LADYSLIPPER MUSIC: Records & Tapes By Southern Women

Note: This article has been digitized from its original print form in the Fall 2023 issue of B-Side. Original print layout can be viewed at bottom.

A Brief History of the Women’s Music Movement

The year was 1976, and the Women’s Music Movement was roughly three years into its three-decade run. In 1973, a group of women made up of folk musicians and members of the lesbian-feminist collective The Furies started the first independent women’s record company, Olivia Records, in Washington, D.C. Formed on suggestion from singer-songwriter Cris Williamson, Olivia hoped to expand on the musical ventures lesbian artists such as Maxine Feldman and Alix Dobkin had explored in the years prior, coming to create a sect of music defined by the fact that it was made entirely by women, for women, and about women. 

Olivia was completely staffed by women, producing only female (and primarily lesbian) musicians, hiring and training female sound engineers who had few professional opportunities in the ‘mainstream’ music industry, and maintaining their business on a collective basis. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Olivia’s business model is the fact that they set up their own cross-country record distribution system, built on independent distributors who were primarily ordinary women interested in lesbian-feminist work. Olivia tried to avoid the commonplace “warehouse-to-store” wholesale method that mainstream record companies used, and would rely on the sales of records in women’s bookstores or in lobbies after concerts to supplement their regional distributors’ sales. This system was unique in the fact that it prioritized women’s spaces, becoming a distinctly personalized approach to record distribution. 

By 1974, Women’s Music was garnering enough traction to expand from Women’s Music concerts to full-fledged festivals. The first National Women’s Music Festival was held that same year in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and festivals at San Diego State University and Sacramento State University were quick to follow. These festivals highlighted some of the top voices in Women’s Music at the time, providing a safe space for women– especially lesbians– to gather and join a musical, political community many were not able to find on their own, scattered around the country.

Yet, this varied distribution would prove challenging for women who didn’t live near the primary hubs of Women’s Music. At the center of it all was Olivia Records, who had moved to Los Angeles in 1974, and would eventually come to operate out of Oakland. Many of the most prominent Women’s Music artists were also California-based: Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Margie Adam and Holly Near, for example. Women’s Music concerts were toured around the West, especially up the West Coast, and Women’s Music festivals cropped up in areas from the West Coast to the Northeast. Even when we reflect on the movement today, much of its legacy is attributed to the San Francisco Bay Area, a culmination of factors that leaves an important region of the United States sorely out in the cold. For writers like myself, this begs the question: Where did Southern women fit into this movement?

 

Enter Ladyslipper

The year was 1976, and the first volume of Ladyslipper Music had just been published. If you were to flip from the catalogue’s lavender, Art Deco-inspired cover to the front page, you would be hit with this opening line: “LADYSLIPPER MUSIC is a project of three North Carolina women who are interested in expanding and sharing the herstory of women in music, and in working with and for other women to make a living.” 

Signed, 

“We are Laurie Fuchs, Joanne Abel and Kathy Tomyris.” 

 

 

This powerful introductory statement would be the first of Ladyslipper’s incredibly influential steps into the world of Women’s Music. There had been other Women’s Music catalogues before, primarily the Michigan-based Goldenrod, but the addition of Ladyslipper would prove vital to the Women’s Music distribution system in the South. Starting from humble beginnings in the NC-based Creatrix Catalog which featured “Women Rooted Crafts, Arts and Music,” a volume of Ladyslipper consisted of a neatly-spaced catalogue with an order form on the back, listing a wide variety of Women’s Music, both contemporary and of the past, that would be distributed from the Ladyslipper office in Durham, North Carolina. Every page emphasized the unique variety of Women’s Music. Offered, of course, were new albums made and produced completely by women involved in the Women’s Music Movement scene, but alongside them were albums by a variety of female folk, blues and jazz artists who were unrecognized pioneers in their fields. Unknown female conductors and composers dating back centuries were also featured– the catalogue focused on a diverse range of genres, time periods, and musical stylings.

