Rock Chicks: The Hottest Female Rockers from the 1960s to Now - Softcover

Stieven-Taylor, Alison

Softcover

ISBN 10: 192129535X ISBN 13: 9781921295355

Publisher: Rockpool Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

With profiles on hottest rock 'n' roll women spanning from the 1960s to current times, this book has everything there is to know about the most rockin' chicks in history—from Janis Joplin and Suzi Quatro to Courtney Love and Pink

 

With perceptive biographies and in-depth music critiques, this is an up-close and personal look at the experiences, adventures, and musical passions of these extraordinary and talented women whose wild vocals and on-stage antics have made them rock 'n' roll legends. Through personal heartaches, drug addictions, public humiliations, and private nightmares, these rock chicks have risen to take the music world by storm—often facing great personal adversity, pressure, and scrutiny that would have destroyed mere mortal's souls. From Madonna spending years living in squats in New York before going on to sell 250 million records, to Tina Turner surviving the brutal bashings of her husband and then going on stage to perform with broken ribs and contusions—all of these women overcame great obstacles to make some of the most memorable music the world of rock has heard. Their inspiring and entertaining stories, compiled here in this profusely illustrated and thoroughly researched book, make for an adrenaline pumping and compellingly memorable ride through rock 'n' roll history.

About this title

About the Author

Alison Stieven-Taylor has been a freelance journalist for more than 20 years, and has written for such publications as Rolling Stone magazine. Today she is the director of a successful PR consultancy working with bands across the world. She is the author of The Price of Love. 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Rock Chicks

The Hottest Female Rockers from the 1960s to Now

By Alison Stieven-Taylor, Tony Mott

Rockpool Publishing Pty Ltd

Copyright © 2010 Rockpool Publishing
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-921295-35-5

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright, 
Note from the Author, 
What is a Rock Chick?, 
That Indefinable Rock Chick Thing, 
1960s, 
The birth of the rock band, 
JANIS JOPLIN, 
MARIANNE FAITHFULL, 
TINA TURNER, 
1970s, 
protest & punk, 
SUZI QUATRO, 
JOAN JETT, 
ANN & NANCY WILSON, 
PATTI SMITH, 
STEVIE NICKS, 
DEBBIE HARRY, 
1980s, 
When Dance & Pop ruled, 
ANNIE LENNOX, 
PAT BENATAR, 
CHRISSIE HYNDE, 
MADONNA, 
KIM GORDON, 
CHRISSY AMPHLETT, 
KIM DEAL, 
1990s, 
Pop Princess & Riot Grrrls, 
PJ HARVEY, 
MELISS A ETHERIDGE, 
SHERLY CROW, 
COURTNEY LOVE, 
ALANIS MORISSETTE, 
GWEN STEFANI, 
2000s, 
Hip Hop & Pole Dancer, 
KELLY CLARKSON, 
PINK, 
AVRIL LAVIGNE, 
KAREN O, 
Discography, 
Acknowledgements, 
Back Cover Material, 

CHAPTER 1

1960s

The birth of the rock band

The cultural revolution that was the 1960s actually began the decade before with the rise of the Beats, a group of American writers who composed riffs challenging the mores of the stuffy Western society of the post-Second World War years. On the surface everything appeared sunny and civil. But there was an undercurrent of fear and oppression darkened by the shadows of the A-bomb and the Cold War and stirred by the increasingly potent black rights movement led by Martin Luther King. And the tidy society of suburbs and wifely submission was about to be shaken by the introduction of the contraceptive pill and women's sexual 'liberation'.

The work of the Beats — most notably Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg — described the alienation of youth, was influenced by jazz and subjected to censorship. They lived on the fringe, experimenting with drugs and writing about subjects not discussed by polite society. Along with Marlon Brando and James Dean, they were 'rebels without a cause'. The Beats hung out in the North Beach area of San Francisco, smoking weed and chewing speed in open defiance of the authorities. Many of the rock chicks — including Janis Joplin, Marianne Faithfull and Chrissie Hynde — cite the writers of the Beat Generation as major influences.

In August 1961 Berliners awoke to find their city divided by an ugly barbed wire wall. Overnight the Soviets had erected a wall dividing East and West Berlin. Protests against racial segregation were splitting America and folk singers were beginning to top the charts with political protest songs. Two years later, John F Kennedy was assassinated, Martin Luther King gave his landmark 'I have a dream' speech and the US Congress held the first hearings into the fair treatment of women where terms like the 'glass ceiling' were heard. There had been a seismic shift in society.

Rock music was born into this world in turmoil. Whether it was a case of life imitating art or vice versa, the artists of the 1960s, and musicians in particular, were central to change. The music of the 1950s — the choreographed girl groups like the Chantels and the Chordettes, female singers Connie Francis, Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, Petula Clark, Doris Day and Peggy Lee, and the male jivers Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bobby Darin — began to

Edition details

• Publisher: Rockpool Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 192129535X
• ISBN 13: 9781921295355
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320