All-female band
An all-female band is a musical group in popular music that is exclusively composed of female musicians. This is distinct from a girl group, in which the female members are solely vocalists, though this terminology is not universally followed.[1] While all-male bands are common in many rock and pop scenes, all-female bands are less common.
1920s–1950s
In the
1960s
Bands composed solely of women began to emerge with the advent of
From 1964-1968 the Pandoras was an all-girl band (one of the first) playing a few original tunes and a bunch of popular covers at concerts and dances throughout New England. They started out as a trio, with Simmons College students Kathy Kinsella and Pinky Keehner on rhythm guitar and lead guitar, and Sally Levy on drums. Much later, under the management guidance of Peter Bonfils, the band had some success, including a recording contract and a couple of singles with Liberty Records ("About My Baby", b/w "New Day," and "Games" b/w "Don't Bother"), and gigs that showed all around the U.S. as well as in Newfoundland and Puerto Rico, opening for acts including the Kingsmen, Dionne Warwick, the Byrds, and Gary Lewis & the Playboys.[7]
The Shaggs were an all-female family band who earned some regional notoriety during their time as a performing band in the late 1960s; by the time they had disbanded in 1975 their first album Philosophy of the World had caught the attention of Frank Zappa[8] and by 1980, NRBQ arranged for it to have a wide release.[9] The Shaggs, particularly in their early years, were noted for their inability to adhere to basic norms of popular music (their drummer, Helen Wiggin, often found herself detached from the music her sisters Dot and Betty were singing and playing on guitar), which somewhat ironically (and to their bewilderment) made them icons of outsider music.[10]
1970s
Roger Ebert, in his audio commentary for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) gives the film credit for inspiring all-female rock bands, with the fictional band Carrie Nations created for the film, stating that such bands were quite rare at the time, but started to spring up in the film's wake.
On November 6, 1971, Fanny became the first all-female band to reach the Hot 100's top 40, with "Charity Ball" peaking at No. 40.
In 1975, the Canadian duo of sisters, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, recorded the first of a string of albums, sometimes joined by their sister Jane. The Runaways were an early commercially successful, hard-edged, all-female hard rock band, releasing their first album in 1976; band members Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, and Lita Ford all went on to solo careers.[11]
In the United Kingdom, the advent of
In Australia in 1977 all-girl band Sweet Jayne began doing regular gigs with the original lineup: Cris Bonacci, Chris Scheri, Robyn Clark and Sally Zylstra. Labelled "Sweet and Heavy Rock", Sweet Jayne played mostly original material. Winning the Australasian Yamaha Battle of the Bands in 1978, Sweet Jayne went on through various cassette, vinyl and film clip releases and line up changes and played 700 gigs over 6 years. Sweet Jayne split up in 1983 when Chris Scheri (flute and vocals) and Cris Bonacci (guitar) were invited to the UK to work for Mike Oldfield.
The all-female heavy metal band Girlschool, from South London, formed in 1978. While somewhat successful in the UK, they became better known in the early 1980s. One of the original members of the band, Kathy Valentine, departed to join the all-female band the Go-Go's, switching from guitar to bass. Among Girlschool's early recordings was an EP titled St. Valentine's Day Massacre which they recorded with Bronze label-mates Motörhead under the name Headgirl.
In 1974, the Deadly Nightshade, a rock/country band (Anne Bowen, rhythm guitar/percussion; Pamela Robin Brandt, electric bass; Helen Hooke, lead guitar/violin) was signed by RCA's custom label Phantom. The contract made RCA/Phantom the first mainstream record label to grant a band the right to reject any advertising offensive to feminist sensibilities. The band released two albums, The Deadly Nightshade in 1975 and F&W (Funky & Western) in 1976. Reunited in 2009, the Deadly Nightshade recorded and released a third album Never Never Gonna Stop in 2012 and they continually toured until Brandt's death in 2015, dissolving the band.