 Ladyslipper was unique in the way that it highlighted the musical voices of Southern women throughout history– Hazel Dickens, Elizabeth Cotten, Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Mary Lou Williams to name a few– and allowed their music a space within Women’s Music despite not fitting the female-produced parameters Women’s Music was expected to. Ladyslipper consistently emphasized a desire to make Women’s Music more accessible, and their feature of Southern musicians outside of the standard borders of Women’s Music expanded the movement to Southern states that otherwise would have been isolated from the “happenings” in California. 

In 1976, it was not easy for a lesbian woman to find community. The purpose of record labels like Olivia and Women’s Music festivals were to create a safe space for lesbian-feminist women to find sisterhood, but for women in the closet, being caught going into a women’s bookstore or traveling to a Women’s Music event where you could be spotted in the crowd meant risking getting fired, or outed to family and friends– regardless of the fine intricacies of your sexuality. For Southern women, the burden was only added to when women who may have been willing to attend festivals had to factor in travel time and cost in order to get to festivals and tours largely concentrated in other areas of the country. The fact that prominent Women’s Music musicians of Southern descent such as Virginia native Meg Christian and North Carolina native Teresa Trull had long since moved out of the region to join the Olivia collective on the West coast seemed to emphasize that to be involved in a progressive lesbian-feminist community, one needed to live outside of the South. 

The creation of Ladyslipper, then, brought power back to the women in the South, those who struggled to connect with others like them, separated by thousands of miles from the community in California. Ladyslipper became the primary way of attaining Women’s Music in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. They published live show listings in local areas in each of their catalogues, and the mail-order format for records allowed Southern women a safe, non-confrontational way to bring Women’s Music into their homes. Ladyslipper served as more than a purchase catalogue, though: it served as tangible proof that there was a Women’s Music community in the South. By merely providing identities for the small collective of women who published the catalogue, it gave Southern lesbians names they could hold on to, and voices they could look to for guidance. Ladyslipper would soon go on to expand into feminist activism, sponsoring women’s events and gatherings in the Southeast, and form an independent record subsidiary to highlight independent Women’s Music; a rich and vibrant Southern women’s community springing out of what started as three women’s passion project. 

Southern women’s efforts in expanding the Women’s Music Movement have been under-appreciated in historical discussions, but Ladyslipper has been garnering greater attention in recent years. With a feature in the Smithsonian’s exhibit of Women’s Music, and sizeable archives located at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (which can be combed through digitally), Ladyslipper has been given a place of honor amongst other Women’s Movement materials, one that will hopefully shed brighter light on the accomplishments of Southern lesbian-feminists in the 1970s. 

Ladyslipper Today

Yet, the legacy of this catalogue does not reside solely in the past; Ladyslipper is still a functional non-profit organization today. You can visit their website at ladyslipper.org to learn more about their history and purchase CDs of independent Women’s Music– their catalogue format has been updated for the digital age. Both the university archives and Ladyslipper’s website are worth taking a look through for a better understanding of their work, past and present. In honor of this piece of history, these pages have been designed to look like an original Ladyslipper catalogue from the 1970s– I think it speaks volumes that we have been able to move on from the days of secrecy women had to receive their Ladyslipper catalogues in, to a time where a lesbian-feminist catalogue can be paid tribute by a university-affiliated publication.

 

SOUTHERN WOMEN’S MUSIC FROM PAST TO PRESENT

In tribute to Ladyslipper, these pages feature Southern musical artists from across history to the present day. Included is some music that came out of the Women’s Music Movement, some that laid the groundwork, and some that builds on rich traditions of folk and country in the present day. Many thanks to a dear friend in Raleigh who remains my favorite consultant for North Carolina-based music and beyond.

