Book review: Her Country by Marissa R. Moss

Nashville-based music journalist Marissa R Moss examines the sexist culture of the American country music industry and profiles the women who successfully challenged the “good ol’ boys club”.

This is a history of 21st-century country music through the history of women singers. There is a large cast, which can sometimes be confusing for readers who aren’t so closely engaged with the Nashville scene, but Moss focuses primarily on the stories of three major-label country stars: Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris and Micky Guyton. 

Musgraves’ inclusivity anthem Follow Your Arrow may sound innocuous to British ears but was controversial in Nashville at the time. Morris had to release her breakthrough song My Church on Spotify before she could get a major-label record deal. Guyton struggled for longer to make it as a singer because black musicians were not accepted as “country”. She found her voice when she put her identity front of stage with Black Like Me.

As these three, and many others, began building careers in Nashville, they found the system was rigged against them. 

Book review: Rebel Grrrls

Molly Tie’s feminist history, subtitled The Real Story Of Women And Punk, brings an important perspective to the current “50th anniversary of punk” commemorations.

The book argues that the “punk purists” are wrong to believe that punk died at the end of the 1970s and that it has remained important, especially to women. I confess that, as someone who came of age in the first punk movement of 76–77, I have been one of those purists. Partly that was because the second wave of punk in the UK seemed so conformist and, it has to be said, so male: elements that seemed counter to the original spirit of rebellion and liberation. 

But you are never too old to learn from younger people, as I’ve found from reading this book. Tie presents punk as a continuum, with a series of waves that have continued to the present day. And she argues – backed up by quotes from fans – that it has always been relevant to women.

On the road with a book: part 1 (the launch)

This year, I completed my bucket list. 

There was only one thing on it. Publish a book.

My memoir Atypical Girl came out in March, traditionally published (by Polygon) which made me feel like a Proper Author.

It’s felt like an adventure. I’ve done a lot of things I’ve never done before and that I would never have thought of doing.

One of them was interviewing another author for his own book launch. I met Tony Fletcher on Substack, and recently did the “in conversation” for the Liverpool leg of his book tour. Tony’s documented his journeys on Substack, so I thought I should do the same for mine.

Some of it’s a bit hazy now - I wish I could remember all the questions that people have asked - but I’ll try and remember what I can.

Heatwave: remembering the summer of ’76

I was browsing the “out now” shelf in my local library and I saw a book called Heatwave. Obviously I had to get it. It was 30 degrees outside. 

Also, the book is about 1976 and everyone’s talking about 1976. Some people are talking about the 50th anniversary of punk and some are talking about climate. Whatever the reason, a lot of people are looking back.

And then, “Burnham to drag us back to the 1970s” shouts the front page of a right-wing rag at the weekend. And friends of my generation are going: bring it on.  Great music, strong trade unions, student grants, a working NHS and public services that were still in public hands. What’s not to like?

Well, actually a lot, if you look at the history. Especially if you were female. Or Black. Or Asian. Or gay.

Heatwave, the book, is by John L Williams and it’s just out now in paperback. It’s a social history of that summer, covering music and culture, sport, news (national and international) and of course the weather. It describes that period as a turning point in British history, even while there are parallels to our own time. 

I’ve written a book

I’ve written a book and it’s out on 5th March. It’s called Atypical Girl.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog I think you’ll like it.

Here are answers to some things people have asked me about it.

What’s your book about?

The very short answer is: ‘Punk rock, Liverpool and trying to be normal’. That’s the book’s subtitle.

The slightly longer answer is that it’s a memoir starting in 1976 and going up to the 21st century. It’s about coming of age during punk and how that influenced the rest of my life – including my career as a music journalist. A lot of it is about the Liverpool punk scene around Eric’s club and the post-punk scene that followed. There’s also a subplot about growing up with undiagnosed autism, hence the title (which is, of course, a play on Typical Girls by the Slits).

