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Nicola Benedetti |
When I
decided to write this blog and I started to go through my
photos of women musicians, I felt quite emotional about these wonderful artists
- over the incredible gigs they have performed and the insightful songs they
have written. Women have powerful voices. Women are often the heart of any home
and strong families matter. When women are not respected countries and
societies are the weaker for it.
Recently
we have witnessed in the UK the huge success of several female singer songwriters
– Adele, Emeli Sande, Laura Marling and several others. I have been fortuate to follow Emeli's career since 2007 and i never imagined that I would see her sing at the London Olympic Games one day!
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Laura Marling |
I have noted
that female rock bands have come over from America - Warpaint, Haim, The Bangles
and others - and there are few female rock bands here in the UK.
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Haim |
I was
surprised to learn recently that women's numbers generally in music though are
very small. I was pretty surprised to
learn some of the statistics - a PRS (Publishing Rights Society) statistic
showed that only 14% of its members were
female. Other statistics - BBC Proms -
4% women,
BBC
Introducing compilations CD - women have 7 tracks out of 32 tracks.
In February 2015 singer songwriter Beth Orton looked at the lack of women generally in
the world of music and the ways women might deal with the challenges today in
the music biz with an event in Manchester.
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Emeli Sande |
|
Julie Fowlis |
Certainly the
Grammy's and Brits are testament to this - where women are viewed as 'youthful decoration.'
Some women of course play along to this stereotype in ridiculous revealing
outfits. Another issue is that women are
not allowed to age (??) Yet look at the
strong older women in the film industry and the positive image and role models
they create - Meryl Streep, Oprah Winfry, Helen Mirren and others.
It is better
in the folk world (and for writers) for women generally speaking - where age is
viewed more as an asset and gender seems irrelevant in the main
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Rab Noakes & Barbara Dickson |
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Cara Dillon |
*Beverly
Martyn (or Bev Kutner)
I also read
the story of Beverly Martyn who co-wrote many of John Martyn's early songs but
received little recognition - John told her not to worry and that she would get
the credits. Bev played piano while they
wrote songs together for the album Solid
Air and John would say that he would ‘credit her on the next song!’ Bev and Martyn recorded three albums
together - Stormbringer, Road to Ruin and Bless the Weather - before John was persuaded by his record label to go solo.
Beverly was then left on the house on the hill to raise their children while
John toured. I wrote about her here – http://www.musicfootnotes.com/2013/06/normal-0-false-false-false.html
There are
also several forgotten women poets.
Orchestra's
have been mostly male - the Viennese Orchestra that plays Strauss for the New
Years Day concert - it was all men until recent times when they have allowed in
a few women musicians.
I read
recently too of *Mrs Bach! In the Age of
Enlightenment (18TH Century) most women would never write under
their own name and so they have been forgotten by history.
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Sara Watkins |
Mrs Bach –
or rather Anna Magdelena – has been now revealed as the author of the cello suites
by forensic musicologist Professor Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin university
in Australia. Anna has been airbrushed from history (much as many women
painters have been) .
The program
claims that she was the composer of the Cello Suites and more perhaps. Magdalena
was a gifted soprano and came from a family of musicians and it is believed was
writing with Johann Sebastian Bach from the age of 12. After her death, Bach's older sons by his
first marriage, had Magdalena air-brushed from the records and no composer Day
books or family portraits have survived. Bach's first biography was written
fifty years after his death. Bach was also blind for much for his life.
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Stevie Nicks |