Helen Reddy

HELEN REDDY
 
 
Helen Reddy  (born 25 October 1941) is an Australian singer, actress, and activist.  In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed 15 singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100.  Six made the Top 10 and three reached No. 1, including her signature hit “I Am Woman”.  She was the first Australian to have three No. 1 hits in the same year.  In television, she was the first Australian to host her own one-hour weekly primetime variety show on an American network, along with several specials that were seen in more than 40 countries.  In 2011, Billboard named her the No. 28 adult contemporary artist of all time (No. 9 woman).  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

There is a strong feminist stance in women’s music, however; and that was largely absent from the music scene in the mid-1970’s, Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” (1972) notwithstanding.  Besides her own fine compositions, Meg Christian reinterprets a Rolf Kempf song, “Hello Hooray” as a feminist anthem, with some new lyrics that she added.  The song had been included on one of Judy Collins’ best albums, Who Knows Where the Time Goes (1968).  Jimmy Webb is not a songwriter where one would expect feminist sensibilities, but Meg reworks his song “The Hive” as a tale of female oppression – not at all the way that Richard Harris performed the song several years earlier.  Meg Christian also covers one of Cris Williamson’s songs, “Joanna”; a single lyric in “Joanna”, “I need to touch you” was the only hint of lesbianism on the Cris Williamson album. 

 

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Janis Ian’s biggest hit song “At Seventeen” (1975) and the accompanying album, Between the Lines both reached #1 on the Adult Contemporary Singles and Hot 100 Albums Billboard charts, respectively, with much less drama than had befallen “Society’s Child”.  What's more, Janis Ian won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance – Female that year, beating out Linda Ronstadt (whose breakthrough album Heart Like a Wheel had been nominated), as well as Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. 

 

(January 2014)

 
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Kim Fowley was a hustler first and foremost and would be a contender with James Brown as the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, at least among those (mostly) working behind the scenes.  The Sun Herald obituary noted:   “[Kim Fowley] went on to write or produce songs for a range of musicians, including the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Gene Vincent, Helen Reddy, and Warren Zevon” – but the article could just as easily have listed a different half-dozen prominent names. 

 

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The liner notes by Nigel Strange on Pebbles, Volume 1 (the CD that is) says of Kim Fowley:  “What more can be said about this writer/singer/producer/hustler who’s had his hand in everything from ‘Alley Oop’ by the Hollywood Argyles, to Helen Reddy, to the Dead Boys, to Guns N’ Roses. . . .  This song [“The Trip”], released at the onset of teenage freakout mania, was something of a sensation in L.A. at the time and was covered by others including Thee Midniters and disc jockey Godfrey.  A real classic.” 

 

(January 2015/1)