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.
Michelle Santamaria is an American musician that was in a few garage punk bands like Loli & The Chones, Bitchschool, Hunx and his Punx and The Pinkz.
Loli & The Chones was an American lo-fi garage rock'n'roll band from Boyle Heights, California, active around 1995-1999. It was founded by Michelle Santamaria together with her brother Chris and Vince Maldonado. They released two Lps and two 7"s.
Bitchschool were a garage punk band from California who got together after the demise of Loli And The Chones and featured brother and sister Chris and Michelle Santamaria as well as Jessica Mirmak. Not to be confused with the band of the same name who come from Portland, this Bitchschool just had the one release, an ep which came out on Tina Lucchesi's Lipstick Records in 1998 and featured 3 tracks : Bitchschool, Record Shop and I'll Be Good To You. They also contributed a cover of Nick Gilder's Runaways In The Night to the California Ain't Fun No More compilation.
Michelle also played in Hunx And His Punx for while and in the garage punk band The Pinkz together with Alana Smargon, Jessica Mirmak and Kathy Walker.
Dorothy Max Prior, born in 1953, is a writer and artist living in Brighton. In other lives, Max was a punk muse, post-punk drummer, and exotic dancer. Somewhere along the way, she has taught ballroom dancing and toured the world as a street theater performer, choreographer, director, and cabaret dancer.
Rema-Rema was a short-lived English music group, consisting of Gary Asquith (guitar/vocals), Marco Pirroni (guitar), Mick Allen (bass/vocals), Mark Cox (keyboards) and Dorothy Max Prior (drums, generally known only as "Max"). Pirroni had been an original member of Siouxsie and the Banshees, and was a short-time integrant of Cowboys International, but shortly afterwards went on to fame as a member of Adam and the Ants. Asquith, Allen, and Cox went on to form another short-lived band Mass, which then split up to form Renegade Soundwave (Asquith) and The Wolfgang Press (Allen and Cox).
Under her first name, Dorothy, she is best known for a pop single released on Industrial Records which claimed she was 19 when in fact she was already 27. The other musicians on this record were Genesis P-Orridge and Alex Fergusson who were shortly to form Psychic TV with Peter Christopherson. They apparently asked Dorothy to play in the group, but she declined and didn't join the group until many years later when she was credited under her middle name Max. Dorothy only stayed in Psychic TV for about a year. In between this, she was in punk-pop rockabilly band first called The Weekend Swingers and then The El Trains.
Presently she is editor of Total Theatre Magazine and Animations Online. She also does performance work under the name Dorothy's Shoes.
Kate Schellenbach (born January 5, 1966) is an American musician and television producer. She is the drummer of Luscious Jackson and was a founding member of the Beastie Boys.
Beastie Boys were formed out of members of experimental hardcore punk band the Young Aborigines in 1978, with Diamond as vocalist, Jeremy Shatan on bass guitar, John Berry on guitar, and Kate Schellenbach on drums. When Shatan left in 1981, Yauch replaced him on bass and the band changed their name to Beastie Boys. Berry left shortly thereafter and was replaced by Horovitz. After achieving local success with the 1983 comedy hip hop single "Cooky Puss", Beastie Boys made a full transition to hip hop, and Schellenbach left, according to the rest of the band, because they were acting like "dudes" and she didn't fit in.
Luscious Jackson is an alternative rock/rap-rock group formed in 1991. The band's name is a reference to former American basketball player Lucious Jackson. The original band consisted of Jill Cunniff (vocals, bass), Gabby Glaser (vocals, guitar), and Vivian Trimble (keyboards, vocals). Drummer Kate Schellenbach joined the band midway through the recording of their 1992 debut EP In Search of Manny. Between 1993 and 2000, the band released one EP, three full-length LPs, and ten singles on the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label. Their biggest hit—and only Billboard Hot 100 entry—was "Naked Eye". Other singles include "Here," "Daughters of the Kaos", "Citysong", "Under Your Skin" and "Ladyfingers". Keyboardist Vivian Trimble left the group in 1998 and in 2000 the group announced their breakup.
In 2011, the three remaining members announced that they had reunited and were planning to make new music. The band released two new albums, including a children's album, in November 2013.
