar) and Diane Hartford (bass).
They signed with Columbia in 1966, where they released two 7"s,"Baby I Dig Love" b/w "It's Hard to Live On Promises" and "I'm Gonna Destroy that Boy" and "Ain't No Use in Crying, Susan."
Hortense Ellis (18 April 1941 – 19 October 2000) was a reggae musician, and the younger sister of fellow artist Alton Ellis.
She was 18 years old when she appeared on the Vere Johns Opportunity Hour, then Jamaica's foremost outlet for young undiscovered talent. Her version of Frankie Lymon's "I'm Not Saying No at All" so impressed both audience and panel that she was invited back the following week. Ellis went on to enter many more competitions and showcases and she reached six semi-finals and four finals. In 1964 she was awarded a silver cup as Jamaica's Best Female Vocalist and went on to repeat this feat five years later. During the 1960s, Ellis toured Jamaica with Byron Lee and The Dragonaires and had begun recording with some of the island's top producers such as Ken Lack ("I Shall Sing", "Hell And Sorrow" and "Brown Girl in the Ring"), Coxsone Dodd "I'll Come Softly" in 1963 and Duke Reid "Midnight Train", "Now And Forever", "I've Been A Fool" and "True Love" with Stranger Cole all in 1962 .
Alton Ellis was also recording with Dodd at this time and the family connection was exploited by Dodd who produced "female" adaptions of some of Alton's hits (for Hortense to record) including "Why Do Birds" and "I'm Just A Guy". Dodd also paired Alton and Hortense in a run of duets such as "I'm in Love" and "Easy Squeeze". The siblings toured Canada in 1970 and the next year, back in Jamaica she got busy in the studio. Recording under the name Mahalia Saunders for producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, she recorded several sides including "Right on the Tip of My Tongue" and "Piece of My Heart".
Ellis' success came in the late 1970s with a song recorded for Gussie Clarke. "Unexpected Places" was a big hit in Jamaica and also in Britain where it appeared on the Hawkeye label. For producer Bunny "Striker" Lee, Ellis became Queen Tiney for her "Down Town Ting" – an "answer" record to Althea and Donna's big hit "Uptown Top Ranking", which had itself been based on the rhythm of Alton's big hit "I'm Still in Love With You". Around this time, Ellis gathered many of her Coxsone/Studio One sides with Soul Syndicate, The Aggrovators and the up-and-coming team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. The rise of the Lovers Rock genre in the late seventies and early eighties led to Ellis cutting cover version of several popular soul classics including "Down the Aisle" (Patti Labelle) and "Young Hearts Run Free" (Candi Staton).
Ellis spent much of the eighties living in New York City and Miami. On returning to Jamaica in 1989, she began suffering health problems, but managed to carry on with occasional local live performances. She recovered sufficiently to make a private visit to New York in the summer of 1999, and then to Miami the following year, where ill health finally caught up with her. Despite a worsening condition and the pleadings of her daughter, Sandra Saunders, to seek immediate treatment there in Miami, Ellis insisted on returning to her beloved Jamaica where she was hospitalised almost immediately, seriously ill and in considerable pain. Hortense Ellis died in her sleep in a Kingston hospital on 19 October 2000 from a stomach infection.
Jenny Haan (born Janita Haan 9 May 1953, Edgware, Middlesex), is the lead singer of the 70s rock band Babe Ruth. The band was formed in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England and was initially active in the 1970s and reformed in 2005.
A predecessor of the group, called Shacklock after guitarist Alan Shacklock, was formed in 1970 but then changed the name to Babe Ruth in 1971. Members included Janita Haan and Dave Hewitt, with Dave Punshon and Dick Powell later joining. The first release was their single "Wells Fargo"; their first album, First Base, went gold in Canada. In 1973, Ed Spevock replaced Powell and Chris Holmes replaced Punshon on the second album. In 1975, Steve Gurl, keyboardist from Glenn Cornick's Wild Turkey replaced Holmes for the third album. The same year, Shacklock left the band to become a record producer and Bernie Marsden (Wild Turkey) joined the team for the fourth album. After this, Haan and Hewitt left.
Though no original member remained, the group incorporated Ellie Hope and Ray Knott for the fifth album in 1976. Shortly before Babe Ruth disbanded, they were joined by the young 17-year-old Birmingham born Simon Lambeth who made a few appearances on their last tour. Marsden moved on to join Whitesnake (after the short lived Paice Ashton Lord broke up) and Lambeth left the band. Their 1975 single "Elusive" became a popular song on the Northern soul scene. In the US, "Elusive" also was a hit in the discos, peaking at #12 on the National Disco Action chart.
A disco cover of Babe Ruth's "The Mexican" appeared in the late 1970s, performed by the Bombers. This version inspired an electro/freestyle cover produced by Jellybean Benitez in 1984, for which he managed to recruit Haan on vocals' the cover subsequently becoming noted for its popularity as an underground dance hit. Between late 2005 and early 2006, Haan (now Janita Haan Morris), Hewitt, Shacklock, and Punshon reunited to record new material together in Nashville, with Spevock recording his drums in London. The album, titled Que Pasa, was completed September 2006, and after being made available in digital form via the band's official web site, was released on Revolver Records in 2009. The band embarked on a successful reunion tour of Canada in July 2010, playing three concerts at Ottawa Bluesfest, Metropolis Montreal, and Festival International du Blues de Tremblant. On 28 June 2014, Babe Ruth played at Milwaukee's Summerfest; over 7,000 attended.
