Helen Humes

Helen Humes (June 23, 1913 – September 9, 1981) was an American jazz and blues singer from  in Louisville, Kentucky. She was a teenage blues singer, a vocalist with Count Basie's band and a R&B diva.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her career began with her first vocal performance, at an amateur contest in 1926, singing "When You're a Long, Long Way from Home" and "I'm in Love with You, That's Why". Her talents were noticed by a guitarist in the band, Sylvester Weaver, who recorded for Okeh Records and recommended her to the talent scout and producer Tommy Rockwell. At the age of 14, Humes recorded in St. Louis in April 1927, singing four blues songs, though only two of the sides were ever issued. A second recording session was held in New York, and this time she was accompanied by pianist J. C. Johnson. Despite this introduction to the music world, Humes did not make another record for another ten years.

 

 

 

 

 

While Humes was home in Louisville she received a call from Al Sears, who was in Cincinnati. He wanted her to sing at Cincinnati's Cotton Club. The Cotton Club was an important venue in the Cincinnati music scene. It was an integrated club which booked and promoted many black performers. Humes moved to Cincinnati in 1936 and sang with Sears's band again at the Cotton Club. Humes moved in 1937 to New York City, where John Hammond, a talent scout and producer, heard her singing with Sears's band at the Renaissance Club. Through Hammond, she became a recording vocalist with Harry James's big band. Her swing recordings with James included "Jubilee", "I Can Dream, Can't I?", Jimmy Dorsey's composition "It's the Dreamer In Me", and "Song of the Wanderer". In March 1938, Hammond persuaded Humes to join Count Basie's Orchestra, where she stayed for four years till 1942.

While home again in Louisville in 1942, Humes was called by John Hammond and invited to sing at Café Society in New York. She performed frequently there, accompanied by the pianists Teddy Wilson and Art Tatum. During that year, she also performed at the Three Deuces, at the Famous Door with Benny Carter (February), at the Village Vanguard with Eddie Heywood, and on tour with a big band led by the trombonist Ernie Fields. In 1944, Humes moved to Los Angeles, California, where she recorded and contributed to movie soundtracks. Some of the soundtracks she recorded were Panic in the Streets and My Blue Heaven. She appeared in the musical film Jivin' in Be-Bop, by Dizzy Gillespie. She also performed and toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic for five seasons. She recorded her most popular songs, two jump blues tunes, "Be-Baba-Leba" (Philo, 1945) and "Million Dollar Secret" (Modern, 1950). Despite her chart success, her career stagnated. From the late 1940s to the mid-1950s she made a few recordings, working with different bands and vocalists, including Nat King Cole, but was not nearly as active as she had been. In 1950 she recorded Benny Carter's "Rock Me to Sleep". She bridged the gap between big-band swing jazz and rhythm and blues. 

 

 

In 1956, Humes toured Australia with the vibraphonist Red Norvo. Their tour was well received, and she returned again in 1962 and 1964. She performed at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959 and the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1960 and 1962. She toured Europe with the first American Folk Blues Festival in 1962. Humes subsequently performed occasionally in America and at European venues and festivals, including the prestigious Nice Jazz Festival in the mid-1970s. She recorded her final album, Helen, for Muse Records in 1980. She received the Music Industry of France Award in 1973 and the key to the city of Louisville in 1975.

Humes died of cancer in Santa Monica, California, in 1981, at the age of 68.

