Although American women have written many of our most memorable popular songs, their contributions have received little recognition. The first biographical dictionary devoted to American women songwriters, this work profiles 181 well-known and little-known women who have written popular and motion picture songs, musicals, country, blues, jazz, folk, gospel, and hymns. Many African-American and contemporary songwriter/performers such as Madonna, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey are included. This volume provides hard-to-find biographical and career information across the broad spectrum of indigenous American popular song. A history of women's contribution to the creation of American popular song emerges through these profiles. Grattan takes pains to profile the famous, the unsung, and those who persevered through sheer tenacity and against all odds. The dictionary is divided into ten music categories and profiles are alphabetically arranged within each category. An introduction to each chapter gives an historical overview of women's contributions to that form of music. Each profile consists of an up-to-date biographical essay on private life, career as both songwriter and, in many cases, performer, most famous songs, and sources of further information. Entries are cross-referenced. Lyrics from a number of the best-known songs by women songwriters are included. A bibliography and song index will aid the researcher.

In this often fascinating, nostalgic, and thoroughly moving collection of 20 interviews, author LaShonda Katrice Barnett offers a rare glimpse into the careers of the world's prominent black women performing singers and songwriters. Marking an unprecedented exploration of the musical styles and careers of twenty black women performing songwriters, I Got Thunder represents practically all genres-folk, jazz, neo soul, hip-hop, rhythm and blues, and traditional blues. Barnett's interviews are accompanied by brief biographies and selected discographies for each of the influential artists included.Discussing their influences, inspirations and creative processes are: Abbey Lincoln, Angelique Kidjo, Brenda Russell, Chaka Khan, Dianne Reeves, Dionne Warwick, Joan Armatrading, Miriam Makeba, Narissa Bond, Nina Simone, Nona Hendryx, Odetta, Oleta Adams, Pamela Means, Patti Cathcart Andress (of Tuck & Patti), Shemekia Copeland, Shirley Caesar, Tokunbo Akinro, Toshi Reagon, and Tramaine Hawkins.

Not too far away from the flea markets, dusty attics, cluttered used record stores and Ebay is the world of the vinyl junkies. Brett Milano dives deep into the piles of old vinyl to uncover the subculture of record collecting. A vinyl junkie is not the person who has a few old 45s shoved in the cuboard from their days in high school. Vinyl Junkies are the people who will travel over 3,000 miles to hear a rare b-side by a German band that has only recorded two songs since 1962, vinyl junkies are the people who own every copy of every record produced by the favorite artist from every pressing and printing in existance, vinyl junkies are the people who may just love that black plastic more than anything else in their lives. Brett Milano traveled the U.S. seeking out the most die-hard and fanatical collectors to capture all that it means to be a vinyl junkie. Includes interviews with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Peter Buck from R.E.M and Robert Crumb, creator of Fritz the cat and many more underground comics.

First study of American women composers and attitudes towards women musicians in the nineteenth century.

Women Singer-Songwriters in Rock provides an overview of the women's singer-songwriter movement during the 1990s with detailed analyses of the music of Alanis Morissette, PJ Harvey, Courtney Love, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, and Sheryl Crow. The book focuses on the exploration of women's issues within the music, examining how the music's feminist content was able to filter into the popular culture.

From the poems of Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Emily Dickinson emerges what the author calls FemPoetiks, a discourse of female empowerment. Situating the work of these poets in their historical eras, Linda Nicole Blair considers a sampling of their poems side-by-side with a number of song lyrics by singer-songwriters Brandi Carlile, Rhiannon Giddens, and Lucinda Williams, having found commonalities of theme, motif, and language between them. Blair argues that while FemPoetiks has continued to develop in various ways in American poetry by women, the fact that this discourse finds expression in songs by Americana female artists indicates a matrilineal line of influence from the 1630s to today. In order to show the omnipresence of this powerful feminist discourse, she closes this book with eleven interviews she conducted with female singer-songwriters from around the United States. The phenomenon of FemPoetiks is not limited to the arts but extends into all areas of American life, from the domestic to the political. FemPoetiks is a woman’s truth.

The 20th century heard a rich sound coming from America: women making music. Other works may be strictly biographical or cover only one type of musician. This two volume, A-to-Z encyclopedia represents the first major effort to describe the role of women in all forms of music in the United States since 1900.