29 July 2008
Rock ‘n’ Roll Women
Empowered women were crucial to the rock generation’s self-identity
(The following is excerpted from the U.S. Department of State publication, American Popular Music.)
Rock ’n’ Roll Women
The 1950s was an inauspicious time to be seen as a rebellious and empowered young woman. The rebellious, empowered young men of early rock ’n’ roll proved controversial enough, and most teenagers were happy admiring them from a safe distance. The pioneering female rocker Wanda Jackson, for instance, recorded a number of classic singles and enjoyed the encouragement and mentoring of Elvis Presley himself – but none of her records became hits. The post-World War II ideal of domestic femininity proved to be powerful and provoked no widespread challenges until the 1960s.
By 1960 America was at last ready to embrace a young female recording artist with a feisty public image, and the teenage Brenda Lee, who became known as “Little Miss Dynamite,” was there to fill the bill with engaging rock ’n’ roll songs like “Sweet Nothin’s” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Lee also recorded a large proportion of slow, sentimental love songs.
[This article is excerpted from American Popular Music: From Minstrelsy to MP3 by Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, published by Oxford University Press, copyright (2003, 2007), and offered in an abridged edition by the Bureau of International Information Programs.]
