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September
2006
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My September show features a wonderful interview with Nedra Johnson. But first I visit some prime, and sometimes obscure, women's music of our history.
Robin Flower's music is definitely not an obscure part of our music culture. She's been contributing for over 35 years, starting with singing backups on Maxine Feldman's history first openly lesbian 45, in 1971. Robin's still making great music, lately with her partner Libby McLaren.
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Playlist
(airdate
September 25, 2006)
Artist
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The 1990 cassette
above gave us a hint of the parody fun in store for us when Venus Envy
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In the late 80s
there was a duo called Labrys. I'm sure they got their name because
the labrys is a Click Here for larger images of the albums and liner notes |
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Carol Steinel's
totally out of print but very funny 1991 cassette was called "I'm
Dangerous."
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In addition to doing comedy, Ivy Bottini is long time activist, with work spanning five decades. I encourage you to do an internet search on this amazing woman, but for just a sampling, in 1966 she founded the first chapter of the National Organization of Woman and in 1969 she designed their logo. She founded the first AIDS organization in Los Angeles and has been active in many other community services. There's a theatre in L.A. named after her and last month they had a celebration commerating both the 86th anniversary of Women's Right to Vote and Ivy's 80th birthday. Click Here for large scans of her EP from 1976.
Another artist
who has been at it for decades is Penny Lang. She's considered a Canadian
folk legend |
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Next up is a trio called Rosy's Bar & Grill. They were a Kansas City area group and my Audiofile co-producer, Chris Wilson, tells me that she remembers seeing them at an early West Coast Music Festival, and just loved them. The trio was comprised of Martha Haehl, Carol Smith and Joyce Constant, and while researching this show I googled their names and located Martha, and emailed her. I got a very nice reply that while she left the group in 1980, the other two are still performing under the name Rosy's. She says the band was one-third lesbian and other two were straight but definitely not narrow. Martha has been in several bands since and currently plays in one called Checkered Past. The original group Rosy's Bar & Grill had one release, in 1979. Martha Haehl is shown abobe, holding the fiddle, with her current group Checkered Past. Please Click Here for larger scans of their album.
I'm featuring two versions of the song "Old Woman." The first is by its writer, Michelle Brody, and unfortunately I have no photos of her to share (if you do, please let me know). My original source for the song is the wonderful various artists release from 1980, "Gay and Straight Together." That was produced by Ginni Clemmens and the same year the album was reissued on the mainstream label Folkways. Pass your cursor over the album to see the other release. In 1999 the song was resurrected for another excellent various artists CD. It was a benefit for the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, and featured Chicago-area women on two discs: a more historic disc 1, including Ginni Clemmens, Paula Walowitz, Linda Shear and many others. The "new" disc included Patricia Barber, Ripley Caine, Kimi Hayes, Ellen Rosner, Stewed Tomatoes, Three Dollar Bill, Evil Beaver and many others, reflecting a much more varied sampling of women's music today. Oh, by the time of the "High Risk" CD, the spelling of Brody's first name had changed to Michal.
My other version of "Old Woman" is from 1978 and comes from a very expensive album. I say that because every time I run into it on eBay it goes for big bucks, and I understand the reason is that this is a jazz funk album and music producers like to take samples from the album for their recordings. I'm surprised it's not been put out on CD. The name of the six-member band is Baba Yaga and their album is called "On the Edge." In the photo above the members of Baba Yaga are, left to right, Patti Vincent, Jan Cornall, Kiera O'Hara, Bonnie Kovaleff, Susan Colson and Barbara J. Galloway. My copy of the album came from a radio station, and as an unexpected bonus, included with it were a couple of press kit items from the group, circa 1977. You can see those, the extensive liner and insert notes and a larger scan of the cover if you Click Here.
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Nedra Johnson Now to my very special interview with Nedra Johnson. Nedra's a first rate singer, songwriter and instrumentalist. Her debut album from 1997, "Testify," was nominated for two GLAMA awards, and this past June her followup, just called "Nedra," received the Outmusic Award for Outstanding New Recording Female. |
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Above, two double-shots
of Nedra (pass your cursor over them to see). On the left is her performing
at
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Music
by many of the artists heard on QMH can be found at
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