Another piece from 2015. I loved writing these series and my research quests have only increased over time. I’ve also rearranged things a bit but kept the same general format the original column was in. Six years later there are more names to add. Originally a five-part series, I may just add one or two more “parts” to it down the road. So in all its 2015 glory, I present to you some of the women who rock.
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In our previous installment, Yorkville Village heroes The Paupers had effectively ambushed New York City and taken the American music business by storm following their gigs at the Café Au-Go-Go. It landed them both a U.S. record deal with MGM/Verve-Folkways and a deal with Uber-manager Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan, The Band, Odetta, Peter Paul & Mary, Paul Butterfield, Janis Joplin). The wheels were in motion for The Paupers to conquer America. The band did a promotional tour across the U.S. to radio stations in preparation for the release of their debut album ‘Magic People’ and live dates to follow. Skip Prokop continues the story…
Adam Mitchell was an integral new addition to The Paupers on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Bernie Finkelstein had come on board as manager and wasted no time getting the band signed to MGM Records stateside. It was a springboard for what was to come. Bernie wanted to showcase the band to their new American label. It meant heading to the USA.
Before we start pondering this wild new terrain they’re calling 2020, I need to know …
I am swamped with another project that is sucking up all my time during the waking hours. I have less than two weeks to complete it and it’s seems to be growing arms and legs I wasn’t expecting. So…..just to rehash a bit of blues history, specifically the ladies, I thought I’d have my editor post this again as many of you have probably not seen it. I wrote three series, Women of Rock, Women of Blues and Women in Song. The Women of Blues was actually inspired by a contemporary whom I saw for the first time a couple of years ago. She had dedicated her latest album to a female blues artist I had never heard of. Read all about her and the women who contributed so, so much to the genre we call the blues. The famous and not so famous. They were tough, talented, single-minded, sexually liberated, passionate and most of them had more balls than the men. Read on, you might even learn something.
It’s a miserable, cold, sodden, rainy, pathetically dreary, rather dismal night. Moisture and freezing temperatures will create your very own skating rink on the sidewalk, front lawn and even the roadway. I look out the window and see everything enveloped in ice. Jane Harbury had very kindly invited me down to her Discoveries series at Tranzac tonight but between prior commitments and the weather, my ass is safely ensconced on the couch writing this. I have one artificial hip…..I don’t need two and I’d prefer to keep any modicum of dignity intact.
Sometimes stuff just falls into your lap. Some call it luck. Some call it Karma. I’ve always thought of it as a birthday present from a distant relative halfway around the world who chose to send the parcel by cargo ship rather than airmail. Better late than never.
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I saw a photographic exhibition once in which a photographer attempted to lay out his life in black & white. I don’t remember the person’s name but you wouldn’t know him anyway— he never reached any level of fame as far as I know— yet, anyway. He was a nobody who loved taking pictures and being in pictures and he laid his whole life out in photos, mostly of himself and people who must have been nobodies too.
The impetus, for what has now become a series, was my discovery of an old vinyl record by Maggie Bell. I came across it going through one of my many purge cycles. Suicide Sal, released in 1975, was my introduction to the blues….I just didn’t know it then. I wasn’t in the habit of labeling types of music in my younger years, I just knew what I liked. Greg Simpson, who happened to be managing the now defunct Records on Wheels in London, Ontario, recommended the album, thinking I might like it. I loved it and still do. Thank you Greg!
There’s a great time wasting pub game on social media quite popular with my music friends whereby you assemble the ultimate supergroup featuring your favourite musicians past and present.
Bullseye Records of Canada
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 