SEPTEMBER 1980

$1.25

Campus as Think Tank*

er Counselors Can't Tell You#
"ebel College President*

NEW STARS OF
WOMEN'S MUSIC

"HEART"
(The Wilson Sisters)

A
RIS
riLLIAMSON

Plus: Pat Benatar, Carolyne Mas, Toni Brown, "The B-52's"

14015 1425.
 SEPTEMBER/1980
VOLUME IX, No. 3

Letters from Readers

30
45
Body/Mind:
Where Our Future
The Return of
Is Coming From . . .
Horn,eopathy 23
46 by Deborah Lamed News from All Over
Women in the Romano {page 17) Abortion Rights
Think Business
39 Action Alert:
interview with 17
(page 66) Living: First Aid Breast-feeding
Catharine R. Stimpson; More Gothic Fore play-
For the Wives, On the Job—Win One,
66 produced by Judith Rossner's
Sisters, Lovers Lose One;
Pop Music: Ruth Sullivan "Emmeline"
of Vietnam Vets Found Women—
The New Woman Sound by Elizabeth Stone
50 by David Behrens A Reporter
Hits the Charts- Twelve Wise Women: 18 Who Makes Mews
Strong Lyrics, 43
The Scholars Who Timely Goes Trendy—
Poetry: 79
Artistic Control, Will Be Advising Alice Adams's
And Sell-out Crowds Crepes Flambeau The Proper Study of
The Mew "Ms." "Rich Rewards"
by Pamela Brandt by Tess Gallagher Womankind
interviews by Sheila Weller
69 The Majority
by Martha Nelson 20
Stories for Finds Its Past
57 Books in Short: by Judith Papachristou;
Free Children:
The College President The Truth About A Do-It-Yourself
Sometimes Mama and
As Rebel: Tactics for Havelock Ellis— Women's Study Course
Papa Fight
Transforming a And Other Insights by Ellen Sweet;
by Marjorie Weinman
Campus— Frances Into Human Nature Warning: These Pages
Sharmat
"Sissy" Farenthold May Be Banned in
interviewed 85
Your School
by Ellen Sweet Organizing:
by Lisa Cronin Wohl
A New Harvest for
58
Rural Women
Advice Cover photo
by Peggy Thomson
For the First Year by Bob Peterson
by Julia Lieblich 90
Mo Comment
60
98
Advice
To Seniors Feminist Notes:
by Ellen Fairbanks Can Half of America Be
Single-Issue Politics?
62 by Gloria Steinem
"Ms." College Fiction
104
Contest Winner:
Father Me, Back Page:
Father Me Mot Coming This Fall—
The Great TV Sitcom
by Mary Howard
Role Exchange
by Lindsy Van Gelder

2/Ms.iSeplember 1980
 TH
WOMAN SOUND
HITS THE CHARTS

Strong lyrics, artistic control and sell-out crowds...

By Pamela Brandt
It used to be that a "political"
woman in the mainstream popular
music industry was one who went out
with the governor of California. The
guys in rock 'n' roll may organize the
occasional no-nukes benefit, but for
women there's always been an unwrit
ten rule that art and politics (i.e., femi
nism) just don't mix.
it was equally true, until recently,
that a "popular" entertainer in the poli-
tics-centered underground known as
"women's music" was someone
whose songs were never on the ra
dio—and who didn't care to expand
her audience beyond a lesbian-femi
nist subculture.
"Women in music" and "wom
en's music" have traditionally been as
disparate as stiletto heels and Frye
boots. Unlike their mainstream coun
terparts, for instance, musicians in the
underground network (which has its
own recording, distribution, and con
cert production companies, as well as
its own audience) have always enjoyed
complete artistic control. Ho hotshot
producer ever told Olivia's Meg Chris
tian that she played great for a girl, but
John Tropea was going to lay down the
guitar tracks for her on the album. Nor
has she been compelled by almost
unconscious pressures to choose be-

