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.
Shirley Marie O'Garra (stage name Shirley Ellis, January 19, 1929 – October 5, 2005) was an American soul music singer and songwriter of West Indian heritage. She is best known for her hits "The Nitty Gritty" (1963, US no. 8), "The Name Game" (1964, US no. 3) and "The Clapping Song" (1965, US no. 8 and UK no. 6). "The Clapping Song" sold over 1 million copies and was awarded a gold disc.
By 1954, Ellis had written two songs recorded by the Chords. As a singer, the Bronx-based teen won Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater in Harlem while also performing as a member of the Metronomes. All her solo hits were written by her and her manager, record producer, and songwriting partner Lincoln Chase. The pair worked ceaselessly together over the following years on perfecting every aspect of her talent. A tentative release for the small Shell logo in 1961 marked the recording bow of Shirley Elliston.
It was not until the fall of 1963 that the years of preparation paid off with the diminutive thrush's Congress label debut, the incredibly exciting "The Nitty Gritty". Shirley Ellis, after years of grooming, became an overnight Top 10 hitmaking sensation. Although she didn't quite explain the meaning of "The Nitty Gritty", the listener instinctively sussed that it was the unadorned kernel of reality at the heart of anything and everything. The phrase grabbed the imagination of society's mainstream and is enshrined in the common vocabulary to this day. As Christmas 1964 lurched ever nearer, Shirley bounced back onto the charts with a bullet. The convoluted craziness of "The Name Game" was impossible to withstand and would become the singer's biggest hit. She proved a sensation on Murray the K's Brooklyn Fox Holiday Show that winter, taking "Name Game" requests from the crowd. Her third Top 10 smash finally brought the star recognition in Britain and many other territories but "The Clapping Song" would prove impossible to top.
Shirley was then signed by Columbia. She registered her chart swan song with the memorable "Soul Time", the second of a trio of 45s for her new outlet. A June 1967 Columbia album, her third in all, was the last we heard from Shirley. Although she was reported to have then pacted with the Bell label, no records were forthcoming and she vanished into retirement in 1968.
She died on October 5, 2005 in New York City at the age of 76.
Amy Taylor is the front woman of Australian punk band Amyl and the Sniffers. The band is based in Melbourne, Australia and consists of vocalist Amy Taylor, drummer Bryce Wilson, guitarist Dec Martens, and bassist Fergus Romer.
The band was formed by housemates Taylor, Wilson, and Martens and former band member Calum Newton (AKA Candy) in Balaclava, Melbourne. The four wrote, recorded, and released their first EP, Giddy Up, in a span of 12 hours. Calum left the band to pursue solo music and was replaced by Fergus Romer. Their sound has been compared to 1970s hard rock groups such as Iggy Pop and The Stooges and The Damned.[2] However, Taylor has cited a number of varying influences including Minor Threat, Ceremony, AC/DC, Sleaford Mods, Dolly Parton, and Cardi B.
The band was signed to Homeless Records in July 2017 and Big Attraction/Giddy Up was released on 12 January 2018. Big Attraction/Giddy Up reached #8 on the UK Top 40 (Vinyl Charts) in March 2018. The band was signed to Rough Trade Records later in 2018, and went into the studio to record their debut album with producer and former Add N to (X) drummer Ross Orton. The result was the self-titled Amyl and the Sniffers, which was released on 24 May 2019 and has received generally positive reviews including a 7.2 from Pitchfork and 4 out of 5 stars from NME and Allmusic. In light of the album's release, Happy Mag placed the band at no.9 on their list of "The 15 Australian female artists changing the game right now", praising front-woman Amy Taylor for being "one of hardest rocking people on the face of the planet."
At the ARIA Music Awards of 2019, Amyl and the Sniffers won the Best Rock Album category. In February 2020, the self-titled album was nominated for the Australian Music Prize of 2019.
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten (née Nevills) (January 5, 1893 - June 29, 1987) was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter. A self-taught left-handed guitarist, Cotten developed her own original style. She played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down, as she was left-handed. This position meant that she would play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb.
