ABSTRACT
One of the most significant developments of the early 1970s singer-songwriter movement was the creative and expressive space that it opened for female artists such as Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and many others. The emergence of these musicians ran parallel with the powerful rise of Women’s Liberation, which had thrust the Equal Rights Amendment squarely into the national headlines, and many music critics and writers were quick to note the connection. 1 One of the most prominent female music writers of the time, Loraine Alterman tackles the subject directly in her interview with Simon (born 1945), which is excerpted here from a forum with two other artists that appeared as part of a mammoth 35 page “Women in Music” special report in the music industry trade publication Record World. 2 In her introduction to the interview Alterman holds up Simon and the others as models of “the independent role women are assuming in society” and explains her interest in how these women are “providing a new point of view about relationships between men and women.” While Simon acknowledges the impact of Women’s Liberation, she is somewhat hesitant to situate her music or songwriting approach as part of the movement. What are we to make of this reluctance? How would you compare it with the attitudes of contemporary female musicians towards feminism?