Book review: Maybe I’m Amazed

“Autism illuminates the way all our minds work – not least our relationship with music.”

I’ve got two things in common with author John Harris’s son James. We are both autistic, and music is a big part of our lives. Well, three things if you count the fact that we both dislike Captain Beefheart. As his father says, James has good taste in music.

There is more that we don’t have in common. We are a different gender, and a different generation. I don’t have a learning disability. And I don’t have an amazing musical talent either: James is a musical savant with perfect pitch.

The book is subtitled A Story of Love and Connection in Ten Songs. There’s a lot of love in the book (love between family members, love for music) and a lot of connection (also with family members and music).

Atypical Girl playlist: part 1

You can't just read a book about music: you have to listen to it, too.

My memoir Atypical Girl is in four parts so I've just made four playlists to go with it. Here's number one: the (partial) soundtrack to my life from 1976 to 1980. I hope you enjoy it. 

Book review: Teenage Daydream

In March 1980, the NME carried a major cover feature about “Women in Rock”. Dolly Mixture were not interviewed or photographed but they did appear – cited as an example of what not to do. Their “cutesy” image wasn’t considered feminist.

In fact, as bassist Debsey Wykes’s memoir Teenage Daydream makes clear, the all-girl trio (Debsey, Rachel Bor and Hester Smith) were as authentic as any indie rockers. They looked young and naive because they were young and naive. After all, the three friends were only teenagers when they formed the band in 1978, and still in their early twenties when it stopped (they never officially broke up).

Autism resources part 2: Recent books

My first autism reading list was given to me after I got my “diagnosis”.  My second reading list is books I found myself. These are some of the books that have come out since I found out I was autistic. And they are all by autistic writers. There’s much more now, and more being published all the time. 

As Joanne Limburg says in Letters to My Weird Sisters about learning from other lives, “I realised that other people had experienced the same kinds of painful moments and for the same reasons.”

There is so much I identify with when reading about other people’s experiences, especially women. Especially the older ones.

In  a world where so many "experts" and researchers still get it wrong (and where the "diagnostic manual" trades in deficits)  there's a notable amount of consistency in the way that #ActuallyAutistic people describe their own experiences among themselves. 

Autism resources part 1: My first reading list

It’s seven years since I found out I was autistic. I’ve written a blog post about it, because I wanted to think about how it felt then and how it feels now.

I’ve also written a list of books that I have found useful. Because they might be useful to other people, and because I like lists.

Actually, I’ve written two lists. This is the first one.

These books were on the reading list I was given after my diagnosis in 2018. Here’s what I learnt, and what I recommend.

Men of a Certain Age - book review

In Men of a Certain Age, music journalist Kate Mossman has compiled a selection of interviews with ageing male rock stars, and uses them to analyse her own obsession with ageing male rock stars.

Does the world need another book about middle-aged male rock stars? Kate Mossman asks the question herself: the answer being that she needed to write it. “The older male rock star,” she writes, “isn’t just my specialist subject – it’s my obsession.”

How Women Made Music: A Revolutionary History

 

Book review: How Women Made Music by NPR Music 

This book from the US-based public service broadcaster is a spin-off from a longstanding project aimed at putting women musicians centre stage. It proves its point with a rich, readable and revolutionary overview of numerous women musicians who have earnt their place in history.  

NPR is a public service radio network, and they are doing a public service with this book, appropriately subtitled A Revolutionary History. But the book is only a small part of what they are doing. In 2017 they launched a multi-platform series called Turning the Tables; this book is a selection of material from its various strands, supplemented with fifty years’ worth of coverage of women musicians.

The coolest woman in pop: review of Neneh Cherry's memoir

Book review: A Thousand Threads by Neneh Cherry

This memoir by the Buffalo Stance star is a story about identity and roots as much as a story about music. And threaded through all these strands is a lifelong relationship with creativity.

