I thought my school blog was going to die a peaceful breath but it looks like it’ll get used for the fourth semester in a row! It’s been very hardworking so don’t mind the weird Dutch URL and the obligatory Bowie reference title.
The two songs sung by black women in this unit are really interesting to look at -- we just got out of a unit about gender roles in the 50s through sitcoms, and naturally the same ideas can be seen in music.
The first song, “Hound Dog” by Big Mama Thornton, distinguishes itself partially just through its sound—Thornton’s powerful voice is definitely a departure from (for example) the oft-referenced “How Much is that Doggie in the Window.” Her voice is much more in line with other black R&B musicians of the time, but her adaptation of that style and her authoritative tone are particularly interesting for a woman. She sings lyrics like “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog/Been snoopin’ ‘round my door/You can wag your tail/But I ain’t gonna feed you no more,” constituting an assertive shutdown of a man and stepping outside of the typical “submissive” role.
“Roll with Me, Henry” follows a similar vein. Etta James sings a song that begins with a male voice asking “Hey baby, what do I have to do/To make you love me too”—putting her in control from the beginning of the song. “You’d better get with it,” she says, and later: “Henry, you ain’t movin me/You better feel that boogie beat.” James, like Thornton, is telling off a male suitor, putting her in an assertive position. “Dance with Me, Henry,” the “toned-down” cover by Georgia Gibbs, loses the vocal style and makes it a bit more goofy, but keeps the assertive lyrics.
These songs are in contrast to “Bobby’s Girl” by Marcie Blaine, after the “blanching” of rock & roll. With lyrics like “I want to be Bobby’s girl/That’s the most important thing to me” and “If I was Bobby’s girl/What a faithful, thankful girl I’d be/Each night I sit at home/Hoping that he will phone,” the song is much more in line with traditional gender roles, where the girl pines after the boy and wants nothing more than to be his. It’s a far cry from Etta James and Big Mama Thornton.
Endnote: Big Mama Thornton is also interesting in that she dressed in men’s clothes onstage —pants & work shirts, and occasionally men’s suits—sparking rumors about her sexuality. This is an early predecessor of the experimenting with gender presentation prevalent in rock and roll in later decades (see title of blog!).
