Women Who Rock: The Lives and Music From Bessie To Beyoncé

Women Who Rock: Bessie to Beyoncé. Girl Groups to Riot Grrrl. was edited by Evelyn McDonnell, Associate Professor of Journalism and New Media and Director of Journalism at Loyola Marymount University in Playa Vista. PalacioMagzine.com asked Melina Paris, Assistant Editor and Arts and Culture Reporter with San Pedro’s Random Lengths to guest host an interview with McDonnell about the women of color in the book and their roles in shaping the music of America.

PalacioMagazine.com guest host Melina Paris sat down with Evelyn McDonnell for a far-ranging conversation about women like Bessie Smith, Celia Cruz, Nina Simone, Tina Turner, and Beyoncé and how their lives and music are more connected than we may realize.

Women Who Rock: Lessons Learned

When Antonio Ruiz asked me to guest host his podcast the first person I thought to bring into the conversation was Evelyn McDonnell, the editor of Women Who Rock. In the spring, I wrote a feature story on the timely and pivotal book and got to know McDonnell who is also the director of the Loyola Marymount University journalism program. McDonnell has devoted her career to the topic of female musicians and has enough knowledge to write a thesis on the subject. It’s not so much her knowledge as it is her passion. The editor of Women Who Rock has been writing about musicians since she was in high school and reading Rolling Stone and Cream magazines.

(Images courtesy of Black Dog & Leventhal | Running Press)

Women Who Rock came to fruition during the 2016 presidential election and was published the week of the hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. On the cusp of possibly electing the first female president, the book went from being timely to being necessary.

During my conversation with McDonnell, I learned yet a few more things about gender parity in the music industry; for example, Country radio is still not playing women artists. Also, an awareness has surfaced, in part due to Women Who Rock essayist Liz Pelly, of the “ghettoization of women” in streaming services. McDonnell said women have been woefully underrepresented and some of the algorithms on Spotify have been unfair to women. Female musicians must again stake out their importance.

Janelle Monáe’s song Pynk came out a few months before Women Who Rock was published. The book cover is shocking pynk with a ‘y’. To McDonnell, the word pynk harkens back to 1970s feminism and the women’s music movement, the women’s movement, and taking ‘men’ out of women and replacing it with ‘y’. Author, Mary Daly, in her book, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, asserts that men throughout history have sought to oppress women and she focuses on the actual practices that perpetuate patriarchy – which Daly calls a religion.

This is all an interesting nod to an earlier generation and from Bessie to Beyoncé, Women Who Rock shows the lineage of female musicians. McDonnell says, “We don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. The narrative of a female artist as a “lone wolf breaking through” is a disempowering idea. There are women who have laid the ground for every artist happening today.”

McDonnell posits that we are at a spot of possibility with women in music. The internet has enabled musicians to “run end runs” around the music industry. Artists don’t have to go through that system. Women have more options than to be relegated to battling the patriarchy. Female musicians have dominated the music industry but they’ve done so with a clear sense of who they are and what they’re up against. The future is bright.

More on the Author

“Associate Professor of Journalism Evelyn McDonnell is an expert on music, gender, and politics. She has written or co-edited six books, from Women Write about Rock, Pop, and Rap to Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways. [McDonnell] is also the series editor for Music Matters, a collection of short books about musicians. A longtime journalist, she has been a pop culture writer at The Miami Herald and a senior editor at The Village Voice. Her writing on music, poetry, theater, and culture has appeared in publications and anthologies including The New York Times, the Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Ms., Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Review of Books, Travel & Leisure, Billboard, Interview, and Option. She teaches students how to write and make noise at Loyola Marymount University, where she directs the journalism program.” Loyola Marymount University

You can also read Evelyn McDonnell’s blog at www.populismblog.wordpress.com

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