Notes on WMW 3/2/2008

Womyn Making Waves 3/2/2008 In Celebration of Women’s History Month

In 1975, Bruce Springsteen released his breakthrough album, Born to Run. Donna Summer went to the top of her charts with the steamy disco classic “Love to Love You Baby.” David Bowie’s funky meditation on “Fame” went to number one. And the fledgling Olivia Records released their second full-length album, Cris Williamson’s The Changer and the Changed.

The Changer and the Changed was also produced entirely by women, from co-producers Margie Adam and Meg Christian (famous for her song “Ode to a Gym Teacher”) to assistant engineer Judy Dlugacz, now president of Olivia Travel, Inc. A 1975 review of the album in the feminist magazine Off Our Backs praised the album’s all-woman production, stating, “More than 40 women (and furred and feathered friends) are credited with assistance; the faces of those pictured on the inside jacket are a welcome sight when so many other women musicians are parading their stuff before all-male bands.” (afterellen.com-May 2005, Malinda Lo)

Song of the Soul was also the name of the show that I did on WEFT from 1986-1991. It was on in a couple of different places on the grid, but it was mostly on from 6-8 on Saturday morning, where it was known as “the other women’s music show on WEFT.”

Alix Dobkin's album Lavender Jane Loves Women (Women's Wax Works, 1973) was one of the first women’s music cd’s, even before Meg and Cris.

Chicago’s Minnie Riperton sings Joni Mitchell’s “Woman of Heart and Mind” from the 1972 album “For the Roses”

Lesbian Concentrate, from Olivia Records is a wonderful compilation album. The cover has an orange juice can with the title, Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and Poems 100% Undiluted. It was the women communities response to Anita Bryant Florida Orange Juice Growers Association spokesperson and leader of the Save Our Children Campaign. Special thanks go to Alex who helped me by transferring the music from vinyl to digital.

Marie is based on a true story

The Duras Sisters are a Phoenix based filk trio.

No women’s music show would be complete without chocolate or the Motherfolkers.




Deborah Holland’s “The Panic Is On: Songs From the Great Depression” grew out of a project Deborah completed for her masters thesis at Cal State-LA. In the 1980's she was co-founder of the pop trio Animal Logic with ex-Police drummer Stewart Copeland and virtuoso bassist Stanley Clarke.

Elizabeth Cook has, in the country vernacular, Balls. Nanci Griffith compared her to Loretta Lynn, and I got this album just so I could play this song on Womyn Making Waves.

“If You Were a Woman” Bonnie Tyler. Written by Desmond Tyler and produced by Jim Steinman

Gerri Gribi - The Womansong Collection: Found Gerri Gribi at http://creativefolk.com.

Resource Web Pages Created and Maintained by Gerri Gribi:
1) AfroAmericanHeritage.com: The African American History & Heritage Site *Recommended by NEA Today, School Library Journal, and Kathy Schrock
2) Resources for Women's Studies Programs & Women's Centers:
Internet resources and how to use them, the Women's Studies/Women's Center Mailing Lists, an annotated discography of nearly 200 songs and compilations related to domestic violence and sexual assault. I also have a page devoted to the Women's Suffrage Movement and Women's Equality Day (August 26) and a Women's/ Gender/ Diversity Calendar listing annual events.
3) For Folk Music Fans & Performers: both general-interest and women's music related.
Songbooks, a suffrage-singalong sheet, how to find lyrics to that long-lost camp song, women's radio programs, women's music festivals and more. Listen to The Womansong Collection on the air.
4) Appalachian Studies Resources

“If you love a Hippopotamus” by Heather Bishop isn’t classic women’s music, but I found it at http://www.ladyslipper.org (Ladyslipper Catalog –for women’s music) and I have always loved it. “Did Jesus Have a Baby Sister” (lyrics by Dory Previn) just seemed to fit.

Holly Near’s “Imagine My Surprise” is another one of the classic lesbian love songs. Near was probably the first woman artist to start an independent record company when in 1972 she founded Redwood Records which became a major force in alternative music for nearly 20 years. She is a force for social change.

Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” spoke to me before I ever knew she was gay. “Society’s Child” was her first hit, a song about another (at the time) unacceptable kind of love.


