She's a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock and Roll (Live Girls) - Softcover

Gaar, Gillian G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580050786 ISBN 13: 9781580050784

Publisher: Seal Press, 2002

Synopsis

Gillian G. Gaar’s critically acclaimed, breakthrough book, the first full history of women in rock and pop ever written, became an instant classic upon its publication in 1992. Arranged chronologically and told with impassioned detail, She’s A Rebel charts a half century of women performers from the early R and B singers of the 1950s, to the girl groups, Motown acts, folksingers, and rock chicks of the 1960s, to the punk rebels and pop divas of the 1970s, to the brash all-girl bands, rappers, and riot grrls of the 1980s and 1990s. This expanded ten-year anniversary edition features over 75 photos and includes three all-new chapters on all the major artists of the last decade as well as an insider’s look at the music industry and the emerging power of women rock stars. With new preface by Yoko Ono and dozens of new profiles and interviews with performers such as Courtney Love, L7, Bikini Kill, the Breeders, Sarah McLachlan, Ani di Franco, Sheryl Crow, Sleater Kinney, Alanis Morrisette, Lucinda Williams, Mariah Carey, Destiny’s Child, Lauryn Hill, Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado, Bjork, and many others this book captures the amazing explosion of women’s voices and talent in the music world. [She’s A Rebel] is as thoroughly entertaining as it is researched ... It’s exhaustive and exhilarating.” Billboard

About this title

Review:

An encyclopedic narrative of the role of women in rock and pop over the last four decades, from Big Mama Thornton, who topped the R&B charts with "Hound Dog" three years before Elvis, to the female musical powerhouses of the '90s. Compulsively readable and thoroughly entertaining, this is a spirited and much-needed retelling of rock history which has tended to treat women peripherally at best. And unlike most rock journalists, Gaar knows how to do research, and how to both tell a long story with attention to detail and keep readers' attention for a long time.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Janis Joplin, singing her gut-wrenching blues alone at the mike, always appeared to be more fatal for the singer who had dared to sing with an abandon no white female had ever attempted before. Born in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin was marked as "different" (or in her words, "a weirdo among fools") by her peers because of her interest in music, poetry, art, and reading...As a teenager, she fell in with the all-male gang and did her best to be "one of the boys," a defiant stance in conservative Port Arthur and one not even totally acceptable to the others in the group: "When Janis was outrageous she was totally outrageous," remembered one of the "gang" in Myra Friedman's Buried Alive.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seal Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1580050786
• ISBN 13: 9781580050784
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 496