Lesbian Folk From the 70s s/d

i was about to mention cris williamson.

this is a good album. even devendra likes it:

http://www.thearchipelago.net/catalog/mvstont0001th.jpg

this is a good album too:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002GBH.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

so is this:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000002GCO.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Anne Murray is totally straight!

(Altho she did teach high school phys-ed before becoming a singer.)

Calling it "folk" may be a stretch, but still...
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf400/f474/f47464r9k0d.jpg

http://www.printcenter.org/ExhibitsPics/Dolly%20Parton%201972.jpg

I was raised in a lesbian household - I can sing all the words to lots of Chris Williamson, Ferron, Holly Near. Chris Williamson rules. And there are songs I still know (and sing to my children) but I don't remember who sang them anymore.

Phoebe Snow.

Margie Adam.

the college town record stores I worked in 1978-80 had a separate section for lesbian folk or "womyn's music" as one store manager sarcastically labelled it. Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Holly Near were the big sellers. There was 1 record label that specialized in this, nearly had a monopoly on the genre uh....Olivia Records IIRC?

Theresa Trull. Barbara Higby.

Yeah, Olivia Records, definitely. Based in the Northwest, I think? And I'd forgotten Meg Christian (who, as with Williamson and Near, I don't know if I've ever actually heard any music by, but whose LPs were certainly ubiquitous then in the womyn's bins.)

Wasn't there also an annual Michican Womyn's Festival in the upper part of the lower peninsula, at least into the '80s? Am I wrong in remembering that Tracy Chapman got her start in that scene too?

womyn's music" as one store manager sarcastically labelled it

Wait, wasn't that what it called itself, usually? In retrospect, it seems like a euphemism, but I don't remember any record store bins that actually said "lesbian folk," per se'.

http://camptrans.squarespace.com/short-history-of-camp-trans/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_music

Also just found this curious historical tidbit:

Timeline of transsexual history:

1992 - Jean Burkholter is ejected from the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival by transphobic festival organizers.

I was at the 1974 Womansphere concert. Actually, my mom designed t-shirts for it. Chris Williamson called me up to the front to keep the beat with my cowboy boots. I was 7.

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=cris+williamson

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=ferron

Second/blue edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide calls Holly Near "a force field more than an artist per se'" (hence: like Ani Difranco later maybe?), and gives Imagine My Surprise from '78 and Fire In The Rain from '81 (which "takes some brave new steps into jazz") the best scores, three stars out of a possible five.

Meg, Cris, and Ferron are left out of both of the first two editins of the guide. But here is Dave Marsh a few years later, in his '85 Rock and Roll Confidential Report book, re Cyndi Lauper (who, two decades later, is on the gay-themed True Colors tour, though Marsh wouldn't know that at the time):

"Ultimately, this kind of activity is vastly more productive than the sectarian agitprop--feminist songs by and for feminists, labor songs for workingmen--promoted by the sectarian left. Cyndi Lauper bridged a void that the separatists of Olivia Records will never have the nerve to gaze into."

Later in the book, jeez:

"In the first place, few people of any gender want to hear the tuneless, didactic folk-style records that Olivia releases. But much more importantly, the Olivia concept of 'women's music,' based upon women isolating themselves from men (e.g.--holding for-women-only concerts) appeals only to a tiny handful of social hermits."

Later in the book still:

"There is nothing in so-called women's music, from Helen Reddy's 'I Am Woman' to the antimale drivel of the Olivia Records axis, that approaches the impact of [Donna Summer's 'She Works Hard For the Money'] video."

I'm not necessarily convinced he's wrong, actually, but he seems unusually obsessed with the topic!

I've never heard this band either:

http://robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=deadly+nightshade

Kate Wolf. I don't know or care if she was a lesbian, but she was somewhat affiliated and quite popular with the scene, a mentor to Williamson and hero to Near and Ferron, and better than everybody on this list (not counting Dolly).

Though Armatrading is close. Her records hold up for me, but her new blues album is pretty uneven.

I once called Cris Williamson's The Changer and The Changed "the Sgt. Pepper of lesbian folk music." Not in sound, of course; strictly in terms of canonicity. It even had a 30th Anniversary edition. How many lesbian folk albums from the 1970s received that kind of treatment? Still, my lesbian former roommate balked. "Then WHAT is the Sgt. Pepper of lesbian folk music?" I asked. I guess she thought the question itself was a male (rock? pop??) imposition on the genre. Maybe she's right. But that might tell you something about the politics first-very bad music second aspect of gay & lesbian music as a genre overall. In short, destroy!

