"Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll" by Maureen Mahon (2020)

This was by far one of the best books dealing with female African American musicians - not only it discussed their sound, influence and importance analytically and seriously, but it places them in a socio-cultural perspective, explains why they mattered, how come they were for such a long time mostly ignored in Rock histories (or relegated into the background) and it also references a tons of interesting literature for future reading.

As we all know, Rock music (or any other music genre, come to think of it) came as a hybrid of many various ingredients and the earliest influences - now reverently mentioned in rock and Roll Hall of fame - were African American musicians. While the guys were eventually grudgingly accepted as Rock architects, women were not so lucky - Mahon points why this came to be and how the image of rock music as predominantly white macho world of the guys with the guitars somehow became dominant idea - girls who were not writing their own material or playing instruments but "only singing" were perceived as not quintessential. And this went on forever, to some degree even today.

 

There is a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas around this book, some of them being  the difficulty women have gaining inclusion in the rock canon and how "white British singers borrowed African American women’s phrasing, inflection, and vocal mannerisms, using these features to develop the individual styles that came to be associated with them throughout their careers". By idolising Tina & The Ikettes, lots of white Rock guys started using backing vocal trios that eventually became a norm in Rock music - however important, this role was always in the background and perceived as ornamentation. For various reason, Afro-American women had hard time breaking into Rock music, not only because music critics constantly insisted their place should be in R&B, Soul or Funk, but also because apparently Afro-Americans themselves saw it that way - girls who dared to venture into Rock music were rare anomaly and perceived as indecent. 

I thought it was very interesting, specially when it discussed less known artists like Marsha Hunt whom I never heard of before. Perhaps the only disappointment is the final chapter, on which i carefully waited and which should have been culmination - when she approach the case of the only Afro-American woman who have actually established herself in a world of Rock music, Mahon twists herself into a pretzel trying to explain Tina Turner's success by careful strategy, this or that - no, she became Queen of Rock because she had a unique, unmatched combination of sound, looks and passion that always set her apart. It seems that Mahon has a problem simply accepting that.