Linkmeister

"Girls Like Us"

I own two albums by Carole King, two by Carly Simon, and six by Joni Mitchell. So when I happened to run across TBogg's mention of Girls Like Us, Sheila Weller's book about the three women, I thought I'd get a copy from the library.

My first thought when I saw the subject was "What's Carly Simon doing in this musical company?" I didn't think she merited the same kind of attention as the other two, whose impact on music is nearly universally recognized. After reading the book, I still don't, but I'm more persuaded than I was. Certainly Simon is representative of a different form of singer/songwriter than the other two, but she was also a woman trying to break in.

I finished it last night. I don't quite know what to call it: a cultural biography, maybe. It's a "Their Life and Times" kind of book, and there's a lot of "Times" to discuss. There's music, there's men (lots and lots of men!), and there's an attempt to show the kind of barriers these women had to break through in a music industry dominated then (and probably even now) by men. I say attempt because for my taste Weller offers up too much dish about the personal lives of these singer/songwriters and not enough about the business aspects of those lives.

That said, if you're looking for a book about three of the longest-lasting women in rock n' roll, this is a good one.

Posted by Linkmeister at January 17, 2009 01:22 PM | TrackBack