Women in Rock after a bit more protest

Coming attractions in 2025, including wellbeing, gratitude, and healing

Welcome, everyone, to Rock ’n’ Roll with Me, the 2025 version.

I’ve been slow to resume activity after the holidays due to a heating problem, some illness, and two exciting new creative endeavors on Substack that I’ll tell you about below.

But first, let’s talk about the excitements to come here on this substack.

The protest songs series

For those of you who want me to keep my promise and give you some well-deserved closure on the Protest Song series, be of good cheer that I have several posts in the works:

How do we define protest songs?

Do protest songs make any difference? Like, really and truly? Do they have any real and significant impact?

And how do they affect the career of the artist? Do artists pay a price for protesting the injustices that they see and sing about?

I spent all of New Year’s Day reading an excellent book I came across in a used bookstore, David Crosby and David Bender’s Stand and Be Counted: Making Music, Making History - The Dramatic Story of the Artists and Events that Changed America.

Before reading this, I was somewhat floundering with how to sum up what was coming out in the series.

I still won’t be able to offer definitive conclusions, but I believe that I’ll now be able to offer an interesting and legitimate ‘take’ on protest songs and some tentative answers to the questions above.

Let me just say this: Now more than ever we need to understand the value of protest songs and the price that our artists pay for engaging in valid and important protest.

We have a role in this. We cannot allow them to stand alone and take the heat if they are singing about things that are important to us. The cost is too high.

Women in Rock

Over the holiday period I reflected on the journey I’ve had with this substack since its inception nine months ago.

When I started, my intention was simple — to throw up a danceable song from my junior and senior high school years every single day, as preparation for my 50th high school reunion.¹ I invited my high school classmates to follow along, and a good number of them took up the offer. (And are still here. Thanks, guys!)

But dang it if Brad Kyle of Front Row & Backstage and other music substackers didn’t give me a warm welcome, subscribe to this stack, and invite me to become a part of their community!

The bar was immediately raised to the high level that so many of them maintain. If you haven’t discovered it yet, there is a tremendous amount of fabulous music writing on this platform.

As a result of wanting to ‘keep up’ with the music gang, my posts grew progressively longer and more detailed over time. No complaint, as I greatly enjoyed it and was learning a lot of cool stuff.

After a few months, however, I was struggling and losing motivation as the stack took up more and more of my time (being the overzealous perfectionist that I am). Not to mention that I get bored quickly doing the same thing over and over again.

But then something started to really intrigue and excite me — what I was reading about the creative process of these artists. I’d studied creativity in other artistic professions, but not so much in music or the rock world. I wanted to capture what I was learning in some posts.

Hence the Creator Series was born. First was James Taylor, then Carole King. Then one of my paid subscribers asked me if I could profile The Nazz, and this led to the Todd Rundgren Creator series, consisting of 14 posts in which I profiled not only his songwriting, production, and performance activities, but also the work he did producing other artists.

Then, after a series of four random posts while I grappled for a new series, it was on to women singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s, with posts about Carly, Judy, Joni, and Joan, and about the unexpected connections among them.

I was planning to continue on with women singer-songwriters, Janis, Linda, Bonnie, and Dolly being in the queue, when the idea for the protest song series came to me. Three of the women singer-songwriters — Joan, Judi, and Joni — were in the thick of the 60s and early 70s protest movements.

The protest song series has turned out to be a long-lived and absolutely fascinating series, and has evoked a significant amount of reaction and discussion among fellow substackers and readers.

Included have been posts about 23 of my favorite protest songs and about protest song humor. The post on “Ohio” was especially popular.

The most fun and mind-expanding experience was having 25 other substack writers passionate about music share their favorite protest songs, followed by extending an open invitation and getting another seven protest song gems from substack writers, as well as publishing a guest post by Kevin Nixon on John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero.”

While working on wrapping up the protest song series and doing a Christmas post, I was thinking about “What’s next?” and realized that I needed to better understand my readers.

Turns out that, for the most part, you are a geographically diverse and highly engaged lot, which is remarkably gratifying for me.

That said, you have a lot of music writing at your fingertips on Substack, and, as I mentioned, there are many fantastic writers covering songs, artists, and genres.

