It’s the late summer, 1980. I’ve just turned twenty. I’m
lying in a tiny bedroom in an apartment the size of a postage stamp in Medford , Massachusetts
Seven years earlier, a group of women had formed Olivia
records, a company that would become the most well known lesbian record
company, but in 1973, it was run by a handful of women, including Judy Dlugaz,
whose name would become synonymous with Olivia. That year, they put out their
first 45 record with Meg Christian on one side and Cris Williamson on the
other. Sales from the 45 made $12,000, enough to produce their first
album, Cris Williamson’s The Changer
and the Changed, [1] which was the album I just happened to be listening to
on that summer afternoon. I played Williamson’s song “Waterfall.” over and
over. It was one of my favorites. It still is.
The Changer and the Changed was soon followed by a
musical anthology called Lesbian Concentrate (1977), which was released
in response to Anita Bryant’s repeated criticism of Olivia during her infamous anti-gay
crusade “Save the Children.” On that collection
was Christians’ “Ode to a
Gym Teacher” which is a lesbian classic. The particular version has Christian’s
hilarious introduction to the song, an admission of an obsession many of my
friends could readily identify with. Christian has a beautiful voice and is a
classically trained guitarist. “The Road I Took to You”
showcases her voice nicely. It also included poet Pat Parker’s “For The Straight Folks Who
Don't Mind Gays But Wish They Weren't So Blatant” as well as music by Cris
Williamson Teresa Trull, Mary Watkins, the Berkley Women’s Music Collective,
and Linda Tillery. Olivia relocated to Los Angeles and then to Berkeley,
California, adding a number of new artists to their permanent roster including
Linda Tillery (“Don’t Pray for Me”), the Berkeley
Women’s Music Collective featuring Nancy Vogl’s fronting vocals on “Darling Companion,”
Teresa Trull — heard hear with Vickie Randle and Lisa Koch and Barbara Higbie
on piano with a recent rending of “Flow” Diedra McCalla, Kay
Gardner, Margie Adam, Mary Watkins (“Back Rap”) Alive! and
Tret Fure. Other artists included Betsy Rose and Cathy Winter (“Glad
to be a Woman”), Robin Flower, Woody Simmons, and Therese Edell (“Moonflower”),
who died in 2011 after an extended battle with MS. She will be missed.
And Phranc. Now, Phranc holds a special place in my heart.
Not only was she the butchest woman I’ve ever met with her high and tight
haircut and black combat boots, but she was also one of the gentlest souls. One
night after a performance, we’d been talking backstage and she suggested that I
ride back with her to her hotel (no, I did not go in). Our conversation
ranged easily from childhood memories to our collection of GI Joes. She had
more than I did, by far. She’s still around, making music and art and wearing her
signature white T-shirt under a button down shirt with jeans. Listen to M-A-R-T-I-N-A for a taste
of classic Phranc. Alix Dobkin was also a wonderful, generous woman I had the
great fortune to meet and talk with. This is not the best recording of “The Woman in Your Life,”
but it’s the most honest.
Holly Near came from a tradition of activism and social
change, she founded Redwood Records in 1973 and released her first album Hang
in There. Near’s career paralleled Cris Williamson’s as Redwood Records
paralleled Olivia Records. Redwood’s vision, however, was different. Instead of
focusing primarily on music by lesbians, Redwood focused on social justice and
social change. They signed Sweet Honey in the Rock, an all female, all black
group headed by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon and released their album B’lieve
I’ll Run On… in 1979 and then in 1983, Near released an album called Lifeline
with Ronnie Gilbert of The Weavers. Near’s life always mirrored her work. She
came out as a lesbian at the first Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in 1976 and
was interviewed by People magazine in 1981 becoming perhaps the first
out lesbian to be profiled in a supermarket magazine. Though she sometimes
would share a billing or even a stage with some of Olivia’s recording artists,
it wasn’t until 2002 that she and Cris Williamson record an album together. While
Olivia’s recording artists seemed to travel in packs, touring and recording
together, Near went her own way, and often toured with male artists including Jeff
Langley, Pete Seeger and John McCutcheon. [2]
To fully grasp Near’s dichotomy, listen to It Could Have Been Me,
which was written about the murder of Kent State students in May of 1970 and ”Imagine
My Surprise” or “Fire in the Rain” which are about loving women. And for a real
treat, listen to an entire
concert from 1976 with Near and Jeff Langly on piano.
In the late 1970s, June and Jean Millington broke off from
the group Fanny to release several of their own albums. “Young and in Love” is
from their 1978 release Ladies on the Stage. June Millington, another of
Olivia’s artists, also released Heartsong. “Rosarita” was one of my
favorite songs from that album.