Schellenbach was also the drummer for the punk band the Lunachicks, during early 1993 for a very short period of time, before Chip English was recruited.
She was later an Emmy Award-winning segment producer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show appearing on screen on a show first aired on December 4, 2007, playing the bongos with host Ellen DeGeneres. She has also worked as a producer on Lopez Tonight, Kathy, Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings, Chelsea Lately, Hello Ross, and currently The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Inez Foxx (September 9, 1942 - August 25, 2022) was an American rhythm and blues and soul duo from Greensboro, North Carolina. Inez sang lead vocal while her brother Charlie sang back-up and played guitar.
Charlie Foxx began singing with a gospel choir as a child in the early 1950s, and was later joined by his sister Inez. In 1960, Inez traveled to New York City and recorded for Brunswick Records using the name Inez Johnston. In early 1963, the pair introduced themselves to Henry 'Juggy' Murray, the owner of Sue Records, and sang him their arrangement of the traditional lullaby "Hush, Little Baby". The song, re-titled "Mockingbird," was released on Sue's subsidiary label Symbol Records in June 1963. The single reached the top 10 on both the US rhythm and blues and pop chart. It was their most successful record, selling over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. It was later covered by artists including Aretha Franklin, James Taylor and Carly Simon, Dusty Springfield, Etta James with Taj Mahal and Toby Keith.
The record company, keen to promote Inez Foxx as a solo singer, issued later recordings under her name alone, despite the presence of two voices on the records. Perhaps because "Mockingbird" was seen as a novelty record, the pair had difficulty following it up, although "Ask Me" and "Hurt by Love" made the lower reaches of the US charts, and "Hurt by Love" also reached the UK singles chart. In 1966, the pair joined Musicor Records and recorded for its subsidiary label, Dynamo. They returned to the pop charts in 1967 with "(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days", and became known for their exciting live performances. They toured extensively in Europe and their music played a key role in the development of the Northern soul movement, upon which scene they had the very popular "Tightrope" single.
Inez Foxx together with Luther Dixon wrote The Platters' song "I Love You 1000 Times". Luther Dixon alsoproduced Inez and Charlie's 1967 Dynamo album Come By Here. Inez had some success recording on her own, beginning in 1969, but her popularity faded in the 1970s. Charlie was already working as a songwriter and record producer when they finally disbanded their act. Inez continued to record as a solo singer for Volt Records in the 1970s.
The Three Degrees is an American vocal group formed circa 1963 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although 16 women have been members over the years, the group has always been a trio. The current line-up consists of Helen Scott, Valerie Holiday, and Freddi Poole. The group were particularly successful in the UK, achieving 13 Top 50 hit singles between 1974 and 1985.
The original members were Fayette Pinkney, Shirley Porter and Linda Turner. Porter and Turner were soon replaced by Janet Harmon and Helen Scott. The line-up from 1967 to 1976 was Pinkney, Valerie Holiday and Sheila Ferguson, who would go on to sing lead on most of the group's biggest hits. By 1970, they were signed to Roulette Records and they released their first album, Maybe. The title song, this time with Valerie Holiday taking the lead, took them to No. 4 on the US R&B chart. The singles, "I Do Take You" and "You're the Fool" followed, as did their second album, So Much Love. This success landed them a cameo appearance in the 1971 film, The French Connection, where they performed a cover of Jimmy Webb's "Everybody Gets to Go to the Moon", filmed during one of their appearances at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City.
In 1973, when their contract with Roulette ended, Barrett signed them to Philadelphia International Records under Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, where they had their greatest successes. The first song they recorded for the label was with the studio band MFSB, titled "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)", which was the theme song for Soul Train. Their first album for the Philadelphia International label, The Three Degrees, spawned three hits: "Dirty Ol' Man" (which went gold in the Netherlands and Belgium), "Year Of Decision" (which made it to No. 13 in the UK Singles Chart), but it was the third single, "When Will I See You Again", that propelled the trio into the mainstream. It topped the UK Chart for two weeks in August 1974 (the first time this had been achieved by an all-female group since The Supremes in 1964,) and became the fourth best-selling single of the year. It also reached No. 2 in the US, where it sold over two million copies and earned the trio a gold record in December 1974.
