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Wapping Night Out 1983

Ann Day, drums, percussion; Judy Couthino, guitar; Maggie Nicols, vocals; Mandy Budge, trumpet, flugelhorn; Pat Tell, piano; Sonia Davenport, bass

Improvising group

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The Well Oiled Sisters

please let us know if you can help with info on this group

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West London Women’s Music Project

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Women in Entertainment

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Women in Folk

Click to read the 2012 dissertation ‘Women in British Folk Music 1880-2011’ by Kerry Firth for a discussion on the historical context of women folk musicians from a feminist perspective

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Women in Jazz

please see Jazz Heritage Wales/Treftadaeth Jazz Cymru

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Click here to download ‘The History of Women in Jazz in Britain’ by Parsonage, Catherine and Dyson, Kathy (2007) from Adkins Chiti, Patricia, ed. ‘Women in Jazz/Donne in Jazz.’ Rome: Editore Columbo, pp. 129–140

Click here for a discussion of women in jazz with Terri Quaye, Gill Lyons, Maggie Nicols, Norma Winstone and Barbara Thompson,  conducted by Linnet Evans in 1972

For interviews with Deirdre Cartwright, Kate Westbrook, Maggie Nicols, journalist, historian and photographer Val Wilmer and other key figures in jazz, please click http://georgemckay.org/jazz/

Other reading: http://www.jazzeddie.f2s.com/jazz_in_the_feminine.htm; Jazz and women’s liberation; Instrumental Women

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Women in Music

“Women in Music is a national membership organisation that celebrates women’s music making across all genres of music. We raise awareness of gender issues in music and support women musicians in their professional development.

If you are a women musician, or want to know more about women’s music-making in the UK, have a look at the What’s On section, which features a wide variety of upcoming musical performances. You can add an event to the listings yourself, by clicking on the Add An Event button. You might also want to take a look at our Myspace site.

If you are a composer, why not check out Competitions and Opportunities? This section is regularly updated with details of a variety of opportunities for you to create profile for your work. See also our latest Proms Report, where we look at the number of women composers included in the BBC Proms from 1989 to 2010.”

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Women’s Liberation Music Projects 1970s

Alison Rayner, Andrea Webb, Janie Grote, Nicole Freni,  Terry Hunt, Tierl Thompson

… click to continue with the introduction to the songbook

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Women Live ~ 1982 ~ various UK venues

in London included the Early Evening Jazz Festival at the Drill Hall

photos of Lindsay Cooper, Irene Schweizer, Kathy Stobart (c) Val Wilmer

 

 

Women Live at the London Musicians Collective  

Click here:  Women Live 1982 London Musicians Collective Programme for the full line-up of events and loads of info on the many artists taking part!

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Women Live (Edinburgh)

Women Live was started in Edinburgh in the autumn of 1981. This was influenced by the work of Women in Entertainment, which was based in London. Their aim was to encourage women’s work in the arts and media in Scotland. Furthermore they explored and campaigned around issues such as stereotyping and distortion of women’s experience in the media and the status of women in society at large.

The 1982 festival was their first event and was financed through by the Scottish Arts Council, sponsorship and membership fees of the initial 100 women who joined Women Live. It was a great success, with nearly three shows per day at the Netherbow Theatre (the centre of the festival) for the whole of the festival, along with other exhibitions and events. The following year in 1983, the festival was equally successful with shows all over Edinburgh. Women Live also participated in the Women’s Health Fair in 1983 which coincided with the last weekend of the Women Live festival. Throughout this time, regular meetings and events took place, with regular newsletters keeping members informed of the group’s activities. Due to lack of funding, a festival was not planned for 1984. However there were several events throughout the year. In 1985, with funding from Edinburgh District Council, Women Live were able to stage another festival, known as the Spring Fling. This festival was not as long, just over a week and was also mostly based at the Pleasance theatre as opposed to various venues.

The collection is mainly comprised of ephemera relating to Women Live, such as posters, leaflets, programmes, badges and newspaper cuttings regarding each of the festivals and other events. There is also correspondence relating to sponsorship, membership etc, several drafts and copies of the constitution, minutes of meetings, agendas and newsletters, photographs of events and performers as well as biographies of certain performers and information from similar groups or movements.

This entry was written by volunteers at the Glasgow Women’s Library

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Women’s Revolutions Per Minute (WRPM) 1977-2005

Nicolle Freni and Teirl Thompson (1977-1979); Caroline Hutton (1979-1999); Hilary Friend (1999 – 2005)

Women’s Revolution Per Minute (WRPM) was the main distribution network for Women’s and Feminist music in the UK from the late 1970s to the 1990s. It was set up in 1977 by Nicolle Freni and Teirl Thompson. At that time the WRPM sold mainly records made by American feminists such as Meg Christian, Alix Dobkin and others releases from the Olivia record label (originally called the ‘Olivia Records Collective’).

The WRPM was acquired by Caroline Hutton in 1979 who developed it into a UK-wide non-commercial feminist music distribution service. Caroline sold records in a variety of places: radical bookshops, women’s bookshops, commerical shops, at women’s music events and through mail order.

The WRPM stocked a wide breadth of music. In an interview we conducted with Caroline Hutton in 2009 she said: ‘there wasn’t a kind of music I wouldn’t sell. What I was looking at was: would it sell [and] was it feminist enough.’  The WRPM sold the work of many of the artists who are documented in the WLM Music Archive.

After years of carrying records up and down the country in a back-pack, Caroline Hutton sold the WRPM in 1999 to Hilary Friend. Before doing so she created an archive of the many records, tapes and songbooks she distributed. This was housed in Birmingham Central Library and includes donations made by Hilary Friend when she ceased trading. Tierl Thompson has donated a selection of WRPM records to the WLMA’s physical collection, which will be housed by the Feminist Archive South and publicly accessible from early 2013. The WRPM archive, 1979 to 1999, containing  approximately 1200 CDs, tapes and LPs, representing all the recordings that passed through Hilary Friend’s hands during the years she ran the organisation, was transferred to Goldsmiths University of London from Birmingham Music Library in 2012. Please see http://www.gold.ac.uk/make/ for further information or to access their catalogue.

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Workshops

~ a crucial part of feminist music-making