She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul

545 Pages·2004·26.93 MB·English

by  Lucy O'Brien

She Bop II
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She Bop II
The Definitive History of Women in
Rock, Pop and Soul
LUCY O'BRIEN
ontinuum
LONDON • NEW YORK
CONTINUUM
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London, SE1 7NX
370 Lexington Avenue. New York, NY 10017-6503
First edition published as She Bop in Great Britain by Penguin Books 1995
This edition published by Continuum 2002
© Lucy O'Brien 1995, 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-8264-7208-3
Typeset by Kenneth Burnley.Wirral. Cheshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPD Wales, Ebbw Vale.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Prologue ix
Introduction 1
1 Riffin'the Scotch 9
FROM BLUES TO THE JAZZ AGE
2 Stupid Cupid 39
DREAM BABES IN 1950S POP
3 The Real Thing 66
MOTOWN, SPECTOR AND 1960S SVENGALIS
4 Can the Can 99
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE ROCK CHICK?
5 Final Girls 132
PUNK, PERFORMANCE ART AND PMT POP
6 Ladies of the Canyon 179
FEMALE SINGER/SONGWRITERS OF THE
GRAND HOTEL
7 Lipstick Traces 210
MADONNA, MANIPULATION AND MTV
8 She Wears the Trousers 249
ARTISTRY, ANDROGYNY AND THE LESBIAN
QUESTION
vi CONTENTS
9 I Wanna Dance with Somebody 278
DECONSTRUCTING THE DISCO DIVA
10 In Search of Our Mothers'Gardens 315
THE TRUE STORY OF WOMEN IN RAP AND REGGAE
11 Oye Mi Canto 350
HEAR MY VOICE: WOMEN IN WORLD MUSIC
12 Talkin' Tough 382
THE ENEMY WITHIN: WOMEN AND PROTEST POP
13 Talkin'Business 412
NUTS 'N' BOLTS AND ALL THE NECESSARIES
14 Girlpower! 459
THE NEW GENERATION
Notes 493
Selected Discography 508
Selected Bibliography 510
Index of Names 513
Index of Albums and Singles 522
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to all the women who were interviewed for this
book, and particularly to Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper (Ms She Bop
herself!), Suzanne Vega, Kristin Hersh, Miriam Makeba, Vicki
Wickham, Peggy Seeger, Gracie Cole, Adele Bertei, Rosetta
Reitz and Regine Moylett for being so helpful.
I also thank Fred Dellar for his invaluable support and
patience, Ann Munday, Charles Shaar Murray, Jools Holland,
Neville Farmer, Delilah Jackson and her Black Patti Archive,
Paula Shutkever, Gaylene Martin, Pat Baird, David Terrill, Tony
Gregory, Victoria Rutherford, Marilyn Botheras, Pennie Smith,
Emily Andersen, ValWilmer, Mick Patrick for access to his awe-
inspiring knowledge of 1960s girl groups, and Lucy Duran,
Debbie Golt, Alexa Dalby and Lois Darlington for their help
with the Oye Mi Canto chapter. Thanks also to my family.
Special thanks to Ann, Naomi and Paul, and Fenton and
Randy at World of Wonder for their hospitality when I was in
New York, to Soul Coughing for making me laugh, and to Cathy
Capozzi in Boston for showing me just how hard girls can rock.
And lastly, a bigYo! to all my girlfriends, the best a girl could
wish for.
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Prologue
IT ALL BEGAN IN 1979, when a girl gang got together, spurred
by the political activism that exploded that year after the
Conservative General Election victory. They were from
Southampton, a city perched at the top of the Solent, a day's
crossing away from Le Havre, France, and home of the QE2. It
was a town of former glories, with sprawling docks, where cargo
ships once unloaded exotic cargo and luxury liners would slide
in from abroad. Bombed remorselessly during the Second World
War, Southampton had a detached, prefabricated air long after
the bleak restructuring of the post-war years. Ken Russell, the
maverick film director, was born there, as was comedian Benny
Hill - but like all good So'tonites, they escaped early. Tm from
Southampton' doesn't quite have the same ring as 'I'm a
Geordie' or 'I'm from Glasgow'. It was never cool or hip to come
from Southampton - but maybe that was a blessing, as it became
important to invent your own identity.
In the late 1970s Southampton had a culture bypass. Excite-
ment, allure, difference, were all things to be resourcefully
manufactured in a recession-hit area where venues had closed
down and nightclubs, apart from a second-rate one for
divorcees, didn't exist. Into that vacuum leaped The Catholic
Girls (before the Frank Zappa song, incidentally).Tina was our
Siouxsie Sioux - hair dyed jet black, a member of the Anti-Nazi
League, always wearing black when the school uniform was navy
blue. Maddy, whimsical yet astute, and her older sister Judith,
then a nihilist and the one most openly unimpressed with
authority, were both hunt saboteurs and members of the
environmental group Friends of the Earth. And me, casually
leaving copies of Spare Rib on the school common-room table