Cotten was born in 1893 to a musical family near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in an area that would later be incorporated as Carrboro. At age 9, she was forced to quit school and began work as a domestic. At the age of 12, she had a live-in job at Chapel Hill. She earned a dollar a month, that her mother saved up to buy her first guitar. The guitar, a Sears and Roebuck brand instrument, cost $3.75 (equivalent to $107 in 2019). Although self-taught, she became proficient at playing the instrument, and her repertoire included a large number of rags and dance tunes. By her early teens, she was writing her own songs, one of which, "Freight Train", became one of her most recognized. She wrote the song in remembrance of a nearby train that she could hear from her childhood home. The 1956 UK recording of the song misappropriated by Chas McDevitt and Nancy Whiskey was a major hit and is credited as one of the main influences on the rise of skiffle in the UK. Under the advocacy of the influential Seeger family, the copyright was eventually restored to Cotten. Nevertheless, it remains mis-credited in many sources.
Cotten retired from playing the guitar for 25 years, except for occasional church performances. She did not begin performing publicly and recording until she was in her 60s. She was discovered by the folk-singing Seeger family while she was working for them as a housekeeper. In the later half of the 1950s, Mike Seeger began making bedroom reel-to-reel recordings of Cotten's songs in her house. These recordings later became the album Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar, which was released by Folkways Records. Since the release of that album, her songs, especially her signature song, "Freight Train" - which she wrote when she was a teenager - have been covered by Peter, Paul, and Mary, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Joe Dassin, Joan Baez, Devendra Banhart, Laura Gibson, Laura Veirs, His Name Is Alive, Doc Watson, Taj Mahal, Geoff Farina, and Country Teasers.
Shortly after that first album, she began playing concerts with Mike Seeger, the first of which was in 1960 at Swarthmore College. In the early 1960s, Cotten went on to play concerts with some of the big names in the burgeoning folk revival. Some of these included Mississippi John Hurt, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters at venues such as the Newport Folk Festival and the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. The newfound interest in her work inspired her to write more songs to perform, and in 1967 she released a record created with her grandchildren, which took its name from one of her songs, "Shake Sugaree". The song featured 12-year-old Brenda Joyce Evans, Cotten's great-grandchild, and future Undisputed Truth singer.
Cotten died in June 1987, at Crouse-Irving Hospital in Syracuse, New York, at the age of 94.
Romy Haag (January 1, 1948) is a Dutch dancer, singer, actress and former nightclub manager. When she was 13, Romy Haag and her family joined the circus. She started her career at the renowned Circus Strassburger as a children's clown. At age 16, she moved to Paris with the trapeze artists from the circus and debuted at the Parisian nightclub Alcazar as a cabaret dancer.
In 1972, an American show manager offered Haag a tour booking and she performed her show "Berlin Chanson" at Fire Island, in Long Island and Atlantic City. Then she moved to Berlin. In 1974, at age 26, she opened her own cabaret, named Chez Romy Haag, in Berlin-Schöneberg. The venue became successful and had many notable visitors, including Udo Lindenberg, Zizi Jeanmaire, Patricia Highsmith, Bryan Ferry, Tina Turner, Horst Buchholz, Grace Jones, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Iggy Pop, Freddie Mercury, Lou Reed and Mick Jagger, whom she first met in 1973. In 1976, Haag and David Bowie began a romantic relationship; Bowie subsequently moved to Berlin and completed his first German tour.
Her first single “Liege-Samba“ appeared in 1977, with Udo Lindenberg contributing the lyrics and music. She went on tour with Lindenberg, and in the following year, released her single “Superparadise”. In 1979, the New Yorker Profile Gallery profiled her in a photo tribute. In 1981, her first album “So bin ich”, with Klaus Hoffmann contributing the lyrics, was released. After nine years, in 1983, she sold her night club to travel the world. Returning to Germany in 1986, she began touring Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the U.S. with her “City in the Night” show. During mid 1980s, Haag was featured in the video installation "Queen Zero", an art performance in the New York Museum of Modern Art.