Looking back—listening back—I remember how as a
twenty-something, this music shaped my experiences. Having been booted out of a
residence for Catholic girls during my first months in Boston for those “unnatural urges,” and
losing a more than a few narrow-minded friends in the process, I wanted so much
to feel as though I belonged to something and this music did that for me. I
carried it with me everywhere, on cassette tapes that I played on the first
version of the Walkman, which weighed about five pounds. It coincided with a
time in my life when I was writing fiction unceasingly, a time when my first
short story was accepted and published in an anthology called Test Tube
Women: What Future for Motherhood and when I endured my first of many
heartbreaks.
When I dropped out of Boston University’s School of Fine
Arts with more than one hundred credits and no idea what I wanted to do with my
life, I started freelancing around town as a lighting designer. At the time,
there was a production company called FolkTree who brought in everyone from
Mary Black to Silly Wizard to Holly Near and Cris Williamson and Teresa Trull.
The list went on and on. The musicians of my fantasies — who had helped define
the person I would become — were now standing before me in living color,
shaking my hand, talking to me about spotlights, laughing at a joke. It was an
incredible decade and I loved every second of it.
Before long, though, Olivia’s hold on women’s music began to
lose its relevance. In 1985, they passed on an up and coming rocker named
Melissa Ethridge and some detractors said that was the moment they became
irrelevant. Whatever the truth, Olivia reinvented themselves as a the lesbian cruise
line a few years later. Many of their performers, including Cris Williamson,
Teresa Trull, Barbara Higbie, Meg Christian and others still tour regularly.
It was obvious to everyone at this point that the face of women’s music was changing. It
wasn’t just about “women’s music” anymore. It was about women in music. From
the Eurythmics to Melissa Ethridge to Ani DiFranco, Tracy Chapman, Patty
Larkin, Phoebe Snow, Janis Ian, Carole King and Lilith Fair, what had begun as
a kind of coming out story was evolving into something much broader than many
of us who were there when the fledgling companies put out their first albums could
have imagined. Watching Chrissie Hynde reinvent The Pretenders with every practically
every album she released or Annie Lenox strut across the stage at Boston ’s Symphony Hall, I
was blown away by the power of these women musicians, to say nothing of their
willingness to confront the industry’s sexism (Riot Grrl) and embrace
the raw sexuality embodied by Madonna, Evanescence and Lady Gaga. Take a listen
to Bratmobile from
Yoyo a Go Go in Olympia Washington CBG B
performance of Bikini
Kill from 2003.
Not everyone was as pissed off as Riot Grrl. k.d. Lang’s
smooth and sexy voice was seducing a whole new generation of baby dykes and I
don’t think Richard Gere was the only one who got hot under the collar when the
photograph of his then wife Cindy Crawford giving k.d. a barber’s chair shave
hit the newsstands. k.d. represented someone who was out, but not out. Someone
for whom being a lesbian might or might not be true or even particularly
important to her world view. The novelty or necessity of being out became less
of something to be done, and more a natural part of the artist’s
profile. Tegan and Sara, for example, just released their sixth album Fun.
The fact that they’re both lesbians isn’t the first thing that’s said about
them.
And then there’s Dani Shay who didn’t survive the Glee
Project’s boot camp, but whose music is popular both with my kids and Mariel
Cove write Neale Taylor. Shay’s homemade videos are a world away from my first
experience in lesbian music and yet her lyrics speak to me in the same way. One
of my favorites is “I Will.”
Everything changes, and yet nothing does at all.
There are hundreds of other women in music. And I do not
even pretend to think I’ve done more than scratched the surface with this blog.
There so many women who’ve changed the
face of rock and blues and jazz, women whose faces I knew when we were all in our
twenties and thirties, and just so damn eager to be out there and making our
mark on the world. But I want to leave you with two wonderful artists who are
also new to me. One is Nicole Torres, a fantastic guitarist I had the good
fortune to meet and see perform this past winter in a wonderfully small venue
in Tacoma .
Here’s a live performance of “Jumbled Numbers” which
was one the songs she performed last winter.
The other is an ex-English teacher named Camillle Bloom who
is a gifted singer/songwriter a just a joy to see perform. She is as warm and
personable as the women who first brought women’s music into my life. And so I
feel as though I’ve come full circle. I love her song “Pretty.” She often
performs with her partner Gaelen. This bit is their traditional end of show song.
If you’d like to read more about women in music, check out
NPR’s fantastic tribute Hey
Ladies: Being a Woman Musician Today.
Sources
1.
Olivia Records. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Records
2.
Holly Near Timeline. http://www.hollynear.com/timeline.html
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