Post by Admin on Sept 30, 2020 16:21:54 GMT -4
She was 78.
Rest In Peace I am Woman
Helen Reddy, singer whose song I Am Woman became a feminist anthem
Helen Reddy, who has died aged 78, was a singer and songwriter whose song I Am Woman became a rallying cry for the nascent feminist movement; when she picked up her Grammy Award for best female artist in 1973, she famously thanked God – “for She makes everything possible”.
Written with her friend, the guitarist Ray Burton, I Am Woman – “Oh yes, I am wise / But it’s wisdom born of pain / Yes, I’ve paid the price / But look how much I gained” – came out of Helen Reddy’s alignment with the burgeoning women’s rights movement, thanks in part to reading the work of the Australian rock critic and feminist writer Lillian Roxon.
Looking for songs that reflected her increasingly positive self-image, she found none, she said. “I realized that the song I was looking for didn’t exist, and I was going to have to write it myself.”
Helen Maxine Reddy was born in Melbourne on October 25 1941, of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry; her mother Stella Campbell (née Lamond) was an actress, singer, and dancer, while her father Max Reddy was a writer, producer, and actor; Helen’s half-sister Toni Lamond also went on to be an actress and singer.
When she was born Max was serving with an entertainment troupe in the Australian Army, and was in New Guinea. Aged four, at the end of the Second World War, she joined her parents on the vaudeville circuit, singing and dancing: “It was instilled in me: you will be a star,” she recalled.
With her parents working so hard – and arguing much of the time – 12-year-old Helen went to live with an aunt, and attended Tintern Grammar School in her home city. But showbiz still claimed her, despite a brief early marriage that left her as a single mother.
With a daughter to support, she returned to treading the boards, singing – but not dancing, thanks to having a kidney removed when she was 17. In 1966 she won a talent contest on the television show Bandstand, the prize for which appeared to be a paid trip to New York to cut a single with Mercury Records. When she arrived, however, the label told her the deal was only for an audition, which they took to be her original performance on Bandstand – an “audition” she had failed, they said.
Undeterred, despite having only $200, Helen Reddy decided to stick around, her three-year-old daughter in tow, and attempt to forge a career in the US. She struggled, however, and in 1968, when she was down to her last few dollars, an Australian friend, a stage hypnotist named Martin St James, threw a $5-a-head party for her.
It was there that she met Jeff Wald, a secretary at the William Morris talent agency, and they were married in short order. But he was soon sacked, and for a while she supported them playing gigs here and there for a few dollars; at one point they had to do a moonlight flit, their few possessions in paper bags. “When we did eat, it was spaghetti, and we spent what little money we had on cockroach spray,” Helen Reddy recalled.
Rest In Peace I am Woman
Helen Reddy, singer whose song I Am Woman became a feminist anthem
Helen Reddy, who has died aged 78, was a singer and songwriter whose song I Am Woman became a rallying cry for the nascent feminist movement; when she picked up her Grammy Award for best female artist in 1973, she famously thanked God – “for She makes everything possible”.
Written with her friend, the guitarist Ray Burton, I Am Woman – “Oh yes, I am wise / But it’s wisdom born of pain / Yes, I’ve paid the price / But look how much I gained” – came out of Helen Reddy’s alignment with the burgeoning women’s rights movement, thanks in part to reading the work of the Australian rock critic and feminist writer Lillian Roxon.
Looking for songs that reflected her increasingly positive self-image, she found none, she said. “I realized that the song I was looking for didn’t exist, and I was going to have to write it myself.”
Helen Maxine Reddy was born in Melbourne on October 25 1941, of Irish, Scottish and English ancestry; her mother Stella Campbell (née Lamond) was an actress, singer, and dancer, while her father Max Reddy was a writer, producer, and actor; Helen’s half-sister Toni Lamond also went on to be an actress and singer.
When she was born Max was serving with an entertainment troupe in the Australian Army, and was in New Guinea. Aged four, at the end of the Second World War, she joined her parents on the vaudeville circuit, singing and dancing: “It was instilled in me: you will be a star,” she recalled.
With her parents working so hard – and arguing much of the time – 12-year-old Helen went to live with an aunt, and attended Tintern Grammar School in her home city. But showbiz still claimed her, despite a brief early marriage that left her as a single mother.
With a daughter to support, she returned to treading the boards, singing – but not dancing, thanks to having a kidney removed when she was 17. In 1966 she won a talent contest on the television show Bandstand, the prize for which appeared to be a paid trip to New York to cut a single with Mercury Records. When she arrived, however, the label told her the deal was only for an audition, which they took to be her original performance on Bandstand – an “audition” she had failed, they said.
Undeterred, despite having only $200, Helen Reddy decided to stick around, her three-year-old daughter in tow, and attempt to forge a career in the US. She struggled, however, and in 1968, when she was down to her last few dollars, an Australian friend, a stage hypnotist named Martin St James, threw a $5-a-head party for her.
It was there that she met Jeff Wald, a secretary at the William Morris talent agency, and they were married in short order. But he was soon sacked, and for a while she supported them playing gigs here and there for a few dollars; at one point they had to do a moonlight flit, their few possessions in paper bags. “When we did eat, it was spaghetti, and we spent what little money we had on cockroach spray,” Helen Reddy recalled.
