Commemorating and celebrating some late, great women musicians, much mourned and missed

*

Alaine

Died 1974

Guitarist, London Women’s Liberation Rock Band

*

Ari Up

1962 ~ 2010

The Slits

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/21/ari-up-obituary

The writer Janine Bullman has kindly shared with us her 2009 cover story on the Slits from the music magazine ‘Loud and Quiet,’ which she thinks may contain the last interview with Ari Up.  The piece is available to read online here:  http://www.loudandquiet.com/2010/01/the-slits/

*

Bernice Cartwright

1958 ~ 2001

Bass guitarist

To read a tribute to Bernice written for her funeral by her sister Deirdre, please click here: Bernice Kathleen Cartwright ~ and click here to see Bernice Cartwright’s obituary from the Richmond & Twickenham Times

*

Caroline Gilfillan

29 April 1951 – 24 September 2023

“Some reflections on Caroline Gilfillan

Here are some brief reflections on Caroline, a delightful soul, a beautiful vibrant spirit full of energy and fun, who died peacefully early morning on Sunday September 24^th 2023 after a long and challenging illness. 

Caroline was a very talented woman, creative, bright and positive with an enormously kind heart. Having known her since University, and then in various bands including ‘Stepney Sisters’, our connection continued and deepened as we grew up and shared the ups and downs and joys and pains of our lives over the years.

Caroline lived her life to the full. The very real words of her song “Sisters” – written in the mid 70’s which we sang with Stepney Sisters – was like a feminist anthem exemplifying so much of what she was about:

Verse 1

Sisters, hold up your heads, Stand up and be counted, 1, 2, 3

Sisters, walk hand in hand Together we’ll be free

Sisters, fight for your rights Out of the darkness and the fear

Sisters, try out your strengths, With love you’ll find the light is near

All you women beaten and been robbed

Lost your self respect, Ruled by petty gods

Of Jealousy and vanity, Hatred of each other

Keeping your true nature Hidden under cover

Of stereotypes of dollies and chicks, Divided from your sister

CHORUS

Find your sister meet her

Find your sister greet her

Find your sister, look her in the eye

Know that womanhood is strong

Verse 2

Sisters, it’s been far too long , You’ve been stranded on the street

Sisters, let’s shake off our old memories,  Let’s get back on our feet

Sisters, take pride in ourselves, Lets love our bodies well

Sisters, discover ourselves, There’s so much truth we have to tell

Let’s not quarrel among ourselves

Don’t want to put your down for being someone else

For choosing your own path, Finding your own views

We see through different mirrors but our experience is still true

Let’s move together on common ground  – Defend your friend and sister

CHORUS

Find your sister meet her

Find your sister greet her

Find your sister, look her in the eye

Know that womanhood is strong 

These direct and rallying words of hers are still just as relevant today.  It felt very moving to sing this with her at a wonderful celebration and reading of her book ‘Hail Sisters of the Revolution’ in July 2023 a couple of months before she died. This is an exquisitely produced book of her fine poetry, with powerfully evocative photos by Andrew Scott, which reflects on life in Stepney, and beautifully captures the spirit all those years ago.

My reflections here are by no means a complete picture of Caroline’s life – she undertook so many projects and accomplished so much. Despite early wounds from a painful childhood, hers was an amazingly rich and colourful life. She was multi-talented – a creative writer, award -winning poet, author, performer, singer and musician, a teacher, a lecturer, mentor and a deeply reflective generous person – sometimes she could fall into gloomy states but she soon bounced back, full of laughter, fun and with a great spirit for adventure.

Caroline was so loved by so many people and will be greatly missed by us all. I greatly admired the way she faced life’s challenges. It was very humbling to witness the way she dealt with her illness with such courage and strength. In conversations with her towards the end of her life she shared her deepening spiritual intentions to clear her heart and soul and free herself of any past hurts or negative judgments so she could fully live in the moment and honour love, forgiveness and acceptance. Most of all she was full of gratitude. She consciously prepared to face her death, meditated regularly and focused on the positive, delighting in nature and acutely observing and recording with delight each moment of the changing seasons. I feel she truly found liberation in her heart – she became radiant and her being was quite literally full of love and light.”