1980s and 1990s
The 1980s, for the first time, saw long-sought chart success from all-female bands and female-fronted rock bands. On the Billboard Hot 100 year-end chart for 1982[12] Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" at No. 3 and the Go-Go's' "We Got the Beat" at No. 2 sent a strong message out to many industry heads that females who could play could bring in money. While Joan Jett played "no-frills, glam-rock anthems, sung with her tough-as-nails snarl and sneer",[13] the Go-Go's were seen as playful girls,[14] an image that even Rolling Stone magazine poked fun at when they put the band on their cover in their underwear along with the caption "Go-Go's Put out!".[15][16] However musician magazines were starting to show respect to female musicians, putting Bonnie Raitt[17][18] and Tina Weymouth[19] on their covers. While the Go-Go's and the Bangles, both from the L.A. club scene, were the first all-female rock bands to find sustained success, individual musicians paved the way for the industry to seek out bands that had female musicians and allow them to be part of the recording process.
While the 1980s helped pave the way for female musicians to get taken more seriously it was still considered a novelty of sorts for several years, and it was very much a male-dominated world.[20] In 1984, when film maker Dave Markey, along with Jeff and Steve McDonald from Redd Kross,[21] put together the mockumentary Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, a comically punky version of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,[22] it also spawned a real band.[23] While the Lovedolls could barely play at first, because of the film, and because they were an "all-female band", they received press and gigs.
Klymaxx became the first self-produced all-female band in the R&B/pop style of music to play all instruments; several of their singles - including "Meeting in the Ladies Room" and "I Miss You" charted in both R&B and pop countdowns.
Leading into the 1990s, the surge of
Vixen was founded also in the Midwest, but in
With the resurgence of interest in pop-punk bands in the US in the early 1990s, along with the sunset strip "hair metal" scene becoming extremely crowded, bands who combined a "non-image" with loud raw music started were gigging at clubs like Rajis in Hollywood.[33] Bands such as Hole, Super Heroines, the Lovedolls, and L7 became popular, while demonstrating on stage, and in interviews, a self-confident "bad girl" attitude at times, always willing to challenge assumptions about how an all-female band should behave. Courtney Love described the other females in Hole as using a more "lunar viewpoint" in their roles as musicians.[34] In the 1990s, riot grrrl became the genre associated with bands such as Bratmobile and Bikini Kill. Other punk bands, such as Spitboy, have been less comfortable with the childhood-centered issues of much of the riot grrrl aesthetic, but nonetheless also have dealt explicitly with feminist and related issues.[35] All-female Queercore[36] bands, such as Fifth Column, Tribe 8, and Team Dresch, also write songs dealing with matters specific to women and their position in society.[37] A film put together by a San Diego psychiatrist, Dr. Lisa Rose Apramian, along with the former drummer from the Motels and the Droogs, Kyle C. Kyle,[38][39] the documentary Not Bad for a Girl explored some of these issues with interviews from many of the female musicians on the riot grrrl scene at the time.[40]
In contemporary Christian music history, there was the first all-female Christian rock band Rachel Rachel, which existed only during the early 1990s and who performed in an album-oriented rock style. Jennifer York became the first woman to establish a Christian band, specifically an all-female group.[41] Even though Rachel Rachel's success was short lived when they folded due to "creative differences" and too great a geographic distance,[42] future rock bands or non-rock musical groups in the Christian genre that have only women as members followed their lead in the next decades to come.
Many female musicians from all-female bands in the 1980s and 1990s have gone on to more high-profile gigs. The Pandoras' former members include members of the Muffs; Leather Leone, the singer from Rude Girl and Malibu Barbi, went on to sing for Chastain; Warbride's founder and lead guitarist, Lori Linstruth joined Arjen Lucassen; Abby Travis from the Lovedolls has played with Beck, Elastica, and Bangles; Meredith Brooks, from the Graces, went on to solo success and Janet Robin, from Precious Metal, was the touring guitarist for Brooks as well as Lindsey Buckingham and Air Supply. Sweet Jayne's Cris Bonacci became Girlschool's lead guitarist in 1985 and stayed with the band for fewer than 10 years. Girlschool, despite numerous line-up changes, have never broke up despite a brief hiatus and celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2018.
