Recently, while doing some research I was reminded that the history of ranking and rating recording artists really does give women the short shrift. My next post will be on May 6, it’s the third anniversary of writing my blog and a bit too close to Mother’s Day for this topic. So I’m getting ahead of that to celebrate Women (and many of them mothers) in music.  A  clue on Jeopardy also piqued my interest to dedicate a post. It was from April 7, 2021, “Last name of Fanny, seen here, (picture shown) some of her compositions were originally published under her brother Felix’s name” and a contestant got it right, I however had no answer. I will get to that a bit later.

I have pointed to this issue before, in several of my posts I discuss the lists of the greatest of this or that and in one post I was pointing out the systematic low ratio of airplay given to female Country singers. Last year women had 23% of the #1 songs, this is the highest in the Country genre since 1994. There is no feminist agenda, other than to say I am a husband, and we have two daughters, so I care deeply about their place in the world. Women are underrepresented in several professions, and the same can be said in the music industry. Oh, the talent is there, as demonstrated by several of my posts where I feature women recording artists and songwriters. I do this due to the quality and substance of their music, and in many instances, you can’t help but notice their absence of recognition. The exclusion of female artists on greatest of all time lists has changed a bit recently, but historically they are often overlooked. While progress is being made, there are still very few women behind the performers; songwriters, producers, technicians and audio professionals are very much male dominated positions.

We known women were always quite capable, they just didn’t and don’t get the same opportunity. There are of course exceptions, any way you want to categorize them, but certainly not the rule. Take for example lists of the greatest in Country music: CMT (Country Music Television) names just 16 out the top 50 songs containing a female lead/solo voice. Ranker.com lists 12 women in their top 50 artists and Rolling Stone Magazine has 10 women in the top 50 of their 100 Greatest Country Artists of All Time. A recent survey showed songs with a female lead account for only one fifth of radio airplay in the UK, male solo acts account for 50%. If we look to Blues music, Loudersound.com list 21 women on their top 100 list. On my google.com search for “greatest Blues artists” I scrolled through the top fifty names at the top of the page and there are only eight women listed in the top 50. Hopefully I am getting my point across but here is one more example, Rolling Stone Magazine lists the 100 Greatest Singers of all time, there are ten women in the top 50 names, albeit Aretha Franklin is at #1.

Without doing some serious number crunching and perusing several other so called ‘greatest lists’, (including some of my own from past posts) there are few women included in the highest positions. Anecdotally, from the ‘lists’ I’ve seen I would estimate that female (including non-binary individuals) takes up less than 25% of the top names. Maybe theses lists are a representation of reality, but I believe the numbers demonstrate an inherent bias. This prejudice has perpetuated the myth that most listeners of music (all genders and all genres) prefer male performers. Of course, any list that is compiled is certainly a subjective thing, but if you look across the spectrum of genres there is a consistent theme, female artists are overlooked. Don’t even get me started on Jazz musicians! There is, of course, some explanation as to why things are this way, at least I have an observation. If we consider the historical and cultural bias toward men having better and certainly more opportunity, it’s stands to reason more men would hold prominent placement as the ratio of men to women is highly skewed toward males.

Let’s look at gender in Blues music, I’ve mentioned many of the great female artists and discovered a lot of overlooked talent. However, including the overlooked and the unnamed the genre is historically very much male dominated. I think the biggest reason comes down to among other things, domestic responsibility. Inherent in the beginnings of the genre is the ability to be mobile and travel, quite often from place to place for noticeably short visits before moving on again. Now, I realize I generalize again here – but not too much, I’d imagine it is exceedingly difficult to pursue music if you are at home raising children, cooking, cleaning and often working a full or part-time job as well. Where is the time to hone your craft?

Meanwhile the men, such as Leadbelly, Elmore James, Robert Johnson and many dozens more just picked up their guitar case (whether they had children or not) and off they went. In most cases, to little fortune but for the names I mentioned, most definitely ever lasting fame. Muddy Waters was a bit of an exception, married in 1940 he brought his wife with him when he left Mississippi to find permanent residence in the Chicago area in 1943. However, he toured Europe and many American cities taking him away from home for extended periods of time.

