HOW WOMEN MADE MUSIC

A wide-ranging exploration of the role of women in popular music over the last century.

The book draws on the NPR project “Turning the Tables,” created by Ann Powers, Jill Sternheimer, and Alison Fensterstock, to document how women have been “musical pathfinders, innovators, and standard-bearers.” The text of the book consists mainly of segments from that show, along with bits from other NPR shows like “All Things Considered,” some only a few sentences long. They cover female artists from 1920s pioneers like Bessie Smith and Mother Maybelle Carter to midcentury icons including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Barbra Streisand, rock stars Janis Joplin and Diana Ross, right up to modern-day chartbusters Beyonce and Taylor Swift, with lots of others from every school of music. And there is a fair bit of attention paid to non-U.S. performers such as South Africa’s Miriam Makeba, Iceland’s Björk, and Brazil’s Gal Costa. Of the longer essays, some are largely biographical, while others record the artist’s impact on the writer’s own life. The shorter ones vary between interview snippets and comments on specific records, the latter drawn from two lists created for the radio show (and included in the book) of “greatest albums” by women—one covering the whole history of recording, the other from the 21st century. Omissions are inevitable in such an ambitious project, but almost every reader is likely to find a host of new names to check out. Recommended for anyone who takes music—especially women’s music—seriously.

An indispensable survey of the too-often neglected role of women in creating the music we all listen to.