Though she was just 13 years old, the club let her and other teens attend concerts where up until then the music being played had been little more than the “vague background music of my older sisters,” says Rose.
Because of the experience, the San Francisco-based singer and writer specializing in shows featuring music produced by women, says she’s “always been in awe of a really well written song.”
To show her appreciation of the prolific female singer-songwriters of the 1960s, Rose’s latest show, “Pamela Rose’s Wild Women of the Sixties!” debuts Saturday evening at Alameda’s Rhythmix Cultural Works.
“The ’60s were a great time to be a woman songwriter,” says Rose.
In her impressionable youth, Rose figured the singer-songwriters she saw lived for performing their songs on stage.
“It wasn’t until later when I realized that actually, no, that was just a phenomenon of the ’60s and ‘70s.”
Rose says most were just hard-working, unassuming professional songwriters going to work in cars or on the subway, lunchbox in hand, cranking out hits at song factories. King, who had a child at 17, would bring her baby to her cubicle at Aldon Music (across the street from New York City’s storied Brill Building). Being the pre-women’s-lib 1960s, some may have also expected her to have dinner ready for her co-writing partner and husband, Gerry Goffin, when he returned home. It must have worked, though — together the dynamic duo churned out 118 top 10 Billboard hits.
Despite their success, “none of them, including Carole King, ever wanted to have a solo career. They just wanted to write hit songs that their generation wanted to listen to,” says Rose who, along with the rest of the cast, sings the hits and tells anecdotes.
Not far from New York City’s “Tin Pan Alley” neighborhood famous for bringing about pop hits of the 1920s, by the 1960s the scene had shifted to the Brill Building and more youthful vibes.
“They were all very young. They were all Jewish. It’s interesting,” Rose says.
In a nod to Tin Pan Alley, the Aldon Music songwriters were referred to as “Teen Tin Pan Alley.” Another aspect of the “wild” women songwriters of the 1960s that Rose delves into in her show is their versatility.
“It wasn’t just that all of these women could write a catchy melody,” she says. “Every single one of them had to write to a certain kind of a group. And so they would adapt their material to do that.
“I’m not sure that people know that Carole King wrote songs like ‘Do The Locomotion’ and ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?’ but she also wrote ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday,’ that the Monkees did, and ‘(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman’ for Aretha Franklin. She was so good at it.”
Other women songwriters Rose’s show highlights include Ellie Greenwich (“River Deep – Mountain High” for Tina Turner, “Chapel of Love” and “Leader of the Pack”); Cynthia Weil (“We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling”); and Valerie Simpson, who wrote with her husband, Nickolas Ashford, for the act Ashford & Simpson and later had a solo career.
In addition to writing, Greenwich was also a highly sought-after vocal arranger tapped by Cindy Lauper to punch up Lauper’s 1983 hit “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” Rose says Lauper initially didn’t “get” the song and called Greenwich, who gave it a listen and decided that it was really an anthem and therefore needed a chant.
“She’s the one who came up with that chant that everybody remembers, which is, ‘girls, they want, wanna have fun, girls, wanna have …,’ ” (wash, rinse, repeat).
Rose says one of the motivations for her latest show is to put a spotlight on the women songwriters who, due to social norms of the 1960s, were not necesarily encouraged to toot their own horns.
“These women didn’t grow up with this feeling that they could do that or they could talk about their accomplishments. It’s my pleasure to do these shows where we can give women the respect and credit they’re due. It’s just a delicious surprise to find out that so many of the great pop songs of the ’60s were written by women.’’
Joining Rose on stage Saturday night will be Kristen Strom (sax/vocals), Daria Johnson (drums/vocals), bassist Ruth Davies, Janice Maxie-Reid (piano/vocals) and Nancy Wenstrom Catania (vocals/guitar).
Saturday’s performance will start at 7 p.m. in Rhythmix Cultural Works at 2513 Blanding Ave. in Alameda. For tickets or more information online, visit rhythmix.org/events/wild-women-sixties.
Paul Kilduff is a San Francisco-based writer who also draws cartoons. He can be reached at [email protected].
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