Patti Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist. She became a high influential part of the New York City punk rock scene after the release of her 1975 album Horses. Smith was a tomboy as a child, experiencing gender confusion because she did not fit in with the social expectations of femininity. She …
Billie Holiday was a hugely influential American jazz musician and singer-songwriter. Holiday (real name Eleanora Fagan) had a difficult childhood, her mother Sadie Fagan worked “transportation jobs”, serving on passenger railroads which meant that Holiday was left with family for most of the time. Holiday frequently skipped school and her truancy led to her being …
Joan Jett is an American musician. She became a female pioneer in the male-dominated world of rock music while frontwoman for The Runaways. Jett got her first guitar when she was 14 and quit lessons after her teacher would only teach her folk songs since that was all that was deemed appropriate for a girl. …
Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist and civil rights activist. Simone started playing piano by ear when she was 3 years old. She played piano in her mother’s church and soon began to study classical music with an Englishwoman called Muriel Mazzanovich. She developed a love of Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven and Schubert. …
Kathleen Hanna is an American musician, feminist activist, and punk zine writer. She is best known for being one of the founding members of the Riot Grrrl band Bikini Kill. Hanna was born in 1968 in Portland, Oregon. She became a feminist at a young age, inspired by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, the feminist …
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was the ‘godmother of rock ‘n’ roll’. She was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and recording artist. Tharpe’s mother encouraged her musically and by 4 years old she was performing under the name ‘Little Rosetta Nubin’ (Rosetta Nubin is her birth name). She would sing and play guitar. At six Tharpe was …