A little bit about Folk music legend Woody Guthrie, while his peripatetic lifestyle was motivated by his search for work, he spent most of his time away from his first family. His first wife, Mary Esta Jennings was left alone to care for their three children-which led her to file for divorce. Yes, it’s a long story, he married again two more times and fathered a total of 8 children with four different women. I know he sent money ‘home’ when he could, but the fact is (with one brief exception) he wasn’t there for his families very much at all.

This situation for women in music parallels life in many cultures around the world. However, I do think that female musicians and recording artists faced some of the greatest difficulties. While it has been done, it’s hard to drag a kid(s) around while you sleep in a car or if you’re lucky, on a tour bus or hotel, playing 200 plus gigs a year. Many women in music have had children and the struggles they had are not well known in most cases. It was pretty much a secret for 20 plus years that Joni Mitchell had given her daughter up for adoption. Mitchell at a young age, with her career not fully developed and with the father refusing to marry her felt she had little choice. Aretha Franklin had her first of four sons from four fathers at age 12, and each time the responsibility of raising the child fell to her, fortunately she had family support and later the financial ability to help care for them.

I suppose an adequate female comparison to Guthrie (though her career peak would come several years after his), is Joan Baez. Like Guthrie, Baez was a Folk music icon and a prominent social activist. Joan’s family life wasn’t always easy. She did have one child, Gabriel Harris, whose father was in jail when he was born. David Harris is a notable activist known for refusing to be drafted during the Vietnam war and served time in prison for the privilege. Shortly after his release he and Joan split up and he soon left for New York while she remained in California. This left Joan a single mother, and like Aretha Franklin (yet unlike the majority) she was in a strong financial position and chose to send her son to the same private school she had attended. I suppose what I am trying to point out is that in almost all cases the responsibility for the fate of the children lies with the mother. If you are in the music business, it’s tough enough to make it as it is. In these examples the women persevered and made a successful career in music, and like many they also had their struggles.

Once again, I offer an observation, while some women managed to be able continue their music career there are many more who could not. In large part because of family responsibilities, they had to give up their public pursuit as a singer and/or musician. The same cannot be said for their male counterparts. Hey, I am not saying that men did not have struggles, nor am implying they did not work hard at their craft, but the numbers speak for themselves, there are fewer women artists for a reason. The women that make it face an industry that is inherently biased. Not to mention the challenges faced by women of colour, which are not as well documented, but the stories are there if you look for them. I have mentioned many of these talented women in past posts representing various genre. Some were all but forgotten like Elizabeth Cotten or Memphis Minnie and many were recognized too late for them to have some degree of financial success such as Big Mama Thornton. Nina Simone had a bit of a financial boost later in her career, but I would argue she was and still is under appreciated. And yes, the music industry is a fickle thing and styles and tastes come and go and with them the careers of many artists.

All this rambling aside, what drives the music business is money and that comes from sales. I don’t for one minute understand K-Pop, but I do understand that if you take the top selling group BTS, described as a “Boy Band” their sales are higher than the top ten “Girl Groups” combined. So if your a record company, while you can make money from a female group where are you investing your R&D dollars? This pattern is repeated in most every other genre of music. Morgan Wallen, the Country singer caught using a racial slur among other controversies is the top selling Country singer so far in 2021, and there are only two female Country artists in the top 20. According to HipHopDX the top 10 songs in that genre all come from male performers. Pop music see’s women fair much better with four out of the top ten, but Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift are still topped by The Weeknd and Justin Bieber. A cursory search leads me to believe the up and coming artists are predominantly not males, again sales will be the final arbiter for Pop music.

First, the answer to the Jeopardy clue! Who was Mendelssohn. The famous German composer Felix Mendelssohn had an older sister. It appears Fanny was every bit as talented a composer and pianist. Not to take away from their talent, but it should be noted the Mendelssohn family was quite wealthy and the children were afforded the best education. In the early 1800’s it was not considered proper for a ‘lady’ to be employed, let alone as a musician, still she often played and wrote music, just not for money like her brother. She was not alone, Clara Schumann and Louise Farrenc also faced similar prejudices. Almost all of Fanny’s works were published under Felix’s name, however they have since been corrected.

Now I was only able to find two references to this, but it’s a great story. Beginning in 1829 Felix often visited England and had many meetings and an eventual friendship with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (who was a capable pianist). The Queen told him of her favorite piece (accounts vary on which song) of his and wanted to sing it for him (apparently, she had a lovely voice). Later, he had to confess the composition was by his sister Fanny. I should also mention the words to the Mendelssohn compositions were often written by a lyricist.

