'Women Who Rock' Bands // p 2 of 7

Charlotte Dos Santos

Charlotte Hall Dos Santos (born 1990 in Oslo, Norway) is a Brazilian-Norwegian jazz singer, composer, and arranger, currently based in Berlin.

Biography

Dos Santos grew up in Bærum with a Norwegian mother and Brazilian father. She attended jazz studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts (2013–16), where she earned a Bachelor of Music in Contemporary Writing and Production, and Vocal Jazz Performance. Her music mixes „South-American traditions, jazz, neo soul, and tasty beats, with music history samples in a colorful way“. Dos Santos released her solo EP Cleo in 2017 on the label Fresh Selects. The EP was received positively in Norwegian media.

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Crumb

Crumb is an American indie rock band, founded in Boston. The group is a collaboration of Brooklyn-based musicians Lila Ramani (guitar, vocals), Jesse Brotter (bass, backing vocals), Brian Aronow (synthesizers, keyboard, saxophone), and Jonathan Gilad (drums), who met while attending Tufts University.

History

Ramani, Brotter, Aronow, and Gilad, met at Tufts University and, prior to the formation of Crumb, had collaborated on Boston-based projects, including Bad and Blue, JG and The Funky Bunch, and The American Symphony of Soul. In 2016 they came together to develop and record a collection of songs Ramani had started writing in high school and college, ultimately resulting in the band’s first two EPs, Crumb (2016) and Locket (2017). Both EPs were independently released, with physical cassettes released by DIY label Citrus City Records.

Crumb went on to release their debut full-length album, Jinx, on June 14, 2019. The album received positive reviews from music critics.

Music style

Indie Current described Crumb's sound on 'Locket' as psychedelic slacker-rock. Paste Magazine called their sound a meld of "60s psych, loose jazz, and freeform indie rock into a soothing pop amalgamation." Their sound has been compared to Melody's Echo Chamber, BadBadNotGood, Quilt, Tame Impala, and Broadcast.

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Eleni Mandell

Eleni Mandell is an American singer-songwriter. Since 2000, she has published albums through Zedtone Records in Toronto, Ontario, which in 2012 began licensing her releases to Yep Roc in the United States, and Make My Day in Europe. She is also a member of folk supergroup The Living Sisters with Inara George and Becky Stark.

Mandell attended punk and underground rock shows while growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s. She was inspired as a young songwriter by Tom Waits, X, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman. Chuck E. Weiss, a socialite musician and associate of Tom Waits, was a mentor to Mandell.

Eleni Mandell's first album, Wishbone (1998), was produced by Jon Brion. Her second album, Thrill, was released in 2000, earning her comparisons to PJ Harvey and Tom Waits. Around 2001, The New Yorker magazine described Mandell "as perhaps the best unsigned artist in the business." In the same year, Mandell won the Los Angeles Regional Poll at The 1st Independent Music Awards for the song "Pauline." In 2003, she released Country For True Lovers, which was produced by X guitarist Tony Gilkyson. Miracle of Five (2007) featured contributions from Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and X drummer DJ Bonebrake.

Mandell's eighth full-length release, I Can See the Future (2012), was her first album to be licensed by Yep Roc, a U.S. record label. Produced by Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, The Strokes, White Stripes), guest appearances include drummer Joey Waronker (Beck, Atoms for Peace), saxophonist Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), a duet with Benji Hughes, backing vocals throughout by Becky Stark and Inara George (The Living Sisters), and arrangements by Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes).

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Emma Ruth Rundle

Emma Ruth Rundle is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and visual artist based in Louisville, Kentucky. Formerly of the Nocturnes, she has released three solo albums and is a current member of Red Sparowes and Marriages.

Career
Rundle was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, United States, together with her sister in a household where a lot of folk music was played. She has cited Kate Bush and David Lynch as influences.

With her first band, the Nocturnes, she released the Wellington EP (2008) and two albums, A Year of Spring (2009) and Aokigahara (2011). Rundle also joined Red Sparowes and played on their third album, The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer, released by Sargent House on April 6, 2010.