Noosha Fox

Noosha Fox (born Susan Traynor, 8 December 1944) is an Australian singer. She is known as the lead singer of the band Fox, who had three UK chart hits in 1975 and 1976. She also had a number 31 hit as a solo performer with "Georgina Bailey".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Traynor was born in Australia in 1944. She began her music career as a singer in Sydney-based folk rock band Wooden Horse, who moved to England in 1970 and released two LPs. After the band split up, she provided background vocals on American singer and songwriter Kenny Young's 1973 solo album, Last Stage For Silverworld.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She then joined Fox, the band formed by Young and Northern Irish singer-songwriter Herbie Armstrong. She adopted the stage name Noosha, a corruption of an anagram of her first name (nussa). With Fox, Noosha achieved three top 20 hits on the UK Singles Chart: "Only You Can" and "Imagine Me, Imagine You" in 1975 and "S-S-S-Single Bed" in 1976. She left after their third album, Blue Hotel, to launch a solo career. Her first single, "Georgina Bailey", written and produced by Young, briefly entered the Top 40 in the UK Singles Chart, reaching number 31 in 1977.

In 1979, Noosha Fox tried to restart her solo career with a single, "The Heat Is On", written by Florrie Palmer and Tony Ashton, on Chrysalis Records. A later version of the song, by ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog, was a European hit four years later. In 1980, Fox provided guest vocals for the songs "Perfect Strangers" and "Havana Moon" on Tim Renwick's self-titled debut album. Fox recorded several singles in the early 1980s for the Earlobe label but none were successful, and she withdrew from the music industry.

The Butchies

The Butchies were a punk rock band from Durham, North Carolina, that existed from 1998 to 2005. They reunited from their hiatus to tour with Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls promoting Ray's new album in 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Made up of Team Dresch guitarist and frontwoman Kaia Wilson, bassist Alison Martlew, and drummer Melissa York, The Butchies has been referred to as "queercore crusaders". The band has been performing together since the recording of their first album, Are We Not Femme? in 1998. Since then, the trio has recorded three subsequent albums, Population: 1975 in 1999, 3 in 2001, and Make Yr Life in 2004. They have also appeared on a number of compilations of note, including Being Out Rocks, produced by the Human Rights Campaign (Centaur Productions, 2002), and Fields And Streams (Kill Rock Stars, 2002). In 2005 the band announced a hiatus.

 

 

 

 

 

The first three albums were released by the now-defunct Mr. Lady Records, run by Kaia Wilson and Tammy Rae Carland. It was named after Wilson's first solo LP, Ladyman, created after leaving Team Dresch. The label also released the first two Le Tigre recordings. Make Yr Life was released by Yep Roc. The track "Sex (I'm a Lesbian)" appeared on Mr. Lady's 1999 sampler album, New Women's Music Sampler. In 2001, a live rendition of the track "Disco" appeared on another sampler album, Calling All Kings & Queens. 

Kaia Wilson had previously performed in Adickdid and the queercore band Team Dresch, appearing on their first two albums, Personal Best and Captain My Captain; Melissa York was also in Team Dresch, playing drums on the second LP and, prior to that, performing in two hardcore punk bands, Vitapup and Born Against, before the two women joined with Alison Martlew to form The Butchies. The Butchies also played on the 2001 Amy Ray (of the Indigo Girls) album Stag on Daemon Records and backed her up on tour.

The Welders

The Welders was one of St. Louis’ earliest punk bands, and definitely its first all-girl punk band. It was formed in Florissant by sisters Jane and Caroline Fujimoto, Stephanie von Drasek, Julie Benz, and Kelly Draper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They played their first gig in November 1976 at an all-ages club, Blueberry Jam, with borrowed instruments. Stephanie sang; Jane played drums and keyboards; Caroline played bass; Kelly and Julie played guitar. The Welders wrote snarky, hilarious songs making fun of the icky guys harassing them on the street, or about being a prude, or the cultural backwardness of the Veiled Prophet. In 1979, after playing around the metro area for a few years, they went into the studio and recorded an EP. After the label went bankrupt, the master tapes went down the memory hole, and the band called it quits in 1981.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2010 BDR Records reissued The Welders’ lost EP on CD with some unreleased later tracks. In December 2009 they played a one-off reunion show opening for long-time friends Raymilland. The band sounded absolutely contemporary; the songs were both funny and catchy, and its playing was so sharp you'd never guess that the group hadn't played together in three decades.

