We start with a tragedy, then a cautionary tale of the world not ready for a band. We then find more positive inspiration from an artist who delivers a huge seller. We end with a legend.

Janis Joplin dies just before releasing her magnum opus, “Pearl.” A band called Fanny is ready to rock, but a culture poisoned by the patriarchy isn’t yet ready to accept them. Carole King makes Tapestry, a sincere, modest, and deeply personal album that hits huge and becomes a milestone for women. We complete the story with a profile of one of the giants of 20th Century Music, Joni Mitchell. We discuss her artistic and commercial peak in the early 70s with “Blue,” “For the Roses,” and “Court and Spark.” We admire all of these women for kicking down the door, and we celebrate the progress we’ve made since them, but there is still a long way to go.

Now for some general remarks about the research and writing.

To the best of our ability, we tried to center women in this chapter. We’ll leave it to the listener to decide how we did with that.

There’s a diversity of opinion about this, but we think it’s fair to say the second wave of feminism hits the crest during the period we are covering, and it is not at all a coincidence that women really start to make big and important contributions to Rock Music right around this time too.

Roe vs Wade was decided right around here, about fifty years ago. We are painfully aware of the US Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe, stripping many millions of American women of their fundamental human rights to bodily autonomy and medical privacy.

As we move forward with our chapters, we will document that half century of regressive backlash and how it got us here; it’s part of the story. Like we often say, Rock N Roll reflects back on, interacts with, and affects the larger society. And vice versa. In the late Sixties and early Seventies, it seemed like the progress would be permanent, and that more progress was on the way. Some of us were naive enough to believe that. We would do well now to remember the words of the anti slavery activist Frederick Douglass, way back in 1857:

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Songs

Janis Joplin: “Move Over,” from Pearl, 1971
Janis Joplin: “Mercedes Benz,” from Pearl, 1971
Janis Joplin: “A Woman Left Lonely,” from Pearl, 1971
Janis Joplin: “Buried Alive in the Blues,” from Pearl, 1971
Janis Joplin: “Pearl,” from Pearl, 1971
Janis Joplin: “Get it While You Can,” from Pearl, 1971
Janis Joplin: “Me & Bobby McGee,” from Pearl, 1971
Fanny: “Blind Alley,” from Fanny Hill, 1972
Fanny: “Hey Bulldog,” from Fanny Hill, 1972
Fanny: “Ain’t That Peculiar,” from Fanny Hill, 1972
Fanny: “Cat Fever,” from Charity Ball, 1971
Fanny, “Butter Boy,” from Rock and Roll Survivors, 1974

Collage of Carole King Songs:

One Fine Day - Chiffons
Will You Love Me Tomorrow - The Shirelles
The Locomotion - Little Eva
I’m Into Something Good - Herman’s Hermits
Pleasant Valley Sunday - The Monkees
Up on the Roof - Drifters
Don’t Bring Me Down - The Animals
Take Care Good Care of My Baby - Bobby Vee
Chains - Beatles
Just Once in My Life - Righteous Brothers.
Go Away Little Girl - Steve Lawrence
Oh No Not My Baby - Dusty Springfield
One Fine Day - Carole King

Carole King: “You’ve Got a Friend,” from Tapestry, 1971
Carole King: “I Feel the Earth Move, from Tapestry, 1971
Carole King: “It’s Too Late,” from Tapestry, 1971
Carole King: “Beautiful,” from Tapestry, 1971
Carole King: “So Far Away,” from Tapestry, 1971
Carole King, “Tapestry,” from Tapestry, 1971
Joni Mitchell, “California,” from Blue, 1971
Joni Mitchell, “The Circle Game,” from Clouds, 1970
Joni Mitchell, “All I Want,” from Blue, 1971
Joni Mitchell, “You Turn Me on I’m a Radio, from For The Roses, 1972
Joni Mitchell, “Free Man in Paris,” from Court and Spark, 1973
Joni Mitchell, “Raised on Robbery,” from Miles of Aisles, 1974
Joni Mitchell (with The Band), “Coyote,” from The Last Waltz, 1978
Herbie Hancock (with Wayne Shorter, and Corrinne Bailey Rae), “River” from River: The Joni Letters, 2007
Joni Mitchell: “Help Me,” from Court and Spark, 1973