She self-released an ambient guitar album, Electric Guitar: One, in 2011. It was later reissued in 2014 by Errant Child Recordings.

In 2012, she formed the trio Marriages, who have released the Kitsune EP (2012) and Salome full-length (2015).

On January 7, 2013, she self-released the album Somnambulant, attributed to the Headless Prince of Zolpidem, which she described as "my somewhat anonymous downtempo, somewhat creepy electronic dark wave project".

Rundle's official debut solo studio album, Some Heavy Ocean, was released on May 20, 2014 by Sargent House. It was co-produced by Chris Common and recorded at the Sargent House studio. Rundle lived at the studio complex as an artist-in-residence for the period. The release was accompanied by a US tour with King Buzzo.

Rundle suffers from adenomyosis, which in part inspired the material on her second album, Marked for Death, produced by Sonny DiPerri. It was released in October 2016 on Sargent House.

In January 2017, a split EP with Jaye Jayle, titled The Time Between Us, was announced, and the song "The Distance" was made available on streaming platforms. The EP was released by Sargent House on February 24.

Rundle's third studio album, On Dark Horses, was released on September 14, 2018. It featured contributions by Jay Jayle members Evan Patterson and Todd Cook as well as Dylan Nadon of Wovenhand. Also in 2018, Rundle provided backing vocals for "Just Breathe", a song on American rock band Thrice's 2018 album Palms.

In August 2019, Roadburn Festival announced that Rundle was one of two curators for the 2020 edition.

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Erykah Badu

Erica Abi Wright (born February 26, 1971), known professionally as Erykah Badu (/ˈɛrɪkə bɑːˈduː/), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Badu's career began after opening a show for D'Angelo in 1994 in Fort Worth; record label executive Kedar Massenburg was highly impressed with her performance and signed her to Kedar Entertainment. Her first album, Baduizm, was released in February 1997. It spawned three singles: "On & On", "Next Lifetime" and "Other Side of the Game". The album was certified triple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her first live album, Live, was released in November 1997 and was certified double Platinum by the RIAA.

Her second studio album, Mama's Gun, was released in 2000. It spawned three singles: "Bag Lady", which became her first top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #6, "Didn't Cha Know?" and "Cleva". The album was certified Platinum by the RIAA. Badu's third album, Worldwide Underground, was released in 2003. It generated three singles: "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)", "Danger" and "Back in the Day (Puff)" with 'Love' becoming her second song to reach the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #9. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA. Badu's fourth album, New Amerykah Part One, was released in 2008. It spawned two singles: "Honey" and "Soldier". New Amerykah Part Two was released in 2010 and fared well both critically and commercially. It contained the album's lead single "Window Seat", which led to controversy.

Influenced by R&B, 1970s soul, and 1980s hip hop, Badu became associated with the neo soul subgenre in the 1990s along with artists like D'Angelo. Badu has been called the queen of neo soul. Her voice has been compared to jazz singer Billie Holiday. Early in her career, Badu was recognizable for her eccentric style, which often included wearing very large and colorful headwraps. She was a core member of the Soulquarians. As an actress, she has played a number of supporting roles in movies including Blues Brothers 2000, The Cider House Rules and House of D. She also has appeared in the documentaries Before the Music Dies and The Black Power Mixtapes.

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Fatoumata Diawara

Fatoumata Diawara (born 1982 in Ivory Coast) is a Malian actor, singer-songwriter and multiple Grammy Award nominee currently living in France. She received two nominations at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards for Best World Music Album for her album Fenfo and Best Dance Recording for Ultimatum featuring the English band Disclosure.

Biography
Born in the Ivory Coast to Malian parents, Diawara moved to France to pursue acting, appearing in Cheick Oumar Sissoko's 1999 feature film Genesis, Dani Kouyaté's popular 2001 film Sia, le rêve du python, in the internationally renowned street theatre troupe Royal de Luxe, and played a leading role in the musical Kirikou et Karaba. She later took up the guitar and began composing her own material, writing songs that blend Wassoulou traditions of southern Mali with international influences. Noted for her "sensuous voice," she has performed or recorded with Malian and international greats such as Cheick Tidiane Seck, Oumou Sangaré, AfroCubism, Dee Dee Bridgewater (on Red Earth: A Malian Journey), and the Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou. The EP Kanou was released May 9, 2011, and her debut album Fatou from World Circuit Records was released in September 2011. (Nonesuch Records released the Kanou EP digitally in North America on September 27, 2011, and the album Fatou on August 28, 2012.)

