If I can’t dance I dont want to be part of your revolution
As the late great Emma Goldman once put it, and read her book Living My Life if you can; dance. So on the 100th International Women’s Day lets dance to some of the great Women in music; continuous playlist on YouTube here. At the moment it is PJ Harvey who most neatly captures that dance/revolution, but recently albums by Rumer, sumptuously, and Laura Marling, challengingly (you have to sit up straight to listen to it) sit on the dance/revolution boundary. But it is Polly Harvey’s ironically sly chorus, “Gonna take my problem to the United Nations“, that gives me the laughing dance by proxy The Words That Maketh Murder;
But if you’d ask me to name, off the top of my head, who my favourite female musician is then I’d usually say Cassandra Wilson, who grew out of the remarkable M-Base Collective in New York, along with Meshell N’degecello, to become the best jazz singer of the past thirty years. I could just listen to her voice alone, but the way she interplays with her musicians always seems fresh. She has a remarkable way of interpreting songs, I particularly like the way she takes Last Train to Clarksville and returns it to its anti-Vietnam roots and Strange Fruit sinks deep into its raw emotions. She has just released a staggeringly alive album Silver Pony, which is her best since Belly of the Sun for me. But demonstrating her massive intimacy here is Redemption Song
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