THE LORDE OF HER DAY

In many ways, Lee was arguably the Lorde of the 60s. Lee sees echoes of herself in the young star.

“Lorde’s come out with her own look, which I did back in my day. When I see the way she moves her arms on stage I think, ‘Hello, I did that too.’ What will she do next? I like her.”

You had to have a backbone of steel to be a female in the music industry in the 1960s.

“The female artists back in those days were considered a wll in, the pretty wll in between the male stars,” says Lee. “That wasn’t me.”

Lee wasn’t a “pretty dolly”. She was a feisty feminist who won an army of teen fans with her rebellious look and non-conformist approach.

“No, no, I picked that apart and gave them heaps. It was the 60s and the world was changing... we took the bull by the horns and went for it.”

She’s thrilled by the #MeToo movement.

“It’s fantastic, just fantastic that women are standing up again. I saw others, in my time, who experienced things... the casting couch, I guess you could say. It didn’t happen to me – I think they were scared, intimidated by me and my bold look.”

Lee is a genteel woman with immaculate manners so her next words should be read in the strong voice with which she uttered them: ”You just couldn’t take any crap in those days, you just stood up and did it.”

What would our music scene now look like for our women if pioneers like Lee hadn’t “stood up”?