During her career, she performed with Conny Göckel, Alexander Kraut, Lutz Woite, Friedel Schwarz, Erik Küppers, Blacky Schwarz, Roland Götz, Hansi Wallbaum, Uli Moritz, Eberhardt Fortmann. She has had roles in 26 films, including Plastikfieber, Zum Beispiel Otto Spalt, Die Hamburger Krankheit and Mascara with Charlotte Rampling. She released 17 albums.
Shonen Knife is a Japanese garage rock band formed in Osaka, in 1981. Heavily influenced by 1960s girl groups, pop bands, The Beach Boys, and early punk rock bands, such as the Ramones, the trio crafts stripped-down songs with simple yet unconventional lyrics sung both in Japanese and English. They have also performed as a Ramones tribute band under the name The Osaka Ramones.
Shonen Knife was formed in December 1981 in Osaka, Japan with sisters Naoko Yamano and Atsuko Yamano and their friend Michie Nakatani. Naoko sang lead and played guitar, Nakatani was also a lead singer and played bass and keyboards, and Atsuko sang backing vocals and played drums. The group was something of an anomaly when they started, as they were founded at a time when all-female bands were scarce. Eschewing the then-rising, early J-pop movement, Shonen Knife was influenced by 1970s punk rock and new wave bands such as The Ramones and Buzzcocks. Following their first Tokyo gig at Hosei University, Shonen Knife released their debut album Burning Farm on Zero Records on July 21, 1983.[1] They then contributed to the Zero Record compilation album AURA MUSIC which was released on November 15 and included three of their songs: "Watchin' Girl", "Banana Fish", and "Parrot Polynesia". Their second album, Yama-no Attchan, was released by Zero on May 25, 1984. Named after drummer Atsuko, the album saw the band growing as musicians. The album was also influenced by a broader selection of musical acts, ranging from Motown to heavy metal. At the end of the year, Shonen Knife contributed "Parrot Polynesia" and "Elephant Pao Pao" to another compilation, Huddle No Trouble, for Balcony Records. Around this time, Burning Farm was first played on UK radio by English disc jockey John Peel, although Peel did not find out the name of the band until a few years later, in 1987.
By June 1985, the Burning Farm cassette had made its way from its Kyoto imprint to K Records of Olympia, Washington, who decided to release the cassette in the United States. A year later, on June 20, 1986, Shonen Knife released their third album Pretty Little Baka Guy. Four months later, the album was re-released with three additional live tracks. While their records had previously been available in the US solely through import, in 1986, Shonen Knife's track, "One Day of the Factory", appeared on a Sub Pop 100 compilation. The album was released on November 1, 1986 by the independent record label Sub Pop. Soon after, Shonen Knife began receiving lucrative offers from a range of US labels. By this time, many alternative rock groups had begun citing Shonen Knife as a favorite of theirs, and the resulting word-of-mouth created significant exposure for the band. On March 26, 1987, the trio's songs were played again on BBC radio by John Peel. After spending some time concentrating on their live performances, they had the opportunity to play with Sonic Youth as guests at the Muse Hall in Shinsaibashi, Osaka.
The trio's international cult following flourished during the early-1990s. After releasing a self-titled compilation album comprising tracks from their first two albums in the US market, the trio began touring America on a somewhat regular basis and released their fourth album 712 on July 1, 1991 in Japan on Nippon Crown. That same July, Sub Pop released "Neon Zebra" as a single in the US. Shortly after, a slightly different version of 712 was released in America by Rockville Records. In August, Shonen Knife was featured on CNN News during its This Week In Japan special. On September 25, Pretty Little Baka Guy was re-released in the US by Tokuma Japan. The 1991 US re-release of the album was coupled with eight live recordings from 1982 and 1990. The trio performed with Fugazi at the Sun Hall in Shinsaibashi, Osaka on November 14. Days later, the Christmas-themed single "Space Christmas" was released to British and American audiences by Seminal Twang and Rockville Records, respectively. It was in 1991 that Shonen Knife came to find one of their biggest fans in the form of Kurt Cobain. Nirvana asked Shonen Knife to serve as the opening act for their UK tour, just prior to the release of their breakthrough album, Nevermind.
