HEAVY METAL GIRL POWERBy Susan Graham

ORIGINS - THE FIRST WOMEN OF ROCK

Until the 1980s few women claimed the rock and roll stage and only a handful recorded memorable albums. Janis Joplin, perhaps still the reigning queen of rock, had one of the most exciting—and most tragic—careers in rock. As the raspy-toned lead singer for Big Brother and The Holding Company, and later as a solo artist, Joplin delivered legendary rock classics such as "Piece of My Heart," "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)," "Move Over," and "Summertime."

Grace Slick, a singer-songwriter and classically trained musician, helped launch the band Jefferson Airplane to commercial success with such hits as "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit." With Slick's good looks and dynamic stage presence, the band earned international exposure and, by 1967, had become one of the highest-paid rock groups in America.

In the 1970s, vocalist and songwriter Stevie Nicks gave the group Fleetwood Mac its signature sound, transforming it from an average band to one of the biggest selling rock groups in history.

But few other women left their mark in the 1960s and 1970s, during the early, formative years of rock's development. Does the history of rock, then, really depend on female contributions? Would the story of rock and roll look so different had women rockers, like Joplin, Slick, and Nicks, never graced the stage, or female rock musicians never picked up an instrument? Does a musical phenomenon recognized by its fans as brash, ballsy, and masculine have a prominent place for women—for both the rough and the softer sides?

"ROCK 'N' ROLL IS HARD WORK"• The answers to these questions aren't as simple as they might seem. In

fact it's difficult to determine just how crucial women have been in the development of rock and roll, and it's certainly impossible to know what the music would sound—and look—like had women never become involved as either singers, songwriters, musicians, or fans. Women, of course, have filled all these roles and asserted themselves in various and complex ways in rock and roll culture. All along the way they have negotiated obstacles, such as sexual aggression, exploitation, unfair pay, condescension, and exclusion. And they've also risen to the many challenges facing any performing musician, fighting to win over bandmates, audiences, and critics. "Rock 'n' roll is hard work," punk-rock singer Patti Smith explained in an interview in 1977, "it's harder than being in the army. And your guitar is your machine gun; tour instruments are your implements of battle."

SLICK – STRUGGLE BEING ROCK ICON

• Grace Slick also struggled to define herself in the 1960s, a period she called the "sensual revolution." A middle-class, college-educated model from Chicago, Slick transformed herself in San Francisco's world of sex, drugs, and psychedelic rock. But unlike Joplin, who often felt crushed by her chaotic lifestyle, Slick was along for the ride, and she was unwilling to let anything or anyone ruin her fun. "It wasn't like peace and love kinda stuff," Slick remembered, "it was, Let's make music and screw around instead of making war. To a certain extent it was pretty arrogant and it was also the hedonism thing that said, If you get in the way of my fun, f--- you."

• Jefferson Airplane's first album featuring Slick, entitled Surrealistic Pillow, hit the charts in 1967 and made the band a "Summer of Love" sensation. By the mid 1970s, however, Slick had left the band for another group, Jefferson Starship. She and Starship managed to rack up several Top Ten hits in the 1980s, most notably "Sara" and "We Built This City (On Rock 'N' Roll)" (which, incidentally, would become a karaoke favorite and, for many rock fans, the bane of their existence). Slick managed to survive what Joplin had found to be the physically and psychologically destructiveness of rebellion, sexual experimentation, and drug abuse. She also managed to maintain a sense of herself as a woman without allowing that to destroy her. She was one of the lucky ones.

FAMILIAR BOUNDARIES• Women, especially in the first decades of rock's development, were

pressured to stay "in their place" much the way post-World War II middle-class housewives were confined to traditional roles in the home. That's quite odd for a music culture that emerged as a reaction to the rigid boundaries of the 1950s! "Despite its radical beginnings," writer Lucy O'Brien comments, "the codes of mainstream rock are maybe too conservative, too rigorously male-defined for a woman to find a comfortable place."

PAYING DUES AND BREAKING THROUGH

• The fact is rock and roll has never been an exclusively male venture. In the beginning it may have seemed that way, but with each decade more women, inspired by those who rocked early and often, such as Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Patti Smith, Grace Slick, Joan Jett, and Stevie Nicks, took up the pen, or the mic, the guitar, or the drumsticks, and little by little rock and roll gained its feminine perspective. "I'm glad there's a lot of babes doing this s---," Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of the Pretenders, told Rolling Stone magazine in 1994, "because it's kind of lonely out there." Throughout the end of the twentieth century, rock—like the blues and jazz before it, and hip-hop and reggae/dancehall after it—remained a male-dominated genre of music, but women emerged as an undeniable and powerful force in the studio and on the stage.