In 1976, the Three Degrees parted company with Gamble and Huff and moved to CBS Sony/Epic Records where they released the concept album, A Toast Of Love, purely for the Far East market, although a single of the title track was released internationally. In 1976, Fayette Pinkney was replaced by former band member Helen Scott. The album, Standing Up For Love, released in 1977 was their last release for CBS/Epic. In 1978, The Three Degrees signed to Ariola Records in Europe and the US and began working with Giorgio Moroder, who had become famous as a disco producer following his work with Donna Summer. Further success was to follow, and they released two disco-styled albums on Ariola (New Dimensions in 1978, and 3D in 1979) which delivered four UK Top 20 hits between them: "Givin' Up Givin' In", "Woman in Love", "The Runner" and "My Simple Heart".
The group's most stable line-up was from 1989 to 2010, with Cynthia Garrison joining Holiday and Scott. They achieved a final UK chart entry, reaching number 54 in 1998 with a dance cover of "Last Christmas". Garrison left the band at the end of 2010 due to health reasons, and was replaced by Freddi Poole in 2011. The group's 2016 album, Strategy: Our Tribute to Philadelphia, was their first studio album release with Poole as a member.
Mimi Roman was a 1950s country music and rockabilly musician who sang at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and was a Decca Records artist in the 1950s. She shared the stage with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, and for a while, her career paralleled Wanda Jackson's. Little Lovin', Cheater's Luck, The Wind Up, I'm Ready if You're Willing, Have a Heart, Honky-Tonk Girl, and many more are among Mimi Roman's Rockabilly and Country hits.
Some sources said that Miriam Lapolito was born in Salinas, California. When she was fourteen years old, her family moved to New York. Other sources say that se was born in New York and raised in the Bronx. She began recording for Decca Records when she was barely twenty years old, and her first release was a Hank Williams song. Her singing abilities and profession led her to Cincinnati, Ohio's WLW radio station, where she joined the cast of the Midwestern Hayride. One of the highlights of her career was a nearly eighteen-month tour with the Phillip Morris Country Music Show, which took her to over 400 cities across the United States. Carl Smith, Goldie Hill, Red Sovine, Ronnie Self, and, for a while, Little Jimmie Dickens starred in the show. The show drew viewers from 45 different states.
Mimi's name never cracked the Billboard country chart, despite the fact that she recorded for a big country label and worked nonstop until she retired from the road when she was still in her twenties.
Viuda e Hijas de Roque Enroll was an all-female Argentinian rock band. The band was one of the most emblematic of the rock movement of the early 1980s known as música divertida, which they fronted alongside other bands such as Los Twist, Los Abuelos de la Nada, Soda Stereo and Virus. With a modern twist of catchy melodies and comical and superficial lyrics, this band formed at the end of 1983, and became popular with their first album, in 1984, which contained the hit "Bikini amarillo", a cover version of Brian Hyland's famous song, "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini".
The band was formed by Claudia Ruffinatti, Claudia Mabel Sinesi, María Gabriela Epumer and Mavi Díaz. In 1984 they released their debut album, with songs like "Potpourri (olla podrida)", "Te encargo mi modernidad" and "Bikini a lunares amarillo", which quickly became hits. The greatest recognition came with their second album, Ciudad Catrúnica, which contained songs such as "Lollipop" and "Plata, plata". The album went on to sell more than 200,000 copies and was released throughout Latin America. They toured the Atlantic coast extensively and became the group that performed the most shows during that season.
On 4 April 1986 they filled the Luna Park stadium, then travelled to New York and on their return recorded and released their third album Vale Cuatro, which, although it had a good release and was well received by the press, sales were not up to expectations. To make matters worse, the record company went bankrupt, which led to internal arguments and the dissolution of the group.
In 1990 they got together again for a concert at La Capilla, but by that time Mavi Díaz had already decided to go to Spain. In 1994 they played at Prix D'ami. Ten years after their appearance and in the middle of a period of re-releases of national groups by record companies, a compilation album of all their hits was released. In 1995 they played again at The Roxy on 14, 15 and 20 September, when they recorded their first live album with all their hits, which they called Telón de Crep. This was the last time they performed in public with María Gabriela Epumer. In 2004, at the request of the Epumer family, the Viudas got together to play in the tribute dedicated to María Gabriela that took place in El Dorrego in the city of Buenos Aires.