After touring through the US and signing onto Capitol Records, the trio released their major-label debut, Let's Knife, on August 26. They then embarked on a brief three-show tour through the UK. While on tour, the trio appeared at the 20th Reading Festival alongside bands such as Nirvana and Mudhoney. They also recorded another John Peel Session and filmed a music video for "Riding On The Rocket" in London. On December 2, the group released the mini-album Do The Knife on MCA Victor before going on another, longer UK tour with BMX Bandits as their opening act.
Michie Nakatani left the band in December 1999, with Atsuko Yamano moving to bass. Mana Nishiura took over on drums, though was not considered to have officially joined the band and continued to play with her other group, DMBQ. On November 4, 2005, whilst on a US tour with DMBQ, Nishiura died in a car crash in New Jersey. Etsuko "Ettchan" Nakanishi, who had been playing drums for Shonen Knife during this period, became her permanent replacement. In 2011, Shonen Knife celebrated their 30th anniversary and released Osaka Ramones - Tribute to The Ramones. The album was recorded between Osaka, Japan and Buffalo, NY and co-produced by Robby Takac of the American rock band The Goo Goo Dolls. The release was followed by a world tour. In June 2012, the band released Pop Tune, followed by a US tour. The band completed a new LP, Overdrive, for worldwide release on April 16, 2014, to be followed by an extensive UK/European tour in April/May/June 2014, followed by a North American tour in September/October 2014. In 2016, the band released their album Adventure. In June 2019, the band released their latest studio album, Sweet Candy Power. It features ten tracks. In March 2021, the band performed their first on-line streaming concert to a worldwide audience and announced a 40th anniversary UK tour.
Rita Coolidge (born May 1, 1945) is an American recording artist. During the 1970s and 1980s, her songs were on Billboard magazine's pop, country, adult contemporary, and jazz charts, and she won two Grammy Awards with fellow musician Kris Kristofferson. Her recordings include "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," "We're All Alone", "I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love" and the theme song for the 1983 James Bond film Octopussy: "All Time High".
After singing around Memphis, Coolidge was discovered by Delaney & Bonnie, who worked with her in Los Angeles. There, she became a background singer for artists including Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Harry Chapin, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Dave Mason, Graham Nash, and Stephen Stills. She was featured in Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour and album, singing Russell's and Bonnie Bramlett's song "Superstar." Coolidge did not receive songwriting credits for "Superstar" which later became a hit for The Carpenters. She became known as "The Delta Lady" and inspired Russell to write a song of the same name for her.
Coolidge didn't receive songwriting credits for the piano coda in the 1971 single "Layla" by Eric Clapton's band Derek and the Dominos. In 2016, Coolidge stated that she recorded a demo with the band's drummer Jim Gordon, before they went to England to record with Clapton. Once they met with Clapton, Coolidge played the piece she composed and she gave him a cassette. Clapton, impressed by the piece, used it as part of the song in the coda section. She tried to contact Clapton, but was told by his manager Robert Stigwood, "What are you gonna do? You’re a girl. You don't have money to fight this."
In November 1970, she met Kris Kristofferson at the Los Angeles airport when they were both catching the same flight to Tennessee. The two recorded several duet albums, which sold well and earned the duo a Grammy Award for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1974 for "From the Bottle to the Bottom", and in 1976 for "Lover Please."
Coolidge's greatest success on the pop charts came during 1977–1978 with four consecutive top 25 hits, remakes of Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher", Boz Scaggs' "We're All Alone", the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do", and Marcia Hines' "You". In 1997, Coolidge was one of the founding members of Walela, a Native American music trio, that also included her sister Priscilla and her daughter Laura Satterfield. The trio released studio albums in 1997 (Walela) and 2000 (Unbearable Love), a live album and DVD (Live in Concert) in 2004 and a compilation album (The Best of Walela) in 2007. Walela means hummingbird in Cherokee. Coolidge considered this group important, not only in honoring her Cherokee ancestors but also in bringing their culture to others.