2000s and 2010s
In Japan, the 2010s brought a boom of all-female heavy metal bands forming and gaining mainstream attention.
Outside pop music
All-female bands are not restricted to the mainstream genres. The British/Australian string quartet
See also
Bibliography
- Stieven-Taylor, Alison (2007). Rock Chicks: The Hottest Female Rockers from the 1960s to Now. Sydney: Rockpool Publishing. ISBN 978-1-921295-06-5.
- Bayton, Mavis (1998). Frock Rock: Women Performing Popular Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816615-X.
- Carson, Mina Julia, ed. (2004). Girls rock!: Fifty Years of Women Making Music. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2310-0.
- Gaar, Gillian G. (1992). She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll. Seattle, Washington: Seal Press. ISBN 1-878067-08-7.
- O'Dair, Barbara, ed. (1997). Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-679-76874-2.
- Raphael, Amy (1995). Never Mind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock. London: Virago. ISBN 1-85381-887-9.
- Savage, Ann M. (2003). They're Playing Our Songs: Women Talk About Feminist Rock Music. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-97356-5.
References
- vocalists Girls Aloud have been referred to as a "girl band" in OK magazine and the Guardian, while Girlschool are termed a "girl group" at Belfast Telegraph.
- ^ "The Pittsburgh Press - Google News Archive Search".
- ^ "Stacy's DNA Kin".
- ISBN 978-0-8195-6908-0.
- ^ "Silent Era : PSFL : Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators (192?)". Archived from the original on April 6, 2009. Retrieved November 29, 2018.
- ^ "Wyborcza.pl". Archived from the original on December 17, 2014. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
- ^ The Pandoras
- ^ "The Dr. Demento Show (live on KMET) – December 24, 1973 (8p-9p)". Dmdb.org.
- ^ "Rolling Stone's 1980 Rock & Roll Awards". Rolling Stone. No. 338. Straight Arrow Publishers, Inc. March 5, 1981. p. 31.
- ^ Fishman, Howard (August 30, 2017). "The Shaggs Reunion Concert Was Unsettling, Beautiful, Eerie, and Will Probably Never Happen Again". The New Yorker. Retrieved January 8, 2020.
- ^ David V. Moskowitz, ed., The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time: A Guide to the Legends Who Rocked the World (2015), p. xiii-xv.
- ^ "The Billboard Hot 100 1982". Billboard. Archived from the original on November 13, 2007. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
- ^ Haymes, Greg (November 23, 2006). "Long live the Queen". Albany Times Union.
- ^ "The Graces interview". Endless Party (cover story). No. 40. August 1989.
Charlotte Caffey: I remember the fact that people would say 'You're an all-girl band, you can't possibly make it.'
- ^ "The Go-Gos Put Out!". Rolling Stone (cover story). No. 375. August 15, 1982.
- ^ "The Graces interview". Endless Party (cover story). No. 40. August 1989.
Question: So no chance of turning up on the cover of Rolling Stone in your underwear with the caption "Graces Put out!"? Charlotte Caffey: the classic cover? No, I don't think so.
- ^ "Bonnie Raitt cover story". Guitar Player Magazine. May 1977.
- ^ "Bonnie Raitt cover story". Guitar Player Magazine. July 1998.
- ^ "Tina Weymouth & David Byrne, the Talking Heads". Guitar Player Magazine (cover story). March 1984.
- ^ "The Graces interview". Endless Party (cover story). No. 40. August 1989.
Meredith Brooks: I remember working with a couple of producers that went 'Yeah, and we'll get a guitar player...' and I am like 'Um, guys. I play!'
- ^ Flipside, Al & Joy (1988). "Surfin' the Cess Pool with Dave Markey". Flipside Magazine. No. 58.
Basically the core of We Got Power films is Jordan and Jennifer Schwartz and myself and Jeff and Steve McDonald helped a lot on the Lovedolls films.
- ^ Firsching, Robert, All Media Guide
- ^ Flipside, Al & Joy (1988). "Surfin' the Cess Pool with Dave Markey". Flipside Magazine. No. 58.