PIONEERS - DRUMMERSSandy West - singer, songwriter and drummer and founding member of the pioneering Hard

Rock All Girl Band The Runaways. Driven by her ambition to play professionally,

she sought out fellow musicians and other industry contacts in southern California with the

idea of forming an all-girl rock band. West, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005 which later spread to her brain, West succumbed to Lung/Brain Cancer and passed away on October 21, 2006 at age

47.

PIONEERS – DRUMMERS

Roxy Petrucci is a drummer Vixen. he and fellow Vixen and bandmate Janet Gardner were born on the same date.

Roxy helped contribute to Vixen including adding her Maxine to the mix in the late

1990’s. Roxy rejoined Vixen in 2013.

PIONEERS - DRUMMERSDenise Dufort – drummer of Girlschool, the world’s

longest running All Girl Heavy Metal band.Dufort is the third still active founding member of Girlschool. Before joining, she had played in a few

punk bandsand had become a fan of Painted Lady, the cover band formed by Kim McAuliffe and Enid

Williams in their school days. She is the sister of British drummer Dave Dufort, drummer in the

NWOBHM band Angel Witch. Denise Dufort has always been present in every formation of the band and had

a long relationship with Girlschool’s road manager Tim Warhurst. When working with Girlschool, she also

played with the post-punk band Au Pairs. She manages web communications for the band.

PIONEERS - GUITARNancy Lamoureaux Wilson – longtime member of Heart on

guitar and various instruments.She and her older sister Ann are the core of the rock band

Heart.After signing with Capitol Records in 1985 but only if they

agreed to record songs written by others, or if they co-write with "hit factory" songwriters. They reluctantly agreed.

Capitol also brought in Ron Nevison as producer. One of the first things he wanted was to lose the acoustic guitar, and

Nancy agreed.Nancy gained her 1st #1 hit as lead singer of the song

"These Dreams“ in 1986.Over the years Nancy has been a huge inspiration for girls

across America picking up the guitar and playing it.

PIONEERS - GUITARKelly Johnson founding member and guitarist of Girlschool the longest all girl band in

the planet. Johnson started playing piano after her father when five years old and switched to

guitar at twelve then he attended Edmonton County School in Edmonton, which is in North London, and part of the London Borough of Enfield, where she discovered rock music and played bass and piano in school bands. She went back to guitar and was already writing and playing her own material when she met her future bandmates at the age of 19. After her first encounter with Kim McAuliffe and Enid Williams in April 1978, she was immediately accepted in the ranks of the new band formed from the

ashes of the group Painted Lady, which took the name of Girlschool.Johnson was a songwriter, playing lead guitar and singing both lead and backing

vocals on the group's first four albums. She provided both a strong visual focus for the band with her tall figure and blonde hair and an excellent musical contribution

with her trenchant guitar playing. The eminent rock guitarist Jeff Beck was quoted as saying he "couldn't believe it was a girl playing", a remark described by the DJ John

Peel as the most sexist comment he had ever heard. On the other hand, Lemmy Kilmister, the leader of Motörhead, declared about Kelly Johnson that "the nights

that she was really on, she was as good as Jeff Beck".Sadly in the late 1990’s Johnson was diagnosed with Spine Cancer.

After 6 years in the battle Kelly Johnson succumbs to Spine Cancer and passed away on Sunday 15 July 2007, aged 49

Johnson’s death was the inspiration for Girlschool’s 2008 Album legacy commerating 30 years in the Heavy Metal circuit.

PIONEERS - GUITARJanice Lynn "Jan" Kuehnemund the founding member and lead guitarist for Glam

Metal Band Vixen. in St. Paul, Minnesota, Kuehnemund formed Vixen in St. Paul in 1973 while still in high school. She moved the band, along with singer Janet Gardner, to Los Angeles in 1981. Then 3 years later Vixen then as a quintet gained notice by appearing in

the 1984 teen film Hardbodies under the on-screen name Diaper Rash.By early 1986 Jan added Roxy Petrucci on drums and Share Pedersen on bass, the lineup that signed to EMI Records. They released their self-titled debut, Vixen, in

1988. The group's most well-known lineup did reunite in 2004 to perform for VH1's

Bands Reunited. After nearly 10 years since the 1st reunion Jan was planning to reunite the classic Vixen line-up with Janet Gardner, Share Pedersen, and Roxy Petrucci, who had since reunited in JSRG with guitarist Gina Stile. However, in

January 2013, just days before they were about to make the official announcement of their reunion, Kuehnemund was diagnosed with cancer. The

cancer diagnosis forced them to delay the announcement indefinitely, until possibly when Kuehnemund was fully recovered and cancer-free. Unfortunately, the plans of a full-fledged reunion became impossible because on October 10,

2013, after nine months battling cancer, Jan Kuehnemund died at the age of 51. JRSG changed their name back to Vixen in accordance with the wishes of

founding member and guitarist Jan Kuehnemund who was unable to be part of the reformed band due to her battle with cancer and death and carry on the legacy

with her blessings.