Anita Louise Lane (18 March 1960 – April 2021) was an Australian singer-songwriter who was a member of The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds and collaborated with Nick Cave and Mick Harvey. Lane released two solo albums: Dirty Pearl (1993) and Sex O'Clock (2001).
Anita Louise Lane was born in Melbourne in 1960. She began singing and writing songs at the age of 16. She was a classmate of Rowland S. Howard, while both were students at the Prahran College of Advanced Education, undertaking the Tertiary Orientation Programme. Lane met Nick Cave in 1977. Cave on lead vocals, was a member of a new wave group, The Boys Next Door, with Mick Harvey on guitar, Phill Calvert on drums and Tracy Pew on bass guitar. By December 1978, Rowland S. Howard had joined the line up on lead guitar. In February 1980, The Boys Next Door were renamed as The Birthday Party, and Lane and the group, moved to London. Lane and Cave co-wrote the lyrics for "A Dead Song", which appeared on their debut album Prayers on Fire (April 1981). For their second album, Junkyard (May 1982), Lane and Cave co-wrote "Dead Joe" and "Kiss Me Black". The group relocated to West Berlin in August 1982 prior to their cessation in June of the following year. Lane on keyboards, backing vocals and occasional lead vocals, was briefly a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, with Adamson, Cave, Harvey, Blixa Bargeld on guitar (also a member of Einstürzende Neubauten) and Hugo Race (ex-Plays with Marionettes). She supplied lyrics for "From Her to Eternity", the title track of their debut album (June 1984). She left the group soon after.
Lane co-wrote "Stranger Than Kindness" with Bargeld, which appears on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' fourth album Your Funeral... My Trial (November 1986). Lane added her lead vocals over a musical score by Bargeld, Cave and Harvey for the soundtrack of the 1988 Australian film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, including the track "A Prison in the Desert". She also provided guest vocals on "The Bells Belong to the Ashes" for the album, Headless Body in Topless Bar (1988) by German post-punk post-rock band Die Haut. In 1989, Lane was featured on Adamson's debut solo album Moss Side Story; with Harvey, she was part of the Freedom Choir on "Suck on the Honey of Love" and "Free at Last". She supplied vocals again for his second solo effort, the soundtrack for the film Delusion (1991). In 1992, she performed a duet with Kid Congo Powers on Die Haut's track "Excited" and another with Bargeld on "How Long (Have We Known Each Other Now)" for the German group's album Head On. Lane and Bargeld duetted again on "Blume" for his group, Einstürzende Neubauten's sixth studio album, Tabula Rasa (1993). The track is co-written by Lane, Bargeld and his group members. In 1995, Lane contributed vocals to Harvey's Serge Gainsbourg tribute album Intoxicated Man. She returned in 1997 for his second Gainsbourg-inspired album Pink Elephants.
Lane had a solo career beginning with her four-track extended play Dirty Sings in 1988 on Mute Records. For the recording, she was joined by Adamson, Cave, Harvey and Thomas Wydler on drums (of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, ex-Die Haut); while Harvey produced the EP. In 1993, Lane issued her debut solo studio album Dirty Pearl, recorded from 1982 to that year. It consists of her work with The Birthday Party, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Einstürzende Neubauten and Die Haut, as well as exclusive album tracks. The album was co-produced by Bargeld, Cave, Harvey, Johannes Beck, John Cafferty, Die Haut, Einstürzende Neubaten, Sven Röhrig, and The Birthday Party. The album provided Lane's single "The World's a Girl", which appeared on 5 June 1995. Lane's second solo studio album Sex O' Clock was released on 23 October 2001, produced by Harvey.
On 28 April 2021, it was announced that Lane had died at age 61.