66/Ms./September 1980
tween the labels "feminist" and "artist."
She can enjoy both, and many others
besides.
What musicians in this willfully
ingrown subculture have not enjoyed
is widespread acceptance. In the last
year or so, though, artists and busi-
nessfolk alike from the women's music
circuit have aimed increasingly to
broaden their appeal: opening former
ly "women-only" concerts to men; dis
tributing records through regular
chains like Sam Goody's instead of
solely through women's bookstores
and mail order; and advertising con
certs in the regular music media as well
as grass-roots feminist newssheets.
(Sirani Avedis has even promoted her
album in Rolling Stone, cheerfully bill
ing herself as "Armenian-American
and queer as a three-dollar bill.")
They've also been paying more
attention to studio techniques that will
allow them to compete with main
stream products for radio airplay and a
vastly larger audience. On her third and
most recent album, Willie Tyson of
Lima Bean Records made an unprec
edented move for a "women's music"
artist: she recorded with a male engi
neer and a backup band of the usual
Nashville studio cats to achieve a good
o!' person country and western sound.
Meanwhile, in their last two New York
engagements on the "women's mu
sic" circuit, Sweet Honey in the Rock,
whose distinctive a capella vocalizing
draws on a range of black musical
forms, attracted sell-out standing-
room-only audiences.
On the other side, "women in
music" seem to be more successful in
taking artistic control of their own rec
ords lately. They're also performing
songs that reflect new self-reliance and
self-awareness—songs about relation
ships, even songs about issues. Oh,
there's still some reluctance about be
ing "labeled." Somehow the myth per
sists that being a "feminist" precludes
being an "individualist," or a "human
ist," or an "artist." But resistance is
fading. As Heart's Nancy Wilson ad
mits, "In a pure sense, we are feminists
more than we know."
Heart, "Bebe Le Strange" (Epic Rec
ords/CBS inc.). "Bebe Le Strange" is
Heart's name for a caricatured rock
star like "Johnny B. Goode," only fe
male. It was inspired, says guitarist
Nancy Wilson, by "fan letters from
young girls saying they were starting a
band, or writing rock songs, or learning
guitar because of us." And "us" is the
Wilson sisters, Nancy and Ann, the
creative force behind this established
five-member heavy metalesque group.
The "Heart sound" has always
centered on Ann Wilson's piercing cut-
glass vocals and driving muted-bass-
strings guitar riffs. Though Mike Fisher,
Heart's long-standing lead guitarist,
departed last fall, Ann and rhythm gui
tarist Nancy prove from the first 10
seconds that they can sound just like
the old Heart, and more. Along with the
familiar trademark style, there's an ap
pealing and revealing raw edge, which
Nancy attributes to self-production
(the sisters coproduced with three oth
ers): "It's less sterile; we left little im-
perfections. Our personalities shine
through."
The lyrics are angry, exuberant,
knowing, thankful, horny—nothing po
etically subtle, but nothing subservient
