All-female Band - 1970s

1970s

Roger Ebert, in his audio commentary for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) gives the film credit for inspiring all-female rock bands, with the fictional band Carrie Nations created for the film, stating that such bands were quite rare at the time, but started to spring up in the film's wake.

In 1975, the Canadian duo of sisters, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, recorded the first of a string of albums. The Runaways were an early commercially successful, hard-edged, all-female hard rock band, releasing their first album in 1976: band members Joan Jett, Cherie Currie and Lita Ford all went on to solo careers.

In the United Kingdom, the advent of punk in the late 1970s with its "anyone can do it" ethos lead to the formation of such bands as The Slits, The Raincoats, Mo-Dettes, and Dolly Mixture, The Innocents among others, and the formation of other groups where the female members influenced the music and lyrical content (Au Pairs, Delta 5) or were the featured artist within the ensemble, notably Siouxsie and the Banshees and X-Ray Spex. The expansion of punk into Europe gave rise to Switzerland's die Kleenex/LiLiPUT.

In Australia in 1977 all girl band Sweet Jayne began doing regular gigs with the original lineup: Cris Bonacci, Chris Scheri, Robyn Clark and Sally Zylstra. Labelled 'Sweet and Heavy Rock', Sweet Jayne specialized in playing mostly original material. Winning the Australasian Yamaha Battle of the Bands in 1978, Sweet Jayne went on through various cassette, vinyl and film clip releases and line up changes and played 700 gigs over 6 years. Sweet Jayne split up in 1983 when Chris Scheri (flute and vocals) and Cris Bonacci (guitar) were invited to the U.K. to work for Mike Oldfield.

The band Girlschool, from South London, formed in 1978 out of the ashes of Painted Lady, as an all female cover band. While somewhat successful in the UK it was not until the early 80s when they became better known due to the success of The Go-Gos whose bass player, Kathy Valentine, had been a member of the band in the 70s. Among their early recordings was an EP titled "The St. Valentines Day Massacre" which they recorded with Bronze label-mates Motorhead under the name Headgirl.

In 1974, The Deadly Nightshade, a rock/country band (Anne Bowen, rhythm guitar/percussion; Pamela Robin Brandt, electric bass; Helen Hooke, lead guitar/violin) was signed by RCA's custom label Phantom. The contract made RCA/Phantom the first mainstream record label to grant a band the right to reject any advertising offensive to feminist sensibilities. The band released two albums, "The Deadly Nightshade" in 1975 and "F&W (Funky & Western)" in 1976. Reunited in 2009, The Deadly Nightshade is recording a third album and touring.