If you're seriously interested, try The Changer and The Changed. If you dig it, Gawd help you but try the other names mentioned here.

Oh and I'm not sure if the Olivia Records group BeBe K'Roche were lesbians. But Unkle samples (and scratches) their "Alone" to GREAT effect on "Bloodstain" from the Psyence Fiction album.

womyn's music" as one store manager sarcastically labelled it

Wait, wasn't that what it called itself, usually? In retrospect, it seems like a euphemism, but I don't remember any record store bins that actually said "lesbian folk," per se'.

Yes, "womyn" is a feminist spelling of "women." Notice the absence of "men" in the word.

duh

i keep meaning to buy this:

http://www.criswilliamson.com/store/images/lumiere.jpg

they have a copy at the record store here, but i always forget to get it. just cuz i don't think i've ever heard a lesbian sci-fi concept album before.

I'm not necessarily convinced he's wrong, actually, but he seems unusually obsessed with the topic!

Never thought I'd say this but I agree with Marsh 1000% here.

Some other factoids gathered in a totally unbiased spirit at random:

In 1973, the Olivia collective put out a 45 with Meg Christian on one side and Cris Williamson on the other. Yoko Ono responded and said that she wanted to do a side project with Olivia, but the collective lovingly declined.

In 2007, Williamson's camp issued a cease-and-desist to record label Stones Throw and music group Jaylib, for using an unauthorized sample of her song "Shine On, Straight Arrow".[citation needed]

In 1977, at the height of the Right Wing / Anita Bryant anti-gay rights backlash, the lesbian feminist separatist movement was busy attacking an even smaller community that only wanted to work within the lesbian community, lesbian identified transsexual women. Central to the conflict in ‘77 was transsexual recording engineer, Sandy Stone, working at Olivia Records. Two years later Janice Raymond in The Transsexual Empire, (1979, 1994) wrote of the events, casting Ms. Stone as an agent of the “Patriarchy” and “devisive”. The actual events were that Sandy Stone was a recording engineer for A&M Records before transition. Olivia Records needed a recording engineer with skills and experience to help their fledgling all women’s recording studio. They found it in Sandy Stone. She recorded a number of their early albums, training other women on proper recording and mixing technique. When word got around that Olivia had a transsexual in the company, lesbian separatists threatened a boycott of Olivia products and concerts. Olivia Records was on the edge of profitability. A boycott would destroy them. Olivia supported Stone at first but eventually crumpled beneath the the separatists demands, asking for Sandy’s resignation.

xp By the way, can I just say Maria's story from 1974 when she was seven is awesome? Well, it is awesome.

a lesbian sci-fi concept album

mars needs women

mars needs womyn?

duh

Well, then, why did you think that one store manager used the label "womyn's music" sarcastically if you knew what the term meant?

not folk, but a good album anyway:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s11469.jpg

http://www.queermusicheritage.us/SEP2005/MUSICA/musica1c.jpg

i have this album. it's pretty rad:

http://www.fmgvinyl.com/images/gold/moving.gif

http://www.spin.com/features/band_of_the_day/images/2005/03/050329_chicago_wlrb.jpg

i've seen that one before! wish i had bought it. the only explicitly lesbian record we have is linda shear a lesbian portrait. i don't remember it at all.

now i'm going to tease my wife about how much she looks like the leftmost CWLRB member. right down to the long hair and plaid pants.

That picture reminds me of Tetes Noires (who I actually reviewed favorably for the Voice in the early '80s -- one of my very first reviews there), for some reason. Not sure if they were lesbians or not, but they were definitely from Minnesota.

why did you think that one store manager used the label "womyn's music" sarcastically if you knew what the term meant?

because he thought the neologism "womyn" was ridiculous. also he had a sense of humor, a quality you apparently lack. see also: irony.

Phranc is pretty good.

http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=phranc

Joan Armatrading and Laura Nyro transcend this category, I'd say.

there was a great lesbian postpunk band in NYC called The Bloods. well I don't know if they were all gay but lead singer Adele Bertei was.

Lesbian Gang Epidemic

Given that xhuxk had the same response to your comment, perhaps you need to explain yourself more clearly.

fuck off back to your creepy porno blog mr. male feminist

I love you.

Casse Culver's 3 Gypsies looks fun. Check out the cover here:

http://item.express.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ExpressItem&item=4861595140&FROM_MERCHANDISING=1&tr=merch:cvi

every left-wing activist type who was around chicago in the 1970s has to own a few holly near LPs. my mom now admits they are all but unlistenable.

did not know laura nyro was gay, but it makes sense. her album with labelle is a miracle.