When it comes to rock’n’roll histories, there are heaving bookshelves and countless documentaries dedicated to hard-living, chart-conquering men. In her four-part documentary Women Who Rock, journalist and author Jessica Hopper enables women to celebrate their careers and one another.
Women past and present – including Shania Twain, Mavis Staples, Sheryl Crowe, St. Vincent, Kim Gordon, Susanna Hoffs and Chaka Khan – reveal the political maelstroms that fuelled their lyrics and drive to overcome prejudices, the women who gave them advice or the media that championed them when they needed the attention.
Hopper’s books include The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic and Night Moves, both of which drew the attention of producers and ultimately led to an invitation to direct Women Who Rock. Her compassion and curiosity unlock the trust of her subjects, and it makes for enthralling viewing.
Pat Benatar performing at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey on 31 August 1981. Source: Distributor
Hopper explains, “We wanted to speak about what it was to be at the vanguard of women in rock. We heard ‘no’ from some women who don’t do anything gendered, but some women were really psyched to be part of a sisterhood, talking about their career and also about creating a matrilineage. What we really worked to do in the editing, and in the interviews, was to have these women introduce each other from segment to segment. They’re talking about the women who endowed them with a sense of possibility, that they could do this too.”
Hopper admits it was no small feat to bring together 41 women, especially during the pandemic.
“The casting was tough. It was peak COVID at the start of 2021 through to early 2022. We had many women who were really eager to take part, and my only regret is that we couldn’t get more people in there. I could have kept going.”
Chaka Khan has been crafting and performing music since the 1970s, collecting numerous GRAMMYs over the last 50 years. In the first episode, she discusses her teenage membership of the Black Panthers and her subsequent choice to pursue music following the death of Panther leader and friend Fred Hampton.
A subsequent episode recalls the emergence of MTV, which provided a whole new avenue for women to connect with fans, but not without exacting a price. Aimee Mann, Pat Benatar and Joan Jett discuss their objectification by music execs and media. They were expected to pose like models, made up and dressed up to attract a male audience, but also to justify themselves as women artists. Rickie Lee Jones recalls that decades earlier, as a young, burgeoning performer, she’d been expected to sit in the lap of an executive to keep her job.
Nancy Wilson performing with Heart at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey on 7 October 1982. Source: Distributor
Chaka Khan. Source: Janette Beckman
Jones is a natural storyteller, and it is unsurprising that she won over the entire crew on set, as Hopper recalls.
“The day we were shooting Rickie she just arrived early, unannounced on the set and she just starts playing the piano. Everyone was whispering, ‘Oh my god, oh my god!’ When we were interviewing her, every time she appears, she would sing every song that she mentioned. She started singing the refrain to Cyprus Avenue by Van Morrison, and she started crying because it’s just such a beautiful song. She sang The Beatles, she sang Mavis, she sang Chaka Khan… she was a treat.”
Illustrating the power of influence, Tori Amos paid homage to Jones in her interview. Hopper says, “To get Tori Amos talking about her sense of freedom and individuality from Rickie Lee as a young artist, being able to connect these ideas and legacies, [enabled us to] draw the line.”
Shania Twain rocking out on stage. Source: Distributor
One of the major strengths of Women Who Rock is that it will strike an emotional chord with women who were teens in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s through its wide-ranging, multi-generational exploration of artists and politics. Whether it’s riotgrrrls or gospel/RnB pioneers, folk guitar icons or poet-artist-punk rockers, there’s a nuanced narrative that allows women to address their experiences of a patriarchal system, or victims of predatory fellow artists and industry executives as well as strong, fierce advocates for their own and other women’s autonomy.
Hopper’s own career in music journalism across books, magazines, film and audio, owes itself to the women she witnessed in her formative years.
“I grew up in Minneapolis and saw Babes In Toyland early on, and I saw them often. That was a time when I’d started going to punk and hardcore shows in 1990 and, invariably, it was all dudes. The first time I saw women on stage was Babes In Toyland and nothing really prepares you for them. I didn’t know you could do that. I didn’t know women could be that loud, that forceful and a total squall of noise and intensity. I wrote afterward that my career is built on that holy scream of Kat Bjelland from Babes In Toyland.”
Hopper concludes, “You can draw a straight line from the revelation of me at 15 seeing women alive with rebellion and art to me directing this documentary at the age of 45.”
Women Who Rock premieres at 8.30pm on SBS VICELAND, Saturday 4 March. Episodes continue weekly.
