Me and the late Julie Felix, hugely influential in my musical journey. There’s a Facebook meme telling you to pick your three favourite bands out of a choice of around a hundred from the 1960s up to (roughly) the present day. Of those hundred bands, maybe five have women in them. I have no doubt of the gender of the person creating that meme. Nor of the gender of the person who commented that it was tough naming only three, but in the end plumped for the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones. (To be truthful, I have no doubt of his gender because he’s a Facebook friend of mine!) No surprises there, then. But my stomach churned in an oh-so-familiar way when he then went on to deride his ‘least favourite’ of those hundred: Siouxsie and the Banshees. Was it just a coincidence that they were one of the handful of female-fronted bands given as a possible choice? Or was it yet another of those tiringly regular chauvinistic digs that women musicians face every time they play a gig?
A couple of years ago, I bought a Zoom guitar effects pedal at a car boot sale for the bargain price of three pounds. ‘That’ll make a nice present for your hubby or boyfriend!’ said the bloke whose stall it was as I held it up to pay for it. Despite everything racing through my stunned mind right then, I refrained from shoving it back at him and instead merely said, ‘It’s for me, actually.’ ‘Oh, you play guitar, do you?’ he said incredulously. I could have told him I’ve been playing for around fifty years – which was quite likely forty-five or so years longer than him – but I felt no inclination to give him any personal information, so I simply walked away.
‘That’s a really beautiful-sounding guitar you have there!’ is something I hear often from men who come up to me after I’ve played. Only once do I remember it being turned around to: ‘You played that guitar really beautifully!’ From the same school as the hundred favourite bands came a Facebook meme that gave a choice of the ‘fifty greatest guitarists’ to pick your favourite from. If Bonnie Raitt was among that selection, she’d have been the only female listed, and I’ll be an angel from Montgomery…
I was recently chatting to another female singer-songwriter, who spoke of the gig at which she had dared to sing a humorous original song about the signs of ageing we face as older women. She knew from the tumbleweed silence that descended during the first verse that the song had bombed, and knew too that it only got more graphic as it went on, but she was committed to finishing it by then, so finish it she did – as well as any chance of another booking at that club. It’s OK, apparently, to sing funny songs about Viagra, baldness and brewer’s droop. It’s not OK, however, to sing of greying pubes and saggy boobs (even though they do rhyme rather beautifully)…
Sadly, it’s as true as it ever was that for a woman to get half as much credit as a man, she has to work twice as hard and be twice as smart. As the French (who aren’t any more liberated than anyone else) say, ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’…
The following lists are by no means exhaustive and are in no particular order – they are simply some of the female musicians I personally have been influenced by, looked up to, or otherwise known about during my life in music.
This isn’t, by the way, about slamming male musicians, it’s about creating some kind of balance, recognising any musicians who’ve influenced those who followed them, not for their gender, but for their artistry.
A couple of years ago, I bought a Zoom guitar effects pedal at a car boot sale for the bargain price of three pounds. ‘That’ll make a nice present for your hubby or boyfriend!’ said the bloke whose stall it was as I held it up to pay for it. Despite everything racing through my stunned mind right then, I refrained from shoving it back at him and instead merely said, ‘It’s for me, actually.’ ‘Oh, you play guitar, do you?’ he said incredulously. I could have told him I’ve been playing for around fifty years – which was quite likely forty-five or so years longer than him – but I felt no inclination to give him any personal information, so I simply walked away.
‘That’s a really beautiful-sounding guitar you have there!’ is something I hear often from men who come up to me after I’ve played. Only once do I remember it being turned around to: ‘You played that guitar really beautifully!’ From the same school as the hundred favourite bands came a Facebook meme that gave a choice of the ‘fifty greatest guitarists’ to pick your favourite from. If Bonnie Raitt was among that selection, she’d have been the only female listed, and I’ll be an angel from Montgomery…
I was recently chatting to another female singer-songwriter, who spoke of the gig at which she had dared to sing a humorous original song about the signs of ageing we face as older women. She knew from the tumbleweed silence that descended during the first verse that the song had bombed, and knew too that it only got more graphic as it went on, but she was committed to finishing it by then, so finish it she did – as well as any chance of another booking at that club. It’s OK, apparently, to sing funny songs about Viagra, baldness and brewer’s droop. It’s not OK, however, to sing of greying pubes and saggy boobs (even though they do rhyme rather beautifully)…
Sadly, it’s as true as it ever was that for a woman to get half as much credit as a man, she has to work twice as hard and be twice as smart. As the French (who aren’t any more liberated than anyone else) say, ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’…
The following lists are by no means exhaustive and are in no particular order – they are simply some of the female musicians I personally have been influenced by, looked up to, or otherwise known about during my life in music.
This isn’t, by the way, about slamming male musicians, it’s about creating some kind of balance, recognising any musicians who’ve influenced those who followed them, not for their gender, but for their artistry.
| Singer-songwriters, singers, all-female or female-fronted bands Mary Chapin Carpenter Nanci Griffith Joni Mitchell Suzanne Vega Emmylou Harris Nancy Scott Lucinda Williams Gretchen Peters Shawn Colvin The Bangles Suzi Quatro Blondie Pretenders Joan Armatrading Sade Tracey Thorn (Everything but the Girl) Cranberries Texas Cris Williamson Melissa Etheridge Tracy Chapman Alison Moyet (Yazoo) Kate Bush The Supremes First Aid Kit Gladys Knight and the Pips Fleetwood Mac The Corrs Sister Sledge The Pointer Sisters The Three Degrees Heart Bananarama Sugababes Florence + The Machine The Carpenters Trisha Yearwood Kathy Mattea Boney M. | Eurythmics The Unthanks The Chicks Alison Krauss Ashley McBryde Patsy Cline O’Hooley & Tidow Martha and the Vandellas Siouxsie and the Banshees Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) Tina Turner Cher Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span) Kate and Anna McGarrigle The Go-Go’s 4 Non Blondes The Ting Tings Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction) Julie Felix The Andrews Sisters Guitarists Bonnie Raitt Joni Mitchell Melissa Etheridge Nancy Wilson (Heart) Joan Jett Suzi Quatro (bass) Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) Lita Ford Emily Remler Joanne Shaw Taylor Deirdre Cartwright Millie Marlow Memphis Minnie Elizabeth Cotten Mother Maybelle Carter Sister Rosetta Thorpe |
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