Sally Webster - The Mutants

As a founding member of the Mutants, Sally Webster was a part of the influential art-punk scene in San Francisco in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The Mutants are an American band, known for their theatrical performances which often include elaborate props, projections, and comical antics. They are credited with being one of the first "Art-punk" bands in San Francisco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mutants joined together to perform at the San Francisco Poetry Festival in 1977. They quickly became regular performers in the San Francisco punk rock scene, headlining at the Mabuhay Gardens (aka The Fab Mab), The Savoy Tivoli, The Berkeley Square, The Deaf Club, The Temple (aka 1839 Geary Street), The Old Waldorf, The Warfield, and other punk clubs. They opened for such bands as The Ramones, Iggy Pop, New Order, Lene Lovich, The Cramps and the Talking Heads.

 

 

 

 

 

Their first extended play single was on 415 Records and included "Insect Lounge", "New Drug" and "The New Dark Ages". Many compilations, such as Wave Goodbye, Can You Hear Me: Live From the Deaf Club and 415 Music included both live and studio recordings of The Mutants. In 1982, The Mutants' only album, Fun Terminal, was produced with the help of Snakefinger after the first producer, Paul Wexler, who produced their e. p., left the project and was released on MSI Quality Records. In 1983 the band appeared in Rick Schmidt's independent film, Emerald Cities. Footage of a live performance was interspersed throughout the film, showcasing four songs: New Dark Ages; We Need A New Drug; War Against Girls; Sofa Song.

Following the release of Fun Terminal, The Mutants embarked on another successful national tour, headlining at major punk venues such as CBGBs and Hurrah. By the mid-eighties many of the original musicians left the band. The three vocalists attempted to keep the band going with new musicians, and new songs were written to feature the female vocalists. An EP documenting the later version of the group was recorded in the studio in 1984, but the material has not been commercially released as of this writing. 

In 1989 The Mutants had a reunion show at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. In 2002, Fun Terminal was re-released as a CD on White Noise Records and included three additional tracks of live recordings, a 1980 4 song unreleased demo session and the 415 Records-released EP. Interest in the band re-surfaced and The Mutants began once again playing small clubs in San Francisco, such as SOMA Arts, Thee Parkside, Studio Z and Cafe du Nord. A "Fab Mab Reunion" took place on April 8, 2006 at The Fillmore and featured performances by The Mutants and several other notable bands from the early San Francisco punk scene. Dirk Dirksen and Damon Malloy produced a DVD documentary of The Mutants titled Mutants: Forensic Report which was released in 2007.

In recent years, Sally Webster has extended her practice to include multiple-media work. In May 2009, she helped to organize “Light Show,” a novel music and visual exhibition/performance combining multi-image photography, film, video, and old-school psychedelia using the iconic “liquid light” from the ’60s. For the last two years, she has focused on a new series of paintings.

Cycle Sluts from Hell

The Cycle Sluts from Hell were an American heavy metal band from the late 1980s to early 1990s. The band was made up of four women singing under the stage names Queen Vixen, She-Fire of Ice, Honey One Percenter, and Venus Penis Crusher, backed by various musicians, including Pete Lisa, Christopher Moffett, Tom Von Doom, Fernando Rosario, Brian Smith, Scott Duboys, Bobby Gustafson, and Eddie Coen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lyrics were written by the girls and were tongue-in-cheek. The music was primarily written by Pete Lisa, along with writing contributions from Daniel Rey, Mark Durado, Christopher Moffett, and Tom Von Doom. The group had a pretty high profile in the New York City area in the late 1980s and performed shows with artists such as Jane's Addiction at The Cat Club, Danzig at The Old Studio 54, Joey Ramone at the Ritz, and also at the Palladium on 14th St. 

