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Music history comes alive. Forgotten favourites & undiscovered gems from the rock, soul & reggae archive and a few of the stories behind them. Your host is Simon Tesler, former publisher and editor of 1980s music, media and pop culture magazine BLITZ.
Hello, this is Simon Tesler with more great Sounds from the music archive. This week, it's an all-girls show. Yes, there are a couple of blokes in there playing instruments, but all the vocals are by women. Coming up, tracks from Kate Bush, Bjork, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson - that's also her playing in the background here - but also quite a few ladies you may not be so familiar with. First, though, three North American bands fronted by girls. In a minute, 10,000 Maniacs and Martha & The Muffins, but first Maria McKee and Lone Justice with 'East Of Eden'.
Lone Justice with 'East Of Eden, followed by 10,000 Maniacs with 'Can't Ignore The Train' from their album The Wishing Chair, and finally Martha & The Muffins from Toronto in Canada with 'Echo Beach'. Lone Justice was of course fronted by a young Maria McKee, just 21 when she recorded East Of Eden, but she went on to have quite a significant career in her own right. While she was still performing with Lone Justice she penned the song 'A Good Heart' which I'm sure you will remember as the biggest hit of Feargal Sharkey's solo career. And then of course there was 'Show Me' Heaven the multi-billion selling power ballad from the Days Of Thunder movie soundtrack.
Natalie Merchant has also had a very successful solo career since she left 10,000 Maniacs in 1993. Martha & The Muffins achieved a different legacy. Echo Beach wasn't a real place when they recorded the song, but was inspired by Sunnyside Beach on the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto where the band originated. But the song was so popular and so globally successful that 30 years that concert promoter Live Nation opened a 10,000 seater events venue just a short drive along the Lake Ontario shoreline and named it after Martha & The Muffins biggest hit.
Let's come back home to the UK for one of the most admired but almost certainly the most innovative female British musician of the past 50 years. Kate Bush has never inhabited any of the usual musical pigeonholes but carved out a unique style all of her own, often by drawing on different forms of indigenous folk music.
For her 1989 album The Sensual World she asked the Bulgarian folk group Trio Bulgarka to provide a musical backdrop for several songs, most notably, 'Rocket's Tail'. That song was actually written about her cat Rocket, but really it was designed as a showcase for Trio Bulgarka's unique vocal sound. I'm going to play 'Rocket's Tail' first, and after that a track by Trio Bulgarka from the album Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, called 'Sekoi Fali'.
Mmmm. Lovely. Now the singer and rapper Neneh Cherry was one of the most explosive musical talents of the 1990s with tracks like her breakthrough hit 'Buffalo Stance' in 1989, followed by 'Manchild', 'Buddy X' and others. But in fact Cherry had already been an integral part of a bohemian music scene in London since the late 70s. When she was just a teenager she shared a squat in South London with Ari Up, the singer of all-girl punk band The Slits, and during the 1980s she became part of the loose free jazz and reggae collective centred around the former members of The Pop Group and Rip Rig & Panic. Her first notable recordings were as the vocalist for Rip Rig breakaway Float Up CP. I'm going to play the lovely 'The Loneliest Girl' from their album Kill Me In The Morning.
After that two tracks from singers you probably haven't heard of before. We'll have a gorgeous track from the Belgian avant garde pop group Berntholer, fronted by Albanian singer Drita Kotaji -- don't worry, the song's in English not French or Albanian -- and then Frankie Goes To Hollywood's ZTT stablemate Anne Pigalle with 'He Stranger'. Stick with me guys, because both tracks are wonderful. But first Neneh Cherry and Float Up CP with 'The Loneliest Girl'.
After The Loneliest Girl that was 'My Suitor' from Berntholer, sung by Drita Kotaji, and then Parisian chanteuse Anne Pigalle with 'He Stranger', produced by Trevor Horn for his ZTT label.
Let's stick with multicultural music influences now, with three tracks that blend styles from all over the globe. First up is the American indie rock performer Anna Domino. A true world traveller in her teens and 20s she eventually ended up in Belgium in the 1980s where she recorded this first track 'Rhythm', channelling an African beat sound. After that, a fabulously funky track from the hugely eccentric German musician Nina Hagen, the so-called Godmother of German Punk. This is 'African Reggae', from her 1980 album Unbehagen. It has to be heard to be believed. And then we'll have the equally unique Icelandic singer Bjork with 'Venus As a Boy' from her first album Debut, which incorporates a host of Indian Bollywood themes and instruments. First though, Anna Domino and 'Rhythm'.
To close the show this week, tracks from two true American artists, whose music has always defied categorisation. Although she originally trained as a musician, it's fair to say that Laurie Anderson has always regarded herself as a performance artist. However music became her primary form of expression when her song 'O Superman' became an entirely unexpected hit single in 1981. Several musical projects have followed. Perhaps her most satisfying album is Mister Heartbreak from 1984. I played an excerpt from the track 'Blue Lagoon' at the start of the show, and now I'm going to paly the album's standout track 'Sharkey's Day'.
After Laurie Anderson, the lady who is arguably the touchstone for every female rock musician of the past 50 years, Patti Smith. I was lucky enough to attend one her fantastic London shows last month celebrating the 50th anniversary of her debut album, the timeless Horses. Let me also point you towards her new autobiographical book Bread Of Angels, published this week, a breathtakingly personal account of her journey from childhood poverty to rock royalty. To close the show I'm going to play the beautiful 'Dancing Barefoot' from her 1979 album Wave. First though, Laurie Anderson and 'Sharkey's Day'.