women who rock :: Blog
Women Who Rock the page: Jane Scott
Daphne Carr is a Women Who Rocks and electric bass instructor for the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at Columbia University, and the series editor of Best Music Writing. She co-wrote the afterward for Out of the Vinyl Deeps: The Rock Writing of Ellen Willis (University of Minnesota Press 2011), with Rolling Stone.com’s managing editor Evie Nagy and is the co-founder of GirlGroup, a listserv devoted to discussion about women music scholars, critics, journalists, and writers. She recently attended the Rock Hall’s Summer Teacher Institute and visited the Women Who Rock exhibit.
One of the things we teach our girls at the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls is that “rock” is a verb, and that you can rock anything if you give it your soul, passion, and time. We encourage the girls not just to rock their instruments, but to become passionate listeners and critics of the music and musical culture they have around them, to become brilliant, even-handed and confident in their assessments of what makes music great, and to not unnecessarily shut down others who rock differently.
There may be no greater role model for that kind of ...
Women Who Rock spotlight: The Piano That Started it All
On the fourth floor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, there’s an old upright piano. It’s the first artifact you see when you go to the Hall of Fame’s Women Who Rock exhibit. It’s the piano that Lady Gaga played when she was a little girl. Gaga’s father’s parents bought the piano in 1966 for $780. When Gaga was not even a year old, her grandparents gave the piano to her parents. According to Gaga’s mother, “When Stefani started to crawl, she would use the leg of the piano to pull herself up and stand, and in doing so, her fingers would eventually land on the keys. She would stay there and just keep pressing the keys to hear the sound. We would then start to hold her up or sit on the bench and let her tinker, you know, things like ‘Chopsticks’ and ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’” Gaga began taking piano lessons when she was four. She wrote her first song when she was five. It was called “Dollar Bills” and was inspired by Pink Floyd’s “Money.” She continued to play this piano until her parents ...
Women Who Rock spotlight: Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday
I saw the film Lady Sings the Blues, starring Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Diana Ross, when I was about 11 years old. One of the images in the movie that still resonates with me is one in which the around 11-year-old Billie Holiday, circa 1926, is working as a cleaning and errand girl for a Baltimore “house of ill-repute.” When she is supposed to be scrubbing the front stoop, she sneaks away and spends most of her time leaning over the Victrola in the brothel parlor, cranking up Bessie Smith’s latest hit, “’Taint Nobody’s Biz-ness if I Do.” She plays the record over and over, singing along, studying every note and syllable. So, that film was not only my introduction to Billie Holiday, it was also my introduction to Bessie Smith, and an important lesson in how artists pass the cultural torch. Watching Diana Ross’ portrayal of Billie Holiday learning from Bessie Smith, I recognized the same way that I studied every Supremes’ 45 on my old Sears Silvertone. I can imagine Lady GaGa at 11 years old, listening to Madonna’s “Express Yourself” on her Walkman in exactly the same way. Seeing Lady Sings ...
Lady Gaga's Meat Dress was on display at the Rock Hall as part of the Women Who Rock exhibit
The meat dress is here! Yes, Lady Gaga’s meat dress is now at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and has been installed in our Women Who Rock exhibit. After Gaga wore the dress at the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards show, we contacted her managers and asked if we might be able to get the dress for our exhibit. They said yes, but obviously it had to be treated in some way so we could exhibit it. They sent the dress to American Taxidermy in California, where it was placed in a meat locker. It was then placed in a vat of chemicals and, while still pliable, was put on a body form and allowed to dry. This process actually took a while because the dress was made up of separate layers of Argentinian beef. After drying, the meat was painted to look fresh, rather than the dark, beef-jerky look it had taken on when it began dehydrating. The dress actually arrived at the Museum last Friday. We opened the crates on Monday and started getting it ready to be put on exhibit. And now it is up! You have to come and check it ...
These Women Rock
This past week the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opened its new exhibit devoted to telling the story of some of rock and roll’s most iconic artists to rave reviews. The Wall Street Journal called Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power “thoroughly entertaining” and the Huffington Post said “It’s a must-see.” Here’s a look back at opening night from Meredith Rutledge, who lead the exhibit’s curation.
The opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s new Women Who Rock was a grand series of “wow” moments that are difficult to put into words. The first happened when Darlene Love looked at her section in the new inductee exhibit and then her display in the Women Who Rock exhibit. If that wasn’t a big enough thrill, I was lucky enough to witness Darlene, Cyndi Lauper and Wanda Jackson all meeting for the first time. The three legends hugged and traded compliments with laughter and tears. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, inductee Ronnie Spector made a surprise appearance on the main stage, grabbing the microphone. I thought my head was going to explode when I saw Darlene step over ...
Women Who Rock Exhibit Installation Update #3
We are excited to unveil our latest exhibit, Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power, tomorrow here at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum! The exhibit is the first of its kind documenting nearly a century's worth of music featuring more than 70 female artists, filling two entire floors of the museum with costumes, instruments, handwritten lyrics, video and listening stations, plus much more.
Watch this video for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at artifacts from some of the aritsts highlighted in the exhibit, including Wanda Jackson, Mavis Staples, Mary Wilson of the Supremes, Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Rihanna and Lady Gaga!
Women Who Rock Exhibit Installation Update #2
Sixteen days remain until the opening of the Rock Hall's Women Who Rock exhibit - the first of its kind documenting nearly a century's worth of music featuring more than 70 female artists, filling two entire floors of the museum with costumes, instruments, handwritten lyrics, video and listening stations, plus much more.
After the paint had dried, the next step in the exhibit creation was hanging the original artwork installation on the top floor of the exhibit. Our exhibit designer originally came up with the idea of a kind of sculpture, made up of album covers of all female artists, to serve as the crowning glory of the exhibit. I was particularly excited by this idea, as I am an old-school, vinyl LP lover. For me, a huge part of the experience of music has been holding a 12 by 12 album cover in my hands, minutely examining the artwork, the liner notes, the credits – CDs and MP3s just don’t work the same way.
So, we set out to identify the most iconic female album covers to include in this original artwork , with an emphasis on showing the diversity and breadth of female artists. The choice of some ...
Women Who Rock Exhibit Installation Update #1
We are now just less than a month out from the opening of our next major exhibit, Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power, the world’s first exhibition of its kind dedicated to honoring some of rock and roll’s most talented artists. The exhibit is going to cover nearly a century’s worth of music and feature more than 70 artists, filling two entire floors of the museum with costumes, instruments, handwritten lyrics, video and listening stations, plus much more.
We’ll be documenting the exhibit installation process throughout the next four weeks and will share some of our favorite images here on the Rock Hall blog up until the grand opening of the exhibit on Friday, May 13.
Preparing the canvas: the walls have been freshly painted and are nearly ready for the next steps: installing large scale graphic art to frame the eight rock and roll eras that will be featured in the exhibit.
A sneak peek at the process so far:
Next week: a look at the exhibit's original artwork installation: a giant album cover chandelier – a work of art in its own right - and mounting the artifact exhibit cases.