– Ruthie Smith, 28^th Sept 2023

A review of Caroline’s latest poetry book ‘Hail Sisters of the Revolution’:

London Grip Poetry Review – Caroline Gilfillan

*

Debbie Dickinson

The women from Blow the Fuse paid this tribute: ‘We announce with very heavy hearts the death of Debbie Dickinson. She was a close personal friend, our ’Seventh Sister’ in The Guest Stars and a great supporter of Blow the Fuse. We knew Debbie for nearly 40 years. From the days of the Sisterhood of Spit, Sunday nights at the Kings Head, and as the manager of The Guest Stars she toured the world with us. She was a strong, brave, funny and intrepid woman who was greatly loved by all of us and who will be sadly missed by the larger jazz community, her partner Lorraine and her friends, colleagues and students at City University. Feeling your warmth and seeing you smiling on us still….we miss you.’ For a tribute to Debbie and an account of her brilliant lifetime’s achievements, please see Tribute to Debbie Dickinson by John Cumming in Jazz News.

Thanks also to Chris Hodgins for sending us this lovely tribute to Debbie, posted on the Guest Stars page http://www.chrishodgkins.co.uk/2019/03/25/debbie-dickinson-17th-may-1957-1st-march-2019/

*

Dinah Jeffrey

1955 ~ 2005

Lottie & Ada, Caroline Gilfillan Band

To read a tribute to Dinah from her sister Cathy, click tribute to Dinah from Camden School magazine

*

Joan Challenger

Saxophonist, Passing Faze

*

Josie Mitten

1957 ~ 2000

Singer, pianist, Jam Today, One Night Stand, Passing Faze

You can hear some songs written and played by Josie in the 1980s here:

‘Cool Blue’

‘Straight Down the Line’

*

Lindsay Cooper

Musician and composer

3rd March 1951 – 18 September 2013

Guardian obituary: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/24/lindsay-cooper

For a personal tribute to Lindsay written for the WLMA by her friend and musical collaborator Maggie Nicols, please see our October, 2013, post on https://womensliberationmusicarchive.co.uk/blog-posts/ 

A four-hour tribute to Lindsay based around an interview she recorded with Val Wilmer in 1992, interspersed with music from her remarkable career, compiled by Matthew Watkins, can be heard on http://canterburywithoutborders.blogspot.com/2013/10/episode-8.html

Donations in Lindsay’s name may be sent to The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain

*

Nony Ardill

Guitarist and songwriter with the Stepney Sisters and Hi-Jinx. Nony was a leading human rights lawyer and campaigner for social justice, a senior lawyer for the Equality and Human Rights Commission and adviser to the Commons justice committee.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/may/17/nony-ardill-obituary

https://www.lag.org.uk/article/210955/in-memory-of-nony-ardill

In 2011 Nony kindly wrote about her experience of being in the Stepney Sisters,based on a detailed daily diary she kept during that time. You can read this fascinating account in the section on the Stepney Sisters by scrolling down the ‘S’ page, and also check out another band Nony played in, Hi-Jinx, on the ‘H’ page.

* 

Pauline Channing 1960 – 2010

PAULINE CHANNING: A matter of life and death

Pauline was playful, warm, sexy, intelligent, talented and funny. She was a creature of light in many ways yet also drawn to darkness. This contradiction in herself expressed itself creatively yet it also led to self-destructiveness. She was a complex character, having an instinctive spirituality yet also intense physicality. She loved to make yet also to break. She nurtured and punished in equal measure – herself and her lovers. She was always loyal to her friends.

She was fascinated by what she couldn’t ‘capture’, the foreign, the strange, the un-definable, the absent, the infinite. The latter often led to an obsession with death. Both mentally (not fearing it) and physically (courting it). She regarded death a natural continuity of life. An inseparable unity in fact. And she would be calm about this, philosophical. Life and death = Pauline. She was playing with this from the moment she could walk, as she would proudly declare. Her very first memory was of her running right into the sea, at a moment when her parents’ attention was elsewhere, and nearly drowning…Pleasure and danger defined her from day one.

