Heart Memories

If you look, you can find reams of words written about black women musicians, and their contribution to our music today. They did it, we all know it, and we all love our music because of them. I can’t write about a history that is already well recorded, but I can write about my feelings of those contributions.

Thank you Shirelles for “Baby it’s You”, you did the song proud, and the Beatles followed suit. Same way with the Marvettes, “Please Mr. Postman”, the Beatles couldn’t resist, and had to cover for themselves. Since the day those songs were written, they have evoked passion within.

How could I have ever had so much fun with my girlfriends when out for the night, if we couldn’t mime “Stop in the Name of Love”, to the pipes of the Supremes? Because of Aretha, we all know how to spell “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” with vigor! The feelings, those songs gave us, money can’t buy. Those black girl bands gave us songs we know by heart, and fed a rock and roll industry still in its infancy.

And then, the world stopped for a few minutes the first time I heard Roberta Flack sing, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. It was like molasses running down. I could never forget Donna Marie Carson and her soft voice with Hedge singing “Jamie”. “Poppa bought some licorice, cause I know how much it pleases, and I ran all the way from downtown, and I only ate three pieces..” It got in my memory and never left.

Elizabeth Cotton is a musician that makes me want to search out her songs, and history. I know so little about her, because she wasn’t in the main stream, but she was part of that stream, and anyone who loves the blues knows that, doesn’t everybody know “Freight Train”? Speaking of trains, I never knew about Sister Rosetta Tharpe until I saw her singing in an abandoned train station, that someone posted on FaceBook. But, it is obvious from the video that a lot of people did know her, and she made a great impact on the music we hear today. The first time I saw that video, I was captivated. I am going to give myself a pass on not knowing who she was, because when she played in that train station, I was a kid in the middle of a tiny town in a western state. We had one radio station, and two TV stations, I am not sure they knew who Sister Rosetta Tharpe was either.

Whenever I need something to brighten up my day, I search YouTube for Tina Turner singing “Simply the Best” at her 76th birthday. It really should be against some law for anyone to look that good at 76, it just isn’t right, but she did, dancing in high heels!

If you look back at the 100 top songs lists, from the 1960’s or the 1970’s, there will be plenty of songs you may know by heart, sung by black girls, or songs first done by black girl bands, and covered by someone else, those who knew a good hit when they saw one, they rode into town, on the shoulders of black girl bands.

All those blues musicians from the pioneer days of rock and roll made a solid foundation for the music we listen to today, but the black girl bands have their hearts, blood, sweat, and tears in that foundation. Their songs are sung, recorded, and still played today, and are known and loved all over the world.

Thank you girls!