Being Canadian, I have talked about many of the more prominent of our artists, and I confess complete ignorance about some of the younger talent such as Alessia Cara, Grimes, Allie X or Backxwash! Particularly from genres that I don’t generally listen too, is pre-1985 a genre? Anyway, outside of my own country I have also talked about so many great artists, these next names I have only mentioned briefly (if at all) in past posts.

Anne Murray

This Icelandic born pop superstar has had a long and varied career. She is an actor, artist and can compose orchestral pieces and movie soundtracks. Her personal life includes being a childhood prodigy and recording artist at age 11, to having two children from different relationships, a letter bomb being sent to her by a suicidal obsessed fan and confrontations with paparazzi.  Her top songs include Hyperballad (1995) and Jóga (1997).

I haven’t made much mention of the so dubbed Goddess of Pop and it’s hard to sum up this California born singer and actor in just a few sentences. From her start in Sonny and Cher in 1965 she was one of the top selling artists with I Got You Babe selling over 40 million copies. The TV show The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour had 30 million viewers a week. She has sold over 100 million records, she’s won an acting Oscar, four Billboard Awards, three Golden Globes, and dozens more yet surprisingly, only one Grammy Award, for Best Dance Recording in 2000. She’s had more musical comebacks that any singer I know of and the only one to have hit songs in five consecutive decades. Her personal life is too complicated to explain in even one book. Here is her cover of the hit song for Betty Everett (also a cover) from 1964, The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss). Not all of her albums were commercially successful and she took breaks from music to focus on acting. She is the model of perseverance. After a roller coaster ride of up and down albums, in 1989 she had worldwide smash hit with the nineteenth of her 26 studio albums, the single If I Could Turn Back Time was written for Cher by the great songwriter Diane Warren.

Anne Briggs

Unless you are a fan of the British Folk revival circa 1960’s and 70’s you have not likely heard of Anne Briggs. I really only ran across her by accident as her music happens to connect with so many of the more well known artists from this scene such as Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, The Dubliners, Pentangle and Linda and Richard Thompson. Richard’s song Beeswing, and more recently his book was inspired by Anne Briggs. Not one for the spotlight but she was a gifted musician and singer. She had an affinity for the traditional songs of England, Ireland and Scotland. She dropped out of the music scene and moved to Scotland, another example of a women having to give up her career to raise a child, but there were other reasons as well. I mention Bert Jansch as I became a fan through my love of fingerstyle guitar. I ran across this story; apparently it was Anne Briggs that taught Bert the Traditional English Folk song Down by Blackwaterside.  Origins of the song have been traced to the River Blackwater (also known as Ulster Blackwater) in Northern Ireland. He would write his own arrangement and recorded the song as Black Waterside in 1966. Jimmy Page would claim this arrangement and take full writing credit for the Led Zeppelin song Black Mountain Side released in 1969. I’m losing track of the number of times I have mentioned Led Zeppelin stealing songs, lines and arrangements but trust me when I say, they are more examples to come.

Ani Difranco

While I have just a few of her songs I previously cited her cover of Wishin’ and Hopin’, originally recorded by Dionne Warwick in 1963. Ani DiFranco recorded it for the film ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ in 1997. She’s dabled in Indie Folk, Folk Rock, Punk and alt Rock just to name a few genres. This native of Buffalo New York is nothing short of ambitious, busking Beatles songs at age 9 she was writing her own songs by age 14 and started a  record company at age 19.  Nominated several times she won a Grammy in 2004 for Best Recording Package for her album Evolve. Not one to mince words or profanity here is Untouchable Face (1996).

Lucinda Williams

Rosanne Cash

Norah Jones

Image: 1

If you like my blog, please consider emailing me directly at randydafoe@gmail.com if you want me to send it directly to your in-box. The follow by email link at the top right hand of the page will soon be removed as I will not longer be able to auto-send my new posts. Confidentiality is assured unless you are a close friend or family member then all bets are off. While I can compile data from my blog it’s not tracking in terms of anyone’s identity.  Pass it along to a friend who might enjoy it as well or post it to your timeline on FB. And many thanks as always for reading my blog!

For past blog posts click on the menu at the top right corner.

Edited by Richelle Dafoe