Her desire for life would come into some of her songs, as in her most optimistic one ‘It’s coming’: “It’s coming/Can you feel it?/As you love and lie with me?/As you love alone/Inside you/A new freedom/bringing movement to the mind/like a raging storm(…)And the hardest chains to break/are the ones I had to make!”

And in ‘Save my life’: “Save my life/set me free/take my eyes/make them see/take my hands/make them feel/take it all/make it real(…)And I’d love you very much/would mean an awful lot to me/if in the silence and the dark/I begun to feel and see.”

And in ‘Why can’t I see you’: “I run to all doors/and I question this living/but I wait for a sign/something to believe in.”

While her inner conflicts would become more manifest in other songs such as: ‘See my love’: “You’ve often looked/into my face before/but you’ll never see/who you are looking for/This same old demon/with her evil ways/dark and destructive/like our nights and days.”

And in ‘Valentine’: “(…) I’ve seen you shine, but you’re better in fantasy/here in my mind where violent whims reign free.”

And in ‘Let me out of here’: “Life is a terminal disease/and loving seems a temporary pleasure/sometimes I feel so very ill at ease/reality seems such a drastic measure(…)Just pills and potions fill my hands/and I don’t enact those facts of mean and measure.”

She was indeed ill at ease with reality often and found it hard to bear, having battled from a very young age with bulimia, anorexia, drug addiction and alcoholism but finding refuge in music, her love of women and nature. Playing music and being in love/having sex/walking in forest-y parks was when she was the most alive. And playing with/taking care of her adored Samoyed dogs.

I often wondered but never got an answer as to why such a beautiful human being would become so drawn to darkness. Perhaps these opposites within her were too much to bear? Too much light, too much darkness and a child at heart – how does one cope with this?

Often I thought that it was all a hide-and-seek game, something playful and creative and very seductive…

Other times, I thought it had something to do with her class. Coming from a working class background (of which she was proud), her parents ‘had risen’ to/and were living a middle class lifestyle (which she hated).

Sometimes, I wondered how she would be if she lived in a Mediterranean country, without all the London stress. Like fish in or out of water? I also wondered, had she gone to University, would it have made a difference to how she viewed the world? Would it have given her more armoury to deal with reality’s blows?

She just about finished school, running away from home while still an adolescent to freely live her first love with another girl. It was an intense love affair, as all of her love affairs were. She learned the skills of and worked as a carpenter and teaching adults with learning difficulties, something she did for years. She absolutely loved doing that. She didn’t just teach carpenting skills but ‘people’ and ‘love’ skills. Students prone to outbursts of irrational rage would calm down in her presence.

She did have a serene presence, even though at times it felt as if there was something ready to explode underneath. And sometimes it did.

Her incredibly strong voice belied her demure exterior.

She was also an extremely skillful painter and decorator.

She loved markets and ‘people’s’ cafes (hating the ‘trendy’ ones). Ridley Rd and Chapel Street markets were her favourites.

She could draw very well and nearly got into St Martin’s Art School.

She once wrote a novel, which she never sent to any publisher.

She loved risk and danger.

She loved pushing boundaries – mentally, sexually, creatively.

She had lots of style.

She was charismatic.

She was very tender.

She had a sharp mind.

She had the most piercing blue eyes.

She had many lovers (both in reality and in fantasy).

She wrote powerful songs, performed in many London venues, loved deeply, lived intensely, died early.

– Nina Rapi, January 2016

*

Poly Styrene

1957 ~ 2011

‘Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard, but I say: Oh bondage, up yours!’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/26/poly-styrene-obituary

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/poly-styrene-singer-who-blazed-a-trail-for-punkrsquos-feminist-revolutionaries-2275032.html

 *

Ramona Swale

1933 ~ 1996

‘… with her spectacular piano playing … Ramona amazed everyone who heard her: according to veteran trumpeter Reg Service, who worked with her in The Mike Daniels Big Band, she played “just like Oscar Peterson”.’ ~ © Val Wilmer, ‘The Wire’ Issue 331, September 2011 

*

Shauna Brown

~ 1994

Lottie & Ada