Smith - Women Drummers: A History from Rock and Jazz to Blues and Country

Women Drummers

Women Drummers

A History from Rock and Jazz to Blues and Country

Angela Smith

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

Copyright 2014 by Angela Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Angela, 1945, author.

Women drummers : a history from rock and jazz to blues and country / Angela Smith.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8108-8834-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8108-8835-7 (ebook)

1. Women drummers (Musicians)United StatesBiography. 2. Drummers (Musicians)United StatesBiography. 3. Women musiciansUnited StatesBiography. 4. MusiciansUnited StatesBiography. I. Title.

ML385.S592 2014

786.9'16409252dc23

[B] 2013043304

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

To my husband, Charles, and the original hep girl, Viola Smith

Contents

Permissions

A good faith effort was made to obtain permissions from everyone who provided information through interviews and for use of quotes from printed material for this book. Permissions and content approvals were granted by or requested from the following:

Mindy Seegal Abovitz

Meghan Aube

Carla Azar

Alessandra Belloni

Ginger Bianco

Karen Biller

Carla DeSantis Black

Cindy Blackman

Rachel Blumberg

Tanya Bolden

Terri Lyne Carrington

Meytal Cohen

Cora Coleman-Dunham

Linda Dahl

Alice de Buhr

Carol Dierking

Debra Dobkin

Dottie Dodgion

Sheila E.

Wayne Enstice

Stefanie Eulinberg

Rachel Fuhrer

Daniel Glass

Evelyn Glennie

Bobbye Jean Hall

Julie Hill

Jenny Jones

Michelle Josef

Honey Lantree

Jen Ledger

Crissy Lee

Terri Lord

Sara Lund

Samantha Maloney

Sherrie Maricle

Sara McCabe

Linda McDonald

Ikue Mori

Stella Mozgawa

Lisa Pankratz

Debbi Peterson

Roxy Petrucci

Sally Placksin

Dee Plakas

Shauney Baby Recke

Layne Redmond

Dawn Richardson

Paloma Palmolive Romero

Piero Scaruffi

Patty Schemel

Gina Schock

Poni Silver

Viola Smith

Helene Stapinski

Dena Tauriello

Teresa Taylor

Kopana Terry

Kim Thompson

Linda Tillery

Lynn Perko Truell

Maureen Moe Tucker

Sherrie Tucker

Alicia Warrington

Janet Weiss

Meg White

Jyn Yates

Acknowledgments

Women drummers rock! And thanks to a universe full of surprises, I was the lucky one given the chance to write about them. Over the course of this project, I met and interviewed over fifty top women drummers, many of them pioneers from more than eight decades ago who led the way for others. They are featured in this book with some 160 women who have won national and international acclaim for their inroads in the still male-dominated drumming world of popular music. Some are no longer with us or have given up their drum kits for other pursuits. But others are still showing the worldthrough recordings, live performance, and YouTube videosthe amazing things they can do with four limbs and a pair of drum sticks. My hope is that this book will inspire readers to learn more about themand maybe even take a shot at becoming rockin drummers themselves.

The idea for this book was inspired by Bennett Graff, my editor at Scarecrow Press, who reminded me in an e-mail one day of the too often ignored drumming skills of the late Karen Carpenter. Because of him, I was able to pursue this project and meet some of the most outstanding musicians and fascinating personalities in the drumming world. Im grateful to each of them not only for sharing their stories with me, but for connecting me with others.

My trusted friend and mentor CJ Menge took time from his busy schedule teaching and studying to help me outline the content, read the manuscript, and share resources as well as his extensive knowledge of the drumming and percussion world, in general.

Others lent support by encouraging me and providing names and contacts for women drummers they knew and tips for follow-up. Among these, Andy Narell, Darren Dyke, Matt Ehlers, Phil Hawkins, Tom Berich, Kiya Heartwood, Christa Hillhouse, Donna Hunt, Carolyn McColloch, and Jerry Goodrich deserve special mention. My friend Emily Lemmerman, who teaches music and often sits behind a drum set to encourage her female students, and Carolyn Trowbridge, another good friend whos a talented percussionist and ace steel pan soloist, helped me never lose sight of the importance of this project.

Mindy Abovitz, editor of Tom Tom magazine, was with me throughout the research and writing process. If I had a question or needed contact information, she never missed a beat. Her publication was one of my best resources and helped me discover some incredible talent that I otherwise might have overlooked.

I couldnt have completed this book without access to the research of music scholars such as Sally Placksin, Linda Dahl, Sherrie Tucker, Lucy OBrien, Wayne Enstice and Janice Stockhouse, Tonya Bolden, Layne Redmond, and the late Antoinette Handy. In light of the fact that so little has been written about female drummers, their books and writings were invaluable. I consider them co-authors of sections of this workparticularly the early years. A dissertation written by music educator Meghan Aube was helpful in providing statistics related to women in percussion and also leading me to sources for further research. Works by Daniel Glass and Piero Scaruffi were helpful in providing historical context for later years.

As I gathered information for the book, articles in Tom Tom , Drumhead , DRUM! , and Modern Drummer , along with artist pages on commercial percussion sites plus numerous e-zines and blogs, mostly devoted to drums and drumming, were invaluable. Even Wikipedia came through, providing me with references that led to more substantive information as well as additional names for my research list. And thanks to Facebook, I was able to make important initial contacts with the extra bonus of adding some neat rockin drummers to my Friends list.

My husband, Charles, deserves praise for keeping me fed and in clean clothes, and especially for being patient with me when I threw little temper tantrums over having to put away the writing of this book to work on less interesting editing projects. Truth be told, Im grateful for those projects, because they helped provide the income that allowed me to write about music and other subjects Im passionate about.

Finally, a big thank you to all the fabulous females who have put stick to skinprofessional, amateur, and yet to be. And to those of you out there who I might have missed this time around, theres always hope for another edition. Keep making history!

Contributors

Much of the information in this book was compiled from personal interviews and electronic communication. Other information came from researching material in previously published books; articles in newspapers, magazines, and e-zines; and various websites and blogs devoted to drummers and drumming.