‘I can’t be the only one’
Four-part docuseries puts spotlight on “Women Who Rock”
NEW YORK — As a percussion protege growing up in the Bay Area, Sheila Escovedo would ask visiting bands if she could sit in. She was often told to beat it.
“They’re looking at me like, well, ‘You’re a girl. Go away.’ They would push their hand like, ‘Get out of here,’” Escovedo said. “I was told: “You’re a girl, you can’t and you won’t and you don’t. And there’s no way.“
Escovedo, thankfully, found a way, becoming Sheila E., the Grammynominated, gold recordmaking drummer who collaborated with Prince, performed at the Academy Awards and supplied music for soundtracks, mammoth sporting events and world tours.
She and other women in rock have faced similar disbelief and hostility.
“I think that the common thread for women in general, and especially being in the music business, is really staying true to who you are and allowing that to be OK,” she said.
A deep dive into rock’s female pioneers like Sheila E. forms the backbone of the fascinating four-part docuseries “Women Who Rock,” which started Sunday on Epix. Director Jessica Hopper said the series offers a look at far more than just rock stars.
“Just like you can’t separate
art from artists, you can’t separate music from culture. If you tell these stories, you are telling this broader story of America,” Hopper said.
The series features appearances by Nancy Wilson of Heart, Chaka Khan, Pat Benatar, Mavis Staples, Shania Twain, Macy Gray, Rickie Lee Jones, Norah Jones, Aimee Mann, Tori Amos, Kate Pierson of the B-52’s, Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads, Nona Hendryx, Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, Jody Watley, St. Vincent, Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, among others.
“I loved hearing the other women talk about their experiences,” Hendryx said. “There’s just so many who are standing on the breasts — I was going to say shoulders — of many women who have come before them and fought battles that they didn’t even know they were fighting.”
The docuseries moves chronologically from the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, where women weren’t taken seriously, to the present day, where they’ve seized both production credits and
technology to blaze their own independent paths. It’s been an uphill climb for most.
“In the business of entertainment, I think women have classically been relegated to being second-class citizens who don’t have a whit of their own opinion about anything,” Wilson said. “So they have to be shaped, informed and told how to look and how to behave and how to sound.”
Heart — led by sisters Nancy and Ann — brushed off such behavior, leaning on their blood and their military background for strength, blazing a path in a male-dominate space with songs like “Barracuda” and “Alone.” Sheryl Crowe in the series says Wilson was a beacon of how to rock and maintain your femininity.
“We had this kind of almost a regimented concept that we could just do it. There would be no resistance,” said Nancy Wilson, touring this summer as Nancy Wilson’s Heart. “We were just able to do it. We were young enough and good enough already at a very young age not to be convinced that what we were was inappropriate.”