 

 

 

 

 

The band's self-titled debut album was their only release. The song "I Wish You Were a Beer" is their best-known track, written by Honey 1%er and Tom Von Doom. The track featured in the MTV shows Beavis and Butthead, who reacted favorably to it. The band's biggest gig was an European tour with Motörhead in the early nineties. Several of their songs are featured in the true-crime TV movie Murder in New Hampshire: The Pamela Wojas Smart Story, directed by Joyce Chopra and starring Helen Hunt and Chad Allen.

July 24, 2006, brought a reunion of some of the original band at The Delancey in New York. In presence were Queen Vixen, Honey 1percenter, She Fire of Ice, Lord Roadkill, and Scott Duboys. They reunited once again on October 31, 2007, for the Motherfucker Halloween party at Club Rebel in New York. Performing were Queen Vixen, Honey 1percenter, She Fire of Ice, and Lord Roadkill (accompanied by Nick Marden from The Stimulators on bass and She Wolves' Tony Mann). Venus Penis Crusher, a.k.a. Betty Kallas, went on to the industrial duo Hanzel und Gretyl. Donna She Wolf is now writing and playing guitar in the New Orleans-based band Star & Dagger,[6] a collaboration with Sean Yseult (White Zombie) that began in 2010, along with vocalist Von Hesseling, Dave Catching (Eagles of Death Metal) on guitar, and Gene Trautmann (Queens of the Stone Age) on drums. She also formed the group She Wolves with Tony Mann around 2000. Their early material was released on Poptown Records, including collaborations with punk musicians Sylvain Sylvain and Jayne County.

Les Lou's

Les Lou's AKA The Lou's were one of the first punk bands in France, and the first all-women rock band in France. Dutch Sascha aka Syama aka Saskia de Jong on drums, French Raphaelle Devins on rhythm guitar, Tolim Toto on bass and Pamela Popo, vocals and lead guitar, found each other in spring 1977.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were the only band playing on both days of the 1977 Mont de Marsan punk festival. Later in 1977 and 1978, they played with many British bands in Britain and Ireland: eg, Sham 69 , the Skids, Subway Sect, Penetration, the Mekons. On 14 November 1977, the Lou's played with Neo, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and Siouxsie and the Banshees in the Music Machine in London. They were support band to the Clash during the 1977 Out of Control tour in the UK. In 1978, they played with Public Image Limited, both in Paris, and in London.

 

 

 

 

 

In 1979, Sascha became the drummer, and Raphaelle the saxophone player, in the London band Verdict. They played often for Rock against Racism. Meanwhile, Pamela and Tolim founded Les Rois Fainéants in France.

In 1981, Sascha was back in her native Leiden, the Netherlands. She founded the all-girl Miami Beach Girls. Raphaelle came to Leiden as well, playing saxophone in Cheap'n'Nasty. Later, Sascha was in Love Cramps. This Dutch band won the 'Miss Rock Europe' competition in Kyiv, then still Soviet Ukraine.

Bio by Herman De Tollenaere

The Royalettes

The Royalettes (also credited as Sheila Ross and her Royalettes) were a group from Baltimore, Maryland who exemplified the "sweet soul" style of the mid-60s. They were originally signed with Philadelphia-based Chancellor Records and later with Warner Bros. Records, but their biggest success came at MGM Records.

 

 

 

 

 

The two Ross sisters formed their musical group while attending high school in Baltimore. They practiced after class with their cousin, Veronica Brown, and friend, Terry Jones. When they began performing together in 1962, the group took its name from the Royal, a theater located in the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue in Baltimore.

 

The Royalettes' biggest hit was "It's Gonna Take a Miracle" in 1965, charting at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #28 on the Billboard R&B chart. The song has since had more success as a cover, first by Laura Nyro in 1971 and later by Deniece Williams in 1982 who charted in the Top 10 and reached the #1 spot in the R&B chart.