David Bowie’s 1972 appearance on Top of the Pops singing Starman has gone down in history, making him a role model for many fans. But Neneh Cherry’s appearance on the same programme in 1988, singing Buffalo Stance, must go down in history as equally groundbreaking. Full of boldness and style – and unignorably, unapologetically pregnant – she was a new kind of role model for women.  

Rock’n’roll purists with a punk attitude: a review of the Liverbirds book

The Liverbirds: Our story of life in Britain’s first female rock’n’roll band by Mary McGlory and Sylvia Saunders

The only all-girl group to come out of the Merseybeat boom, the Liverbirds forged a successful career in Germany as a hard-playing crowd-pleasing rock’n’roll band during the 1960s. The two surviving members tell their story in this new biography. 

Five years ago, a musical about the Liverbirds called Girls Don't Play Guitars opened  at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre and was so popular that it’s coming back again later this year.  The title was taken from a notorious throwaway remark by John Lennon on meeting the Liverbirds at the Cavern, but this isn’t about him. This is about four women who proved him wrong.

Writing about pop as though it really mattered: music journalism and women

Gatekeepers. All women know about them, whatever their job or chosen leisure activity. And the music business has always been one of the top villains. 

Within that crowded field, Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine, recently emerged as an arch villain. In case you missed it, he put out a book of archive interviews which was full of old white blokes. When challenged about the lack of women said: “none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level”. And made a similar point about Black musicians. Prat.

The ensuing controversy even lost him his gig with the ever-irrelevant Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which isn’t exactly squeaky clean when it comes to ignoring minorities. 

So why am I writing about this now?

Ear-altering sounds and personal stories

Book review: Sound Within Sound by Kate Molleson

This is the latest in my series of reviews of music books by women, specifically those that were longlisted for the 2022 Penderyn Music Book Prize. I think this going to be the hardest to write, because it’s outside my field of knowledge, but the book wasn’t hard to read because it is so well written.

I suspect that some books get listed (particularly in the case of memoir) because they tell a good story rather than for the quality of the writing. Sound Within Sound, though, qualifies as literature; Kate Molleson used to be a music critic, and her descriptions of how things sound are precise and poetic. But she tells a good story too – in fact, many good stories.

Book review: Fingers Crossed by Miki Berenyi

This memoir from “Miki from Lush” is out now in paperback, so if you haven’t read it yet now’s your chance.

Since its original release, the book has become Rough Trade Book of the Year, a Rolling Stone Book of the Year and a Mojo Book of the Year. But, I wondered, is it really a music book? There is after all a lot about Miki’s life before Lush: so is it a book about a person - like a “normal” memoir - rather than a book about music?

Of course, you can’t really separate those things, as everyone whose life has been immersed in music knows. So the first half of the book is about Miki’s dysfunctional, damaging childhood and adolescence. The second half is about her dysfunctional life in the music business. And they make sense of each other. 

The forgotten women of Factory Records: a different history

A review of I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women At Factory Records by Audrey Golden

We all know that the history of popular music – like the history of most things – is a tale told by men. I’ve also read enough books about Factory Records and the Hacienda to know that their history has largely been told by men, too. This is the antidote.

Book review: Access all areas by Barbara Charone

Barbara Charone, music journalist turned legendary PR woman, has had (and continues to have) an impressive career. It’s obvious from her memoir, Access All Areas, that she also has an impressive contacts book, impressive stamina and an impressive capacity for partying.

Most impressively, she’s still working in the music business well past her pension age. And she still seems to love it.

Book review: Don’t Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You

 

Reading Lucinda Williams’ memoir.

Someone said to me the other day, the problem with some modern pop songs is that they just sound like extracts from someone’s diary. 

The thing about Lucinda Williams’ songs is that they sound like extracts from your own diary. Listening to Passionate Kisses or Sweet Old World, it feels like someone’s been there before you. 

As her friend Steve Earle puts it: “People don’t give a fuck what happened to you, they care about what happened to you that also happened to them.”