Girls Rock!: Fifty Years of Women Making Music

Front Cover
University Press of Kentucky, Jul 23, 2004 - Music - 272 pages

With a foreword by Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards

Girls Rock! explores the many ways women have defined themselves as rock musicians in an industry once dominated and controlled by men. Integrating history, feminist analysis, and developmental theory, the authors describe how and why women have become rock musicians -- what inspires them to play and perform, how they write, what their music means to them, and what they hope their music means to listeners. As these musicians tell their stories, topics emerge that illuminate broader trends in rock's history. From Wanda Jackson's revolutionary act of picking up a guitar to the current success of independent artists such as Ani DiFranco, Girls Rock! examines the shared threads of these performers' lives and the evolution of women's roles in rock music since its beginnings in the 1950s. This provocative investigation of women in rock is based on numerous interviews with a broad spectrum of women performers -- those who have achieved fame and those just starting bands, those playing at local coffeehouses and those selling out huge arenas. Girls Rock! celebrates what female musicians have to teach about their experiences as women, artists, and rock musicians.

From inside the book

Contents

Girls with Guitars
1
Sex Race and Rock n Roll
21
The Singer and the Song
42
Copyright

8 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2004)

Susan M. Shaw is associate professor of women's studies at Oregon State University. She is the author or coauthor of several books, including Girls Rock! Fifty Years of Women Making Music.

Bibliographic information