If we created a list of the most influential male rockers through the decades, it would have to be a book instead of a succinct article. You will find links to the music of most of these artists in the article, but we also recommend checking out our playlist. Early rocker Wanda Jackson had a robust career. She continued to perform throughout her life, and at age 73 released a album with Jack White of the White Stripes. In , she released yet another album, Unfinished Business.
It was his first public show outside of church. She even paid him for it and that helped inspire him to become a performer. She sang in churches and nightclubs and was the rare woman to play electric guitar onstage. When she was a teenager, her friends pooled their money and sent her to New York to a talent contest at the Apollo Theater where she came in first place.
Before finding her own voice, she patterned her sound and stage act after jazz singer Billie Holiday. Singer Bonnie Raitt has acknowledged Brown as a major influence. She began singing in the clubs of Chicago. The record mimicked the arrangement of the Baker record, and they even employed some of the same musicians that played on the Atlantic side.
Baker spearheaded a growing opposition movement against this copycat practice and petitioned Congress to establish a law to prevent the labels from issuing this type of record. The Shirelles were high school friends from Passaic, New Jersey. They were unusual because they wrote a lot of their own songs, though they made history for being the first all-girl group to have a No. They had an ill-fated marriage, though, and the eccentric Spector was so paranoid that he kept his young wife as a virtual prisoner and curtailed her ability to record.
Ronnie Spector reflected on her time with Spector:. My marriage to my ex [Phil Spector]. It was horrible. Barbed wire. It was like a little prison. And I was a prisoner. I lived to perform since I was 11 years old. What a mistake. Because that was a person that I thought would carry me on. Ronnie Spector passed away from cancer at the age of 78 in Tina Turner is considered the gold standard for female rock singers.
