Have women composers been discriminated against in the history of music?

Yes

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by Marilyn Justine

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When you think of some of the most influential singer-songwriters and musicians a few women immediately come to mind. The likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, Gretchen Peters and Matraca Berg, who are all intelligent, fiercely talented women who compose music and lyrics as well as any man, and better than most. They have written for other strong women (and for men) and are also talented vocalists, guitarists and pianists in their own right. Yet, there is still a stigma attached to females in music even though we are now in the 21st century.

Whenever one of these women is interviewed on television, radio or in a magazine, the question of their gender will ultimately come up. This would not happen with a male musician and should not matter here, but it still seems to be a topic at the centre of anything they do even if they have been writing for years, and even decades in some instances.

MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER
If we look at Mary Chapin Carpenter to start with, here is a singer-songwriter of the highest caliber. She has won five Grammy awards and is the only artist to win four consecutive Grammy wins for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Her most successful album came out in 1992 and was entitled Come On, Come On'. This CD produced seven singles in the country charts and sold over four million copies in the US alone, being certified quadruple platinum in the process. Carpenter has never given in to the pressure on females to look and act a certain way in the media eye and that is one of the reasons why she is so highly regarded by females all over the world. Proving that she is a smart cookie, Carpenter graduated from Brown University in 1981 with a degree in American Civilization, so must have touched on the way women in all walks of life have been treated by men throughout history. She is a woman's woman and is not afraid to say what she believes, making her lyrics sometimes painfully honest and hard-hitting.

SHAWN COLVIN
Shawn Colvin has worked with Mary Chapin Carpenter on several occasions, most notably on their duet One Cool Remove'. Colvin is also a university graduate who learned to play guitar at an early age. Her first albums did not sell tremendously well but, perhaps more importantly, were met with great critical acclaim. Her breakthrough album came in 1996 with A Few Small Repairs' and one of the singles from the album, the wonderfully haunting Sunny Came Home' (with an equally mesmerizing video), reached the top ten in the US and was also a Grammy winner for Song and Record of the Year, two great accolades indeed. Colvin is clearly in it for the music and not for the fame, which again is refreshing and honest.

GRETCHEN PETERS
Gretchen Peters has written songs for some of the best known country and rock artists in the world. She has penned hits for the likes of Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Faith Hill, George Strait, Etta James and Bryan Adams. She has also released several albums of her own, with her distinctly wistful and melodic tones. Another intelligent woman, her songs include lines like the secret of life is in Sam's Martini's, the secret of life is in Marilyn's (Monroe's) eyes' (from The Secret of Life) and a song from the point of view of a cat who befriends the painter Picasso and sing about spending lazy afternoons with the brushes and the turpentine and Picasso and Me' (Picasso and Me).

MATRACA BERG
Matraca Berg has had a similar career to Peters, mostly writing for other artists including Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, Suzy Bogguss, Randy Travis and Reba McEntire (who scored a number one hit in 1985 with Berg's The Last One to Know'). Strawberry Wine', perhaps her most famous song to date, also launched the career of country singer Deanna Carter in 1997. Berg won the prestigious CMA (Country Music Association) Award for Song of the Year, at the biggest annual awards ceremony in country music. Like Peters, Berg has also released a handful of albums featuring her own material, including the wonderful Sunday Morning to Saturday Night' in 1997. Her 1993 album The Speed of Grace' also features a superb version of Dolly Parton's Jolene', a song written by yet another tremendously talented but underrated composer.

So in conclusion, I will finish by saying that I do believe female composers have been discriminated against in the history of music and Dolly Parton is a great example. She is one of the most pitch perfect singers and a writer of heartfelt lyrics (you just need to look at her Hungry Again' album and her bluegrass roots to see this) but she is more famous for two other elements of her person than her natural' musical talent. All the women discussed above have given us some unforgettable songs, and they did not need men to do it.

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