WOMEN’S MUSIC…

Meg Christian, I Know You Know (1975)

The first album released by Olivia, and one that is considered by many to have officially started the Women’s Music Movement (Virginia-native Chrisitan is credited with coining the term “Women’s Music!”). I Know You Know is a beautiful folk album that showcases Christian’s Appalachian-inspired picking style (she was a guitar major at UNC Chapel Hill), as well as her introspective lyrical skills. “Valentine’s Song” and “Morning Song” are personal favorites, but the album is probably best remembered for “Ode to a Gym Teacher,” a tongue-in-cheek exploration of a lesbian’s adolescent crush on her gym teacher. A classic, and a great album to start off with for anyone interested in Women’s Music. (Olivia)

 

Teresa Trull, The Ways a Woman Can Be (1977)

The first release by North Carolina-native Trull on the Olivia label. The Ways a Woman Can Be is more akin to soft rock than folk, reflecting the shifting musical tone of the seventies. The album proudly proclaims Trull’s Southern heritage in its liner notes, and its standout track is the gutsy “Woman-Loving Women,” that declares pride in being “sisters united” with other woman-loving women. The song proclaims, “That’s all we’ll be!,” using its lyrics to fight the stereotype that lesbians only need to find the “right man” to “cure” them. This album is difficult to find in completion online, but three tracks– “Woman-Loving Women,” “I’d Like to Make Love With You,” and “Second Chance” –are all available to listen to on YouTube. (Olivia)

FROM PAST…

Elizabeth Cotten, Freight Train and other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes (1989)

North Carolina-native Elizabeth Cotten was frequently featured amongst the selections of Women’s Music in Ladyslipper catalogues back in the day, and for good reason. A pioneering guitarist, known for her nimble fingerpicking style and complex patterns, Cotten was a rarity in that she was a solo female performer whose focus was specifically on her instrument. Cotten’s music is intertwined with the stories of her life she would tell during live performances, giving a distinct Southern flavor to her entire body of work. This album is a compilation of her best-known work, released after her death in 1987. Personal favorites are “Wilson Rag” and “Freight Train,” which are also some of her most popular, but equally recommended are the mournful “I Don’t Love Nobody” and “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” (Smithsonian Folkways)

Mary Lou Williams, Mary Lou Williams (1964)

Georgia-born Williams first got her start as a jazz pianist with the Duke Ellington band in 1922, and would go on to become one of the first Black female arrangers and composers in the big band circuit. She is best known for classical-inspired compositions like the “Zodiac Suite,” or her work in bebop and the blues, but this self-titled album from 1964 features one of her greatest marvels; the harmonically complex, blues-inspired chorale, “Black Christ of the Andes.” Words don’t do the album justice, it simply has to be listened to to be understood. Williams was on the cutting-edge of the contemporary throughout her entire career, and her compositions are still revolutionary nearly sixty years later. (Smithsonian Folkways)

TO PRESENT!

Rhiannon Giddens, You’re the One (2023)

The founding member of North Carolina-based bluegrass group the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens is equally adept at rock and soul as she is folk and bluegrass. The hallmark of a great artist is versatility, and Giddens manages to keep elements of past traditions of music alive in her modern-day music without falling on gimmicks– pure musicianship sustains both her instrumental and lyrical work. Giddens’ work both solo (such as this featured album) and with the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Listen to 2010’s Genuine Negro Jig) both embody a spirit of change, while retaining authenticity to Southern styles of music. (Nonesuch)

 

Odie Leigh, How Did It Seem to You? (2022)

South Louisiana-born Odie Leigh is a relatively new artist who has risen to popularity within the last couple of years– she first startedreleasing music in 2021. Leigh’s unique self-taught fingerpicking style accompanies intimate, raw compositions that pull from Southern traditions of folk, country and blues. How Did It Seem to You? is an EP best known for Leigh’s biggest hit, “Crop Circles,” but it is worth checking out her most recent single releases, “Double Shift” and “Sheep Song,” which are equally open in speaking of the artist’s frustration with relationships, patriarchy, and stagnation. Bluegrass fans are sure to love Leigh’s unique, melancholy take on the crosspicking pattern. (Odie Leigh)

 

Article by Gianna Caudillo
Design by Colleen Morimoto