PIONEERS – LEAD SINGERSAnn Wilson the lead singer of Heart also flute player.

Shy because of a stutter, Wilson sought fulfillment in music. In the early 1970s she joined a local band, White Heart,

which changed its name to Hocus Pocus, and then in 1974, to Heart.

Regarded as one of the best female vocalists in rock music history, Wilson was listed as one of the "Top Heavy Metal Vocalists of All Time" by Hit Parader magazine in 2006.As a child, Wilson was bullied for being overweight. She revealed that in the 1970s and into the early 1980s she would starve herself to stay thin. When Heart made a

comeback in the mid-1980s, Wilson had gained significant weight. Fearing it would compromise the band's image, record company executives and band members began pressuring her to lose weight. In music videos, camera

angles and clothes were often used to minimize her size, and more focus was put on her svelte sister Nancy. Ann stated

she began suffering from stress-related panic attacks due to the negative publicity surrounding her obesity. She

underwent a weight-loss surgery called "adjustable gastric band" in January 2002

In the band's 2012 autobiography, Wilson revealed her past struggles with cocaine and alcoholism. She stated she has

been sober since 2009With a vocal range of Soprano Wilson belts out a powerful

signature sound making Heart legendary.

PIONEERS - SINGERS

Janet Gardner (born Janet Patricia Gardner) is best-known as the lead singer also the rhythm guitarist of the all-woman hard rock band Vixen.Her parents were of the Mormon faith. Janet was the only girl in a family

with four brothers. She sang in school choirs and learned to play piano and guitar.

Janet joined the band's early lineup in 1982. In 1984, the band appeared in the movie Hardbodies before moving to Los Angeles to further their career.After some initial changes, the primary lineup of Vixen consisted of Janet,

Jan Kuehnemund, Roxy Petrucci, and Share Pedersen. Vixen signed with EMI and recorded their self-titled debut album which was released in September

1988. Gardner described the pressure of recording as, "We were just girls from Minnesota and Montana who loved playing live, so it was a bit of a

rude awakening.“the 3 surviving classic line-up members of the band decided to carry on

under the Vixen name in honor of late guitarist Jan Kuehnemund who passed away from cancer in October 2013.

NEW PIONEERS

Marcela Alejandra Bovio García (born October 17,

1979) known professionally as Marcela Bovio is the lead Singer of Stream of Passion

The Dutch/Mexican progressive metal band with symphonic, Latin and gothic influences founded by her

and guitarist Arjen Anthony Lucassen.

Stream of Passion is currently touring to support their 4th

Album.

NEW PIONEERS

Kittie (stylized as KiTTiE) is an all-female Canadian alternative metal band formed in London, Ontario in

1996. Kittie rose to fame in 1999 following the release of the single "Brackish" from their gold-rated debut album Spit. Kittie's biggest selling album was 1999's "Spit" which sold 1,250,000

copies worldwide. The band had a string of MTV2, MTV and Fuse

Network music video hits which included, "Brackish", "Charlotte", "What I Always Wanted",

"Into The Darkness", "Cut Throat", "Sorrow I Know" and "Empires (Part II)". American Active Rock radio

hits (all which charted within the Top 50 of the Radio & Records Active Rock chart) include

"Brackish", "Charlotte", "What I Always Wanted", "Into The Darkness" and their biggest US hit single

"Funeral For Yesterday".The current line up is the 2005–2007 and 2012 -

present of

Morgan Lander – lead vocals, guitarMercedes Lander – drums, vocals, piano

Tara McLeod – guitarTrish Doan – bass guitar

NEW PIONEERSOrianthi Panagaris known

professionally as Orianthi was the lead guitarist for Country

Goddess Carrie Underwood, The King of Pop the late great Michael Jackson and most recently Alice

Cooper the Shock Rock King himself.

Orianthi also has a solo career releasing Believe her debut

album recorded for a major label in 2009.

Orianthi was named one of the 12 Greatest Female Electric

Guitarists by Elle magazine. She also won the award as

"Breakthrough Guitarist of the Year" 2010 by Guitar International

magazine.