The Lovedolls became a real band now and from there it became real hectic. To make a movie about an (now) established rock band that was originally a satire would be like a double dip. I figure, they're a "real" band now & they only have a couple of original members at this point- it's evolved into a very separate entity from the film
- ^ Widran, Jonathan (July 8–21, 1991). "First Artists – The Rebel Pebbles". Music Connection. Vol. XV, no. 14. p. 30.
- ^ Fong-Torres, Ben (2006). Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing, and Life. Backbeat Books. p. 107.
- ^ "Malibu Barbi". Retrieved December 29, 2015.
- ^ Hall, Shaunna. "Life and Times of Wanda Day". Loudith Faire. Archived from the original on December 16, 2008.
- ^ Miner, Nicola (September 4, 1992). "[No title available]". BAM (Northern California ed.). p. 14.
- ^ "Discography – Madam X, We Reserve the Right", Billboard
- ^ "We Reserve the Right". Sleazegrinder. Archived from the original on December 16, 2008.
- ^ Petrucci, Maxine (October 2005). "MAXINE: Attack of the Petrucci sisters!". Metal Maidens (Interview). Interviewed by Toine van Poorten.
Jet Records was going under at the time and was trying to re-group. They owned us all individually and tried to change us. They introduced Roxy to VIXEN. Bret later went on to KAISER. Jet pushed John Ward on us and we just didn't have any chemistry after that. It was over!
- ^ "Jan Kuehnemund, founder of pioneering all-female metal band Vixen, passes away". The Current. Minnesota Public Radio. October 11, 2013.
- ^ "Raji's Club (Hollywood Blvd.)". Tribe.net. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
- ^ Boder, Christopher (October 1991). "The Hole Story". Buzz. Vol. VII, no. 70. p. 13.
Most women in rock are only repeating what men have done. The women in this band are not doing that. We're coming at things from a more feminine, lunar, viewpoint.
- ^ "hot-topic.org". Archived from the original on November 4, 2015. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
- ^ Chapman, Kathleen / du Plessis, Michael, "Queercore: the distinct identities of subculture", College Literature, February 1997
- ^ "The greatest band you've never heard of: Fifth Column". Shameless Magazine. June 15, 2012.
- ^ "Kyle C. Kyle". Archived from the original on May 4, 2006.
- ^ "Listing Ship band bio". Archived from the original on 2017-06-20. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
- ^ Guthmann, Edward (April 1, 1997). "Women Rock Out in 'Not Bad': their wild energy lifts sloppy film". San Francisco Chronicle. p. G-3.
- ^ McAdie, Bryan (October 1, 1993). "Rachel Rachel: An all girl rock band making an impact Stateside". Cross Rhythms Mag. No. 17.
- ^ "Rachel Rachel split". Cross Rhythms Mag. No. 23. October 1, 1994.
- ^ a b "浜田麻里からLOVEBITESまでーーガールズHR/HM、波乱万丈の30年史". Real Sound (in Japanese). November 7, 2017. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "嬢メタルの旗手DESTROSE、待望の作品リリース". Barks.jp (in Japanese). October 2, 2010. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ a b c "The DESTROSE Connection ~The Prologue~". jame-world.com. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "アルディアス、Marina加入". barks.jp (in Japanese). 20 April 2015. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "Aldiousのアルバム売り上げランキング". Oricon (in Japanese). Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "Cyntia". jame-world.com. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "Golden Gods 2018: Judas Priest, Code Orange, Maynard James Keenan amongst winners". Metal Hammer. June 11, 2018. Retrieved November 21, 2021.
- ^ "Crypta Bio".
- ^ "Crypta signs with Napalm Records". 16 June 2020.
- Bravewords. 12 April 2023.
External links
- GirlBand.org
- Women in Punk Archive maintained by Nicole Emmenegger (aka Jenny Woolworth)
- Helen Lewis and Her All-Girl Jazz Syncopators at Silent Era
- Metaladies.com All-Female Metal Bands