In September 2012, she featured in a campaign called "30 Songs / 30 Days" to support Half the Sky, a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book. September 2012 also saw her board the Africa Express Train with Damon Albarn, Rokia Traoré, Baaba Maal, Amadou & Mariam, Nicolas Jaar, and the Noisettes, amongst many others. The show culminated in a 4.5k venue in Kings Cross where Fatoumata performed with Paul McCartney.

Fatoumata has spent the recent years touring the world, with a landmark performance for the English-speaking public at Glastonbury 2013. Alongside many European gigs her schedule has taken her to South America, Asia and Australia as well as on multiple trips to the US, where in September 2013 she performed as part of the Clinton Global Initiative alongside The Roots in New York. Since mid-2014 she has been in collaboration with Roberto Fonseca, with numerous live performances and a joint live album, At Home - Live in Marciac, along the way. In 2014 she also extended her list of collaborations by a joint performance with Mayra Andrade and Omara Portuondo. February 2015 saw her first live concert as a meanwhile established international name back home at the Festival Sur Le Niger in Ségou, Mali, where she shared the stage once again with her long-time friend and mentor, Oumou Sangaré; Bassekou Kouyate; and many other domestic acts.

Alongside, she has continued her cinematic activities, with numerous roles, appearances and musical input in multiple feature films, such as the seven times César Award winning and Academy Award nominated 2014 Timbuktu.

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Faye Webster

Faye Webster is an American indie folk musician, singer, and photographer based in Atlanta, Georgia. She self-released her debut album Run and Tell in 2013. Webster has released three albums since: Faye Webster (2017) on Awful Records, Atlanta Millionaires Club (2019) on Secretly Canadian, and her most recent, I Know I'm Funny haha, was released on June 25, 2021.

Background

Webster self-released her debut album, Run and Tell on October 30, 2013. An early review compared Webster's sound to the likes of Kacey Musgraves and Sherri DuPree. Webster signed to Awful Records in 2017, and released her sophomore album, the self-titled Faye Webster in 2017. Webster signed to the record label Secretly Canadian in late 2018.

Webster released her third full-length album, Atlanta Millionaires Club, in 2019 via Secretly Canadian. Webster's song "Room Temperature" was featured in a Rolling Stone article, and she received further acclaim when one of her 2020 singles, "Better Distractions", was featured in a Pitchfork article and was chosen by President Barack Obama as one of his favorite songs of 2020.

In April 2020, Webster released the single "In a Good Way". In April 2021, she released the single "Cheers" and announced her fourth studio album I Know I'm Funny haha, which released on June 25, 2021.

Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Classically trained on piano as a child, Apple began composing her own songs when she was eight years old. Her debut album, Tidal, written when Apple was 17, was released in 1996 and received a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Criminal". She followed with When the Pawn... (1999), produced by Jon Brion, which was also critically and commercially successful and was certified platinum.

For her third album, Extraordinary Machine (2005), Apple again collaborated with Brion, and began recording the album in 2002. However, Apple was reportedly unhappy with the production and opted not to release the record, leading fans to erroneously protest Epic Records, believing that the label was withholding its release. The album was eventually reproduced without Brion and released in October 2005. The album was certified gold, and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. In 2012, she released her fourth studio album, The Idler Wheel..., which received critical praise and was followed by a tour of the United States.

Born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City in 1977, Apple is the daughter of singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggart, who met when both were cast in the Broadway musical Applause. Her father is from Tennessee, and through him, Apple has Melungeon ancestry. Her maternal grandparents were dancer Millicent Green and big band vocalist Johnny McAfee. Her sister sings cabaret under the stage name Maude Maggart, and actor Garett Maggart is her half brother. Apple grew up in Morningside Gardens in Harlem with her mother and sister, but spent summers with her father in Los Angeles, California.