Looking at coverage across the music territory, I came to the conclusion that what is missing — where there is still opportunity — is writing with a specific focus on women in rock ’n’ roll.²

In particular, writing by women (like me) who can say the things that men feel constrained to say. I’m talking about being able to talk about such things as the effect an artist’s drug use or sexuality or relationships with others (both personally and professionally) has had on the content, quality, and volume of their music.

I’m also talking about being able to write about other women playing a role in rock ’n’ roll, including groupies, wives, journalists, managers, and others.

I’m also talking about being able to grapple with issues around sexism in the music industry from the perspective of someone who has lived through most of the rock ’n’ roll era — and who became an avid fan from the first appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 onwards (which btw was the subject of my very first post below, back in April).

I believe that men should write about female artists, do not get me wrong. I think it’s important that they do so to ensure that female artists get the same column space and visibility as male artists. Especially given that there are far more males writing about music on Substack and elsewhere.

What I’m saying is that women writers can potentially bring a different view informed by their own experiences being women in environments with some comparability to the music industry during the eras in question.

Been there, have the stories to prove it.³

Once we finish the protest song series, I will write a post introducing this Women in Rock series and explaining how I will approach it. It’s going to be based completely on first-person, biographical or autobiographical writings or interviews of people who were there. Ideally, writings and interviews of the artist herself.

I will be bringing both my psychology and research backgrounds to bear, and I can tell you that I am already developing some very different views on things that are taken as gospel in the popular culture. Like the way groupies are portrayed.

Some of the shibboleths of rock ’n’ roll will not survive, if I have my way.

I will also be reserving some of the more contentious or challenging content for paid subscribers only, and will explain what you can expect in that regard.

I expect this new series to go well into 2026. I’m very excited about this, and there is so much that I want to cover.

In the meantime, let me know if you agree with the gentleman called The Man in Me who made the video at the top of this post. Would you agree that the 30 women he selected are the greatest female rock singers of all time, and in that order?

Certainly some interesting choices there. My list is decidedly different.

Who would you add in, and who would you take out? Feel free to give your own Top 10, 20, or 30 list.

Artist Healing and Gratitude Circle

Further to that, I’ve been quite concerned about the status of artists, on two counts.

One is that they are becoming ill, injured or disabled and are dying in record numbers.

The other is the state of the music industry, which is making it increasingly difficult to make a living from being an artist.

Now, on top of that, we have artists losing everything they own in the Los Angeles wildfires. (Go here to find gofundme campaigns and places to make direct donations.)

Artists are suffering from the bottom of the industry to the very top (e.g., Elton John, Pete Townsend, Matthew Sweet). No one is immune in the current environment.

I intend to share news on artists so that we can, in our various ways, however we choose, honor and support them on their journey. It’s one avenue for giving back to people who have enriched our lives with their music.

Please see my post on the purpose of this new substack (below). Ideas and suggestions welcome.

Welcome to the artist healing & gratitude circle

The Wellbeing Experiments

There’s another substack I was planning to set up back in April but got too caught up in this one and never got around to it. Here’s the description:

“Follow me as I research and try out a cornucopia of approaches to health and wellbeing. I do the experiments — you join (at your own risk) or follow along — in a wholehearted quest for physical, social, mental, and spiritual wellbeing in the midst of confusion and chaos.”

The approaches I want to try range from clutter clearing and skin brushing to hyperbaric oxygen therapy, guided imagery, and self-applied massage.

There’s no time like the beginning of a new year to start a stack like this.

Let me assure you that this is not going to be touchy-feely. I want to know what works and is worth the time, effort, and money. That’s it. Full stop.

If you want to see the list of things I’m interested in trying, or you wish to know more, check out my welcome post (below).

The wellbeing journey starts today. Literally, as I’ll be sending out the first post this evening.

A Year of Wellbeing Experiments

I’ll be back next week with the next protest song post. Do you want to know about an artist who honest to goodness changed the world? It’s an amazing story.

1. As fellow substacker Wayne Robins rightly wrote me, “Every day?”.

2. There are some wonderful writers who focus wholly or partly on women artists, including Thea Wood at Herizon Music and Charles at Zapato’s Jam.

3. It’s also helpful to watch movies, TV shows, and documentaries representing a particular era, another way to ‘get’ what was happening.