The Royalettes had another hit in 1965 with "I Want to Meet Him" (#72 Hot 100, #26 R&B[4]). MGM released two albums by the group, produced by Teddy Randazzo who also arranged the records and co-wrote most of the songs. Randazzo gave the group a big production sound with a full orchestra, but despite the overall quality of the tracks and critical acclaim for their live performances, a major success eluded the group. A final single produced by Bill Medley also failed to chart and the group moved on to Roulette Records in 1967 before breaking up two years later. Afterward, Sheila worked briefly as a backup singer for The Three Degrees and had two solo single releases in the early 1970s. A CD retrospective was released in late 2010 of all their MGM tracks including the 27 songs produced by Randazzo for the two albums plus another three originally released on a single.

More than 30 years after the group disbanded, they came together again in 2003 for an All-Star Classic Reunion performance at the 5th Regiment Armory in Baltimore. This was their last performance as a group.

Rabies Babies

Rabies Babies is a punk rock trio based in London, UK. The band started in 1999 and  have a 10" record that came out in 2020 on Damaged Goods. They are Laura Saracino on guitar and vocals, Lorna Tiefholz on bass and vocals and Tabi Sutherland on drums and vocals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They make fast, fun and angry songs about crashing the party and smashing the patriarchy. They are anarchic garage punk born from the DIY squat scenes of the 1980s & 90s New York and London. Their sound is raw and dirty, with a feel of early Black Flag, Kleenex and The Slits.

Even though they've been playing since 1999 they were always more bothered about making bizarre costumes than making records. Rabies Babies were more concerned with having a shout and having fun than getting a record deal, so their 10" mini-album on Damaged Goods is their first release.

 

 

 

It may have taken a long time to arrive, but this debut Rabies Babies release is a fabulous collection of music the band have given us that does more than compliment the gigs they have played during this time. 

Jinx Dawson

Esther "Jinx" Dawson, (January 13, 1950 in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States) is the singer of 60s rock band Coven. She invented rock's devil horns but a man took all the credit. The band formed in Chicago the late 1960s. They had a top 40 hit in 1971 with the song "One Tin Soldier", the theme song of the movie Billy Jack.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dawson and Osborne, after playing together in the group Him, Her and Them, formed Coven with Ross in Chicago in the late 1960s. In 1967 and 1968 they toured, playing concerts with artists including Jimmy Page's Yardbirds, the Alice Cooper band, and Vanilla Fudge. Coven signed with Mercury Records and released their debut album, Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls in 1969.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The music on the album was considered underground rock; what made it distinctive was the heavy emphasis on diabolical subject matter, including songs such as "The White Witch of Rose Hall" (based on the story of Annie Palmer), "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", "Black Sabbath" and "Dignitaries of Hell". The album concluded with a 13-minute track of chanting and Satanic prayers called "Satanic Mass" (written by their producer, Bill Traut, of Dunwich Productions, and described as "the first Black Mass to be recorded, either in written words or in audio"). Also included inside the album was Coven's infamous Black Mass poster, showing members of the group displaying the sign of the horns as they prepared for a Satanic ritual over a nude Dawson lying on an altar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dawson recorded the vocals for "One Tin Soldier", the title theme for the 1971 film Billy Jack, which was credited as "sung by Coven". The song, which went on to reach number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, was written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter and was originally released by The Original Caste in 1969. Coven's version also reached the top 10 in Cash Box and was named the Number 1 Most Requested Song in 1971 and 1973 by American Radio Broadcasters. It also peaked at number 45 in Australia. In 1971, the band released a self-titled album that included "One Tin Soldier". Their third album, Blood on the Snow, was produced by Shel Talmy and released by Buddah Records in 1974.

After multiple unlicensed CD releases of the Witchcraft album over the years, it was officially released on the band's own Nevoc label in 2007. The following year, Coven released Metal Goth Queen: Out of the Vault 1976–2007 on Nevoc, an album composed of previously unreleased recordings. Jinx, an album of new recordings, was self-released on Nevoc in 2013. Dawson recruited a new line up of musicians in late 2016 - early 2017 in order to perform at Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, The Netherlands on April 20, 2017. This was Coven's first performance in Europe.