Apple was classically trained on piano as a child, and began composing her own pieces by the age of eight. When learning to play piano, she would often take sheet music and translate guitar tablature into the corresponding notes. Apple later began to play along with jazz standard compositions after becoming proficient, through which she discovered Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, who became major influences on her.

At age 12, Apple was raped outside the apartment she shared with her mother and sister in Harlem. She then developed an eating disorder, purposely slimming her developing body, which she saw as "bait." After the incident, Apple also suffered panic attacks while walking home from school, which led to her relocating to Los Angeles to live with her father for one year. In 2000, she insisted that she did not write songs about this trauma: "It doesn't get into the writing. It's a boring pain. It's such a fuckin' old pain that, you know, there's nothing poetic about it."

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FKA Twigs

Tahliah Debrett Barnett (born 17 January 1988), known professionally as FKA Twigs (stylized as FKA twigs), is an English singer-songwriter, record producer, dancer, and actress. Born and raised in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, she became a backup dancer after moving to South London at age 17. She made her musical debut with the extended play EP1 (2012).

Her debut studio album, LP1, was released in August 2014 to critical acclaim, peaking at number 16 on the UK Albums Chart and number 30 on the US Billboard 200. It was later nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize. She released the M3LL155X EP in 2015 to further critical acclaim, as well as her second studio album Magdalene four years later. Her work has been described as "genre-bending", drawing on various genres including electronic music, trip hop, R&B, and avant-garde.

Early Life

Tahliah Debrett Barnett was born and raised in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Her mother is an English woman of partly Spanish descent who used to be a dancer and gymnast, and her father, a musician, is Jamaican. She was raised by her mother and stepfather, a "jazz fanatic", and did not meet her father until she was 18. Barnett grew up in Gloucestershire, and described the county as "kind of in the middle of nowhere". She attended St Edward's School, Cheltenham, a private Catholic school for boys and girls aged 11 to 18. Her education at the school was funded by an academic scholarship. From a young age, she undertook opera and ballet lessons and took part in several St Edward's School productions.

At age 16, Barnett started making music in youth clubs. At 17, she moved to South London to pursue a career as a dancer, where she also attended the BRIT School. After changing her focus from dance to music, she transferred from the BRIT School to Croydon College to pursue an education in fine arts. She worked as a backup dancer in music videos by artists such as Kylie Minogue, Plan B, Ed Sheeran, Taio Cruz, Dionne Bromfield, Jessie J, and Wretch 32. Barnett was a backup dancer for Jessie J in her 2010 video for "Do It like a Dude", and appeared again in her 2011 video for "Price Tag". She also appeared in Dionne Bromfield's video "Yeah Right". In 2011, she appeared in a two-minute BBC comedy sketch titled Beyoncé Wants Groceries, in which she was a backup dancer in a supermarket. At 18, Barnett began working with local London producers to try to find what she calls "her sound". Around this time is when she wrote "I'm Your Doll". She ended up producing a lot of "really bad demos". For a time, she worked as a hostess in a strip club and also sang periodically at The Box.

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Florist

Florist began in 2013 with the release of a six-track EP titled We Have Been This Way Forever. Florist recorded another six-song EP, titled 6 days of songs, in May 2014, after lead vocalist Emily Sprague was severely injured in a hit-and-run while riding her bicycle. In October 2015, Florist released another EP titled Holdly on Double Double Whammy. Also in 2015, the band was listed on Stereogum's "50 Best New Bands Of 2015" list. The band was also featured as one of Stereogum's "Band To Watch" in 2015.

In January 2016, Florist released their debut studio album titled The Birds Outside Sang on Double Double Whammy. The album was listed at number 34 on Noisey's "100 Best Albums of 2016" list.

Sprague is an avid modular synthesizer collector and has made a number of YouTube videos showcasing her equipment. She self-released her debut solo album Water Memory, an ambient album composed with these instruments, in December 2017 with a follow-up album "Mount Vision" released in September 2018.