either. From "Break"; "I got no more
respect for the big man/Pulling me
down to what he understands/He can't
get his mind around no bigger plans/
No one is going to tie me to this
machine/ Giving me formula force fed
dreams/Getting more hold on me than
it seems/Take off, break it off/Break."
A very exciting new aspect of
"Bebe Le Strange" is that, for the first
time, the Wilsons have chosen fre
quently to ignore the other band mem
bers and play all the instruments them
selves. On "Sweet Darlin'," Ann
(formerly only a vocalist) plays bass,
drums, alto flute, tambourine, acoustic
guitar, and piano. On "Raised on You,"
it's Nancy's turn; she plays everything
except drums, and also sings lead for a
change. They write the songs, too,
sharing credit with Sue Ennis, an old
school chum who used to "play guitars
in echoey stairwells" with them.
In the last five years, hard-core
fans of the Seattle-based Heart have
tended to be concentrated west of the
Mississippi, and their recordings typi
cally received airplay on FM progres
sive rock stations. Now their audiences
are expanding considerably, and Heart
may even penetrate the Top 40 AM
airwaves in New York this fall. On tour
during this recession summer, Heart
was one of the few bands in the indus
try drawing crowds and making money
in concert,
Come to think of it, the Wilsons
may be rock's first real Renaissance
women.
Cris Williamson, "Strange Paradise"
(Olivia Records, 2662 Harrison Street,
Oakland, California 94612). It's not
easy to sell 100,000 copies of your
album and still not be taken seriously
by most music reviewers or listeners—
especially when punk groups get lion
ized for selling maybe 2,000 or 3,000
copies of their homemade 45. But
that's what happened to Cris William
son with her first Olivia album, "The
Changer and the Changed." Though
she became a "superstar" within the
women's music community, William
son is not satisfied with success that
coutd be dismissed as marginal. "I
want to reflect and belong to the world
at large," she says. "I'm not a separat
ist. 1 am a feminist, but I do not want to
punish others who aren't."
Williamson does concede that her
mellowed-out philosophy would not
go so far as to include the possibility of
recording with a mainstream com
pany, and producers "with gold chains
around their necks. I'm too old for that.
What they could offer me couldn't
come close to what I have now—my
freedom, my life."
Her new album, "Strange Para
dise," has no hit singles that I could
hear, but it is a commercially viable
AOR (album-oriented rock) entry. May
be early 1970s commercial instead of
early 1980s, but maybe not. Lyrically,
the album is certainly no more overtly
"political" (read "uncommercial")
than any of the mainstream records
reviewed here, it is more spacey-sweet
spiritualistic, not to mention cliche-
ridden: ".. . let your sorrows fly/On the
wings of a song/That you've sung your
whole life long" (from "Marcy"); "The
Wheel of Fortune turns/The candle
burns into the night" ("Native Danc
er"). But then, cliche never kept any
one else out of the Top 40.
(continued on page 88)
September 198CVMS./67