The Equal Rights Amendment:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

In the 110th Congress (2007 - 2008), the Equal Rights Amendment has been introduced as S.J. Res. 10 (Sen. Edward Kennedy, MA, lead sponsor) and H.J. Res. 40 (Rep. Carolyn Maloney, NY, lead sponsor). These bills impose no deadline on the ratification process in their proposing clauses.

Loretta Lynn might not look much like a feminist but she had more banned songs than any other artist in the history of country music, including "Rated X," about the double standards divorced women face, "Wings Upon Your Horns," about the loss of teenage virginity, and "The Pill," lyrics by T. D. Bayless, about a wife and mother becoming liberated via the birth control pill. Her song "Dear Uncle Sam," released in 1966, was an early protest of the Vietnam War, and was added to live sets during the current Iraq War.

Meg Christian is another one of the founding mothers of Olivia records. The first show I ever heard on WEFT was Womyn Making Waves and one of the first songs I heard was “Ode to a Gym Teacher” (my response…you can’t have music like that on the radio. Fortunately I was wrong.)

Melissa…Brave and Crazy…what more needs to be said.

I first heard Kristen Lems singing Peggy Seeger’s “I’m Gonna Be an Engineer” I saw Ms. Seeger sing it at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival a long time ago. From Threescore and Ten (the album to celebrate Peggy’s 70th birthday.

Pat Parker
b. 1944 - 1989
If I could take all my parts with me when I go somewhere, and not have to say to one of them, "No, you stay home tonight, you won't be welcome," because I'm going to an all-white party where I can be gay, but not Black. Or I'm going to a Black poetry reading, and half the poets are antihomosexual, or thousands of situations where something of what I am cannot come with me. The day all the different parts of me can come along, we would have what I would call a revolution.

Tribe 8 was an all-women outspoken dyke punk band from San Francisco, California. Considered one of the first queercore groups.

I Am Woman by Helen Reddy Released: 1972 Australian Ray Burton co-wrote the song with Helen Reddy. Burton's contribution was writing the music to go with Helen Reddy's lyrics and editing her lyrics to fit his musical structure.

"I first wrote the song in August 1970," explained Burton. "It was first released by Capitol Records in late 1970 as an album track on Helen Reddy's first album. It was what they call a 'sleeper' in the music industry. In other words, it sat on the album doing nothing for 2 years and then as the women's liberation movement gathered momentum, Capitol Records released it as a single. The women's liberation movement then adopted it as their anthem and the rest is history."

Rory Block (born Aurora Block, November 6, 1949,[1] Princeton, New Jersey) is an American female blues guitarist and singer, a notable exponent of the country blues style

Sue Keller sings “Wild Women Don’t Sing the Blues” by Ida Cox.

“Sometimes It’s a Bitch”:
Jon Bon Jovi wrote this for Nicks and sang it with her. In the liner notes to her TimeSpace album, Nicks said: "When I first heard this song, I really did not quite understand what Jon was trying to say, but over the 2 weeks that we sang it together (at my mike), I started to realize that Jon, without knowing it, had sort of taken a time machine back 18 years and watched my life, the good parts and the bad. It was not a love song, which of course, I had expected it to be; it was much more than that to me. Bon Jovi had picked up on the fact, before meeting me, that there was no way he could know what I had lived through without having lived through it with me, so he dreamed. He dreamed about what the notorious Stevie Nicks had been like and what it had all done to her... the indulgences, the lifestyle. I felt that if he knew nothing else about me, he knew I had a strong instinct to survive. Someday, maybe all the people who did not go through this with us will understand; that considering the generation we come from, we are very lucky to be alive."

Seanan McGuire is a California filker who knows that goddesses are just like the rest of us.

From "Images of Women," by Robin Greenstein a look at women's lives thru traditional Anglo and Afro-American folk songs, as well as family and children's programs “Wish I was a Single Girl Again.”

Nanci Caroline Griffith, (born July 6, 1953 in Seguin, Texas) is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter from Austin, Texas. Her career has spanned a variety of musical genres, predominantly country, folk, and what she terms "folkabilly." Griffith won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1994 for her recording, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Griffith is a survivor of breast cancer which was diagnosed in 1996, and thyroid cancer in 1998.




02/19/2008
Nanci's dear friend Mary Margaret, inspiration for There's A Light Beyond These Woods (Mary Margaret), passed away last week., and her memorial services were held yesterday.

Jill Sobule: the YouTube Video for “I Kissed a Girl” can be found at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpI7znS8Fuc