In 2019, Beyoncé used an instrumental portion of Florist track "Thank You" from their 2016 release The Birds Outside Sang in her Netflix concert movie Homecoming.

Florist's latest album, Emily Alone, was released on July 26th, 2019. It was granted "Best New Music" by Pitchfork.

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Gillian Welch

Gillian Howard Welch (/ˈɡɪliən ˈwɛltʃ/; born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."

Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, and Ani DiFranco.

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Heartless Bastards

Heartless Bastards are an American rock band formed in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2003.

History

Heartless Bastards originally started as a recording project of Erika Wennerstrom. Erika played most of the instruments and featured David Colvin on drums, along with contributions from Reuben Glaser on lead guitar and Jesse Ebaugh on bass. The 5-song demo was recorded in December 2002 at Ultrasuede Studios by Shannon McGee. Erika put together a live band and played the first live show at The Comet, a bar in the Cincinnati community of Northside, in August 2003. The live line up came to be a three-piece with Kevin Vaughn on drums and Mike Lamping on bass. The band was signed to Fat Possum Records in 2004 after Patrick Carney from The Black Keys passed along a demo he received from Erika.

Rolling Stone reviewed their debut album Stairs and Elevators and said, "the Heartless Bastards are a small-town band who are ready to show the big city no mercy". The Village Voice wrote: "deadeye accurate in pitch and message... what we've got is a hard, gnarled voice singing simple-seeming melodies that feel archetypal rather than ordinary, which is no easier to explain than it is to do". Stylus gave the group high praise, stating, "(Erika Wennerstrom) and her two band mates have created an album with more rocking songs and fat hooks than most bands can dream of. It’s not just that they rock, it’s that you believe what you hear, that they love the sound they make, that Wennerstrom lays her soul bare in her lyrics without sounding like Sarah McLachlan, that the women of rock who labored to make it OK for a girl to dream of playing guitar deserve far better than Avril Lavigne or Kelly Osbourne as their descendants."

The second full-length album from the band, All This Time, was released on August 8, 2006. The band road tested many of the tracks on the record prior to releasing it and received rave reviews from audiences. The album relies less on guitar riffs and belted vocals and more on musicianship, without leaving behind the group's unique sound. On the modern rock station WOXY, the band was ranked No. 12 on the 97 Best of 2005, putting the band among the likes of Spoon and ahead of blues rockers The White Stripes.

According to Wennerstrom, the name of the band comes from a question on a Mega Touch trivia quiz game at a bar. A question asked the name of Tom Petty's backing band, and one of the options was "Tom Petty and the Heartless Bastards". She thought it was funny, and used it when she later formed a band.

In August 2008, a new line-up for the band was announced. Erika Wennerstrom remains the only constant member, rejoined by bassist Jesse Ebaugh and original Heartless Bastards drummer Dave Colvin.

Their third album The Mountain was released February 3, 2009 on Fat Possum Records and was produced by Spoon producer Mike McCarthy. For this album the band broadened their sound to include elements of country music, employing violin, banjo, mandolin, and steel guitar.

Heartless Bastards performed a taping for the PBS series Austin City Limits on June 3, 2009 as part of the show's 35th anniversary season. In October and November 2009 the band opened for Wolfmother during the band's American tour.

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Hiatus Kaiyote

Hiatus Kaiyote (/haɪˈeɪtəs keɪˈjoʊti/) is a future soul quartet formed in Melbourne in 2011. The members are Naomi "Nai Palm" Saalfield (vocals, guitar), Paul Bender (bass), Simon Mavin (keyboards) and Perrin Moss (drums, percussion). They have been nominated twice for Grammy Awards.

In 2013, they were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance for their song "Nakamarra", performed with Q-Tip. The song appears on their debut album, Tawk Tomahawk.

The band released their second album, Choose Your Weapon, on 1 May 2015. The review aggregator Metacritic has given the album a normalised rating of 88 out of 100, based on 6 reviews. On 9 May 2015, Choose Your Weapon debuted at number 22 on the Australian albums chart.

The song "Breathing Underwater" from Choose Your Weapon was nominated for Best R&B Performance at the 58th Grammy Awards.

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