THE NEW WOMAN SOUND
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 67
Williamson describes the pro
gression from "Changer" to "Para
dise" as "the difference between a pen-
and-ink drawing and a full watercolor.
'Strange Paradise' is a band album,
and there was more technical experi
mentation." There were also 50 people
listed as involved in the first album's
production, and nine in the second.
What old Williamson fans might
miss this time out: no obvious camp-
fire sing-alongs like "Song of the
Soul"; no country pickin' like "Hurts
like the Devil." What everyone gets
instead: a more professional sound, a
heavier feel (producer June Millington,
ex-Fanny guitarist, plays appealing
lead-foot drums), and Bonnie Raitt
playing slide guitar on one cut ("When
Anger Takes the Wheel"), which Raitt
doesn't even do on her own records
any more.
Carolyne Mas, "Carolyne Mas" and
"Hold On" (Mercury Records). Caro
lyne Mas writes and performs what she
describes as "romantic rock." She has
already been compared to Bruce
Springsteen ad nauseam, butthere's at
least one significant way they differ. He
writes heartfelt fifties-style rock 'n' roll
mini-dramas with an old tough teen
ager's self-awareness; she writes heart
felt fifties-style rock 'n' roll mini-dra
mas with a new tough woman's
awareness.
On her first album, for instance,
there's "Stillsane," about a woman
who paradoxically finds inside her cra-
ziness an inner strength that keeps her
sane. Or "Quote Goodbye Quote": a
woman appalled at a lover's coolly
hypocritical parting. And if the lyrics are
set into a musical framework that's
sometimes less stick-to-the-ribs origi
nal than stick-to-the-eardrums deriva
tive, why complain? You can have a
great time singing remembered
snatches from the Drifters' "On Broad
way" on top of Mas'sclonepiece (musi
cally) to it, "Sittin' in the Dark."
If there's any fault to be found with
the first album, it's only that Mas is too
careful (by rock 'n' roll standards)
about pushing her big, operatically
trained voice to and beyond its limits.
However, Mas feels that she and her
group have "grown heavier" in live
concert, and her second album, "Hold
On," reflects this. In fact, it was record-
88 Ms. September 1980
ed "live in the studio." (That means a
studio performance was recorded in
tact instead of the usual studio practice
of laying down basic instrumental
tracks first and then overdubbing vo
cals and "sweetening.")
Musically, "Hold On" is less de
rivative than the first album; lyrically, it
is more so. Case in point: while Mas
told me in our interview that she'd
suffered plenty of crazy-making put-
downs and loneliness specifically as a
woman on the road, her four "on the
road" cuts don't mention these experi
ences. Instead of rehashing them ol'
Jackson Browne Memorial Holiday Inn
Blues for the umpteenth time, it would
be nice if Mas would use her ample
talent and intelligence to start carving
out a new female tradition.
Pat Benatar, "In the Heat of the Might"
(Chrysalis Records). Pat Benatar's
backup band sounds like Foreigner,
but Benatar's voice sounds like no one
else's. She has a three-octave range,
and the thickly intense soprano notes
could shatter a Wells Fargo strongbox.
Her album has in fact gone gold (more
than 500,000 records sold), and both
Cash Box and Record World have
cited her as the number one top new
female vocalist. Benatar's album was
coproduced by hitmaker Mike Chap
man (Blondie, Suzi Quatro), who inci
dentally had his hitmaker ears insured
a few years ago for $10 million.
Benatar wrote only two songs on
her first record: "So Sincere" and "My
Clone Sleeps Alone." However, all the
album's lyrics have a common spirit,
which Benatar explains thusly: "A lot of
women singers today seem to be say
ing, 'If you love and then hurt me, I'll
die.' I say, If you love and then hurt me,
I'll kick your ass.'
She does not feel, though, that
this viewpoint makes her a novelty-
item female cockrocker, as Rolling
Stone's reviewer snidely suggested.
"I'm just taking a realistic look at love,"
Benatar said; and nowadays realistic
often means "aggressive."
While the songs on "In the Heat of
the Night" all deal with relationships,
Benatar revealed that some of the ma
terial on her upcoming second album
deals with issues—"Hell Is for Chil
dren" is about child abuse. Though
she's been known to overprotest to
mainstream interviewers that she's
really more "feminine" than her kick-
ass image, Benatar assured me that
she's unlikely to do an about-face and
perform willing-victim songs for com
mercial reasons.
Toni Brown, "Toni Brown" (Fantasy
Records). "Quirky" is a word Toni
Brown often uses about herself, and
this album is that, all right. The melody
lines are nothing one could walk away
humming, but they do keep you on
your toes. "Tension is what art is all
about to me," says Brown. The songs
are all quite different from each other
also, not "in one bag" as record com
panies prefer. But these varied ele
ments all do manage to fit together
with an organic ease.
"On a soapbox" is another self-
description Brown uses a lot. And while
her lyrics are too thoughtful, funny, and
(uncloyingly) romantic for that de-
(continued on page 97)

