Radical Harmonies
A few weeks ago, I was in one our bountiful Rehoboth thrift shops, looking for original cast recordings of Broadway shows. That’s when I came across a CD from Cris Williamson, a singer/songwriter and lesbian pioneer/musician/activist. I thought, “who would toss away a Cris Williamson CD?” I grabbed it and continued my journey looking for Evitas and Phantoms. Then I found another Williamson CD. And another. And another. Suddenly, I was balancing a Cris Williamson motherlode amongst my Funny Girls and Cats. I just picked up a library of this wonderful artist for five dollars.
So how do I know Cris Williamson? Well, my friend Boden Sandstrom, a pioneer of the women’s music scene for 40 years, introduced me to an amazing documentary featuring Williamson and many other chroniclers of that passionate time of the 60s and 70s. The movie is titled Radical Harmonies: Woodstock Meets Women’s Liberation in a Film About a Movement that Exploded the Gender Barriers in Music. Phew…we’ll just call it Radical Harmonies.
Released in 2004 and featuring over 60 interviews and another 60+ performance clips, Radical Harmonies is a remarkable view of a movement led by lesbian singers, songwriters, producers, sound engineers, and many others. Its aim was to embrace the feminine consciousness and speak truth through music. The documentary, directed by Dee Mosbacher, opines that this movement is “not about songs, not about a type of music, but about who we are.”
The film provides an eye-opening look at the outrageous behavior of the music industry toward woman artists as a whole, and in particular, lesbian music makers. It features interviews with many heroes of the women’s music movement, including such luminaries as Williamson, Meg Christian, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Holly Near, Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, and Milton’s own Casse Culver.
There are also festival producers, concert promoters, sound engineers, sign language interpreters, dancers, comedians, choral conductors, photographers, journalists, record distributors, and record label executives who were part of the cultural movement. Contemporary artists Amy Ray, Ani DiFranco, and others also weigh in on the influence the movement continues to have.
In the 1970s, the women’s cultural movement was built from the ground up by many of the same people involved in the civil rights and labor movements. It opened doors for women musicians, producers, sound and light technicians, and for new women-owned recording companies. It was hard work.
Sexism was rampant in the music industry; barriers blocking women artists were put up by men at almost every turn. Meg Christian would get fired from gigs because she was attracting the “wrong” clientele. Women were told that they shouldn’t play the drums because “drums are powerful and could fry their eggs.” Or “we can’t afford women’s bands; we’d just have to pay for their abortions.”
Lesbian artists had nothing in the culture to land on. It was no surprise, then, that women took the reins from the white, male establishment and made their own music, comedy, and dance—all under the umbrella of the women’s music movement.
Festivals became an important way that lesbian musicians found each other. The film calls them the “heart and soul of the movement.” There were other places to gather, too, such as Olivia Records, an early record company founded by lesbian activists. Maxine Feldman cut her single, “Angry Atthis,” with Olivia. It made history as the first openly performed lesbian song.
While it was fulfilling and empowering to be a part of the women’s music movement, it could also be harrowing. Women were afraid to go to women’s concerts for fear of being outed and losing their jobs. And there were worse fears.
One terrifying example is that of two women’s efforts to launch Camp Sister Spirit (a feminist education center) and the Gulf Coast Women’s Festival in Mississippi. Brenda and Wanda Henson were met with intimidation tactics from homophobic locals, culminating in the day they found their mailbox shot through with bullets. And a dead dog was draped across the box.
So why go through all of this—the sexism, the homophobia, the closed doors, the fight?
Ronnie Gilbert, of the Weavers fame, said that she’d discovered a world she didn’t know existed. Many in the film speak of being role models, of knowing that “we made a difference.” But perhaps Casse Culver said it best:
“If I don’t get this out, I’ll die.”
Radical Harmonies is available for free viewing at womanvision.org. Famed folk singer Tom Paxton wrote, “Without the contributions of these splendid, radical artists our culture would be the poorer…I am much the richer for having seen this splendid video.”
It’s a fascinating and important chronicle. Watch Cris Williamson, Meg Christian, Holly Near, Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, Margie Adam, and so many others tell their stories.
We owe it to these brave, visionary women to listen. ▼
Michael Gilles is a playwright, actor, and director from Milton, and a regular contributor to Letters from CAMP Rehoboth.