THE MEW WOMAN SOUND
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 88
scription to be entirely accurate, Brown
clearly does speak to and for a neglect
ed category of listener: the feminist
woman who is trying to work out a
decent, lasting relationship with one
man. From "Dance Me": "And Alice
she's a mess, she doesn't care about
her dress/Well, honey, just pretend
that she's a boy/You know, I've had it
up to here, about the kids that's all 1
hear/Let's give ourselves a little bit of
joy/Remember?"
The musical style is softer than
most rock, but not wimpy. "Eclectic-
with-a-beat" is the best 1 can do. One
thing that fans of Joy of Cooking
(Brown's early 1970s band with Terri
Garthwaite) will miss is Brown's rag
gedy-funk piano work. Brown explains
with a combination of agreement, wry
cynicism, and confusion that Henry
Lewy, the album's coproducer, told
her, "I don't think your piano-playing
will be adequate for the album." Never
theless, she envisions putting her next
album together "with a small, regular
group of musicians. I'd like to play
piano and produce it myself—more of
a basement sound." She laughed and
added. "If there is a next record.'"
The "if is because Brown's rec
ord company, in the throes of an oddly
unseasonal changeover to all-disco,
released her album last November with
no advertising or tour support. Now, by
"women's music" standards, a 10-
month-old record would be just begin
ning life, but by mainstream standards,
Brown's record is long dead.
Well, Brown doesn't buy that—not
yet, anyway. She's hired an indepen
dent promoter for the album, and has
since picked up "an encouraging
amount of airplay in the eleven West
ern states." Time will tell. Meanwhile
Brown is playing in a San Francisco
Bay Area Dixieland band and consider
ing a career in free-lance writing.
The B-52's, "The B-52's" (Warner
Bros. Records). From both a feminist
and a musical perspective, there is an
awful lot to detest about new wave
music. However, it's not all purple-
haired bands with earsplitting out-of-
tune guitars vomiting on kindly old
grandmothers. Most of the best punk
practitioners are guided by anti-Estab
lishment anger or by a desire for
1950s- and 1960s-type musical fun.
instead of 1970s plastic perfection.
Others are misguided—by opportun
ism, or whatever. But for every Stiv
Bators {of the Dead Boys: "I use girls
like toilet paper") there is a B-52's.
The B-52's are just a five-member
good old early 1960s dance band . . .
from Mars. It was named for the bouf
fant hairdos of the group's two women,
Kate Pierson (vocals, organ, keyboard,
bass, occasional guitar} and Cindy Wil
son (vocals, percussion, occasional
guitar).
If you prefer polished, normal
sounds, you might not like the B-52's.
This is not a pretty record. Vocals range
from growly to very, very shrill; and on
the way from one extreme to the other,
they never manage to hit "mellow,"
"rich," "full," or any of the other con
ventional definitions of a "good" voice.
But like Bob Dylan, their nonsingerly
voices express a lot of raw emotion.
And I for one am relieved and pleased
to finally hear nonexquisite female
voices selling records.
The music is basically your "Woo-
ly Bully"-" 96 Tears"-Ventures rock 'n'
roll, only more disjointed—and with
some very peculiar discords mixed in
liberally.
The lyrics are sort of a sexism-free
stark-raving-sane combination of off-
the-wall and right on. "Hero Worship,"
for example, reads just like a surgical
cross-section of a groupie's brain:
"Motor, Motor/Broken hearted/Rust
ed, Rotted/Falling apart/A lock of hair/
A belt he wore/It's not enough/1 WANT
MORE."
Whether the new album from the
B-52's (due imminently) will be as
much fun and nonoffensive as the first,
I don't know. However, you just gotta
have faith in a woman who shrieks
furiously at a neglectful ex-boyfriend
(in "Dance This Mess Around"): "Why
don't you dance with meP/I'm not no
Limburger!"
Other new wave groups you might
try out are: Blondie, of course (for
hummable melodies, memorable
chord changes, inspired hooks, and
Debbie Harry's sweet-and-sour 1950s'
girl-group vocals); the Raincoats (all
female, English working-class political
anger: instrumentation loose but sin
cere); Lene Lovich (rock's most over
dressed woman, second album re
leased in March); Joy Ryder (best
known for "Rock Against Racism" or
ganization benefits); Marianne Faithfull
(resurrected, and boy is she pissed);
the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde ... 1
could go on, and on. Suffice it to say
that an unprecedented number of
these take-charge new "women in mu
sic" are running, not walking, to meet
their "women's music" sisters.
Pamela Brandt is a free-lance music
critic, songwriter, and bass-player
based in New York City.
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