The Women Who Got Behind the Men In Music

Back in the day, the record industry was a man’s world that told women wanting to climb the ladder to take a walk.  But if certain women hadn’t strongly advised certain record execs to take a chance on some gifted musicians, the classic rock playlist would be a lot shorter.

For example, before he was “Jimi Hendrix” he was Jimmy James, a member of Curtis Knight and the Squires, strumming away on a borrowed guitar because his own was in a pawnshop.

While appearing at New York’s Cheetah Club in 1966, Linda Keith, Keith Richards’ then-girlfriend, was in the audience. Linda, who inspired the Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” became Jimi’s biggest fan.  She made it her mission to make him a star but not before she introduced him to LSD and Bob Dylan. This had the effect of making the insecure Jimi think if this cat is a singer, then I can be one too.

However, Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham wasn’t impressed. Just when Linda thought her pleas were falling on deaf ears, she persuaded Animals’ bassist Chas Chandler to hear Jimi at the Café Wha?.  Chas formed a friendship, and then found a band for Jimi in London, even as the now drug-addicted Linda really struggled.

Keith Richards called Linda’s father about his daughter; he noted in his autobiography, Life, “For me to disapprove then is an irony, but I did disapprove then.”  Dad escorted her back to England where she became a ward of the court and cleaned up her act. I mean, if Keef thinks you’re doing too many drugs…

At Sun Records, it was Marion Keiskler who recognized Elvis’ vast money-making potential.  Marion was the right-hand woman to owner/producer Sam Philipps. Sun historian Colin Escott explained: “She handled much of the day-to-day contact with distributors and pressing plants and nurtured the distribution network and radio contacts that would serve as a launching pad for Sun Records.”

But Elvis’ early studio efforts didn’t impress Sam. Marion convinced Elvis to bring in more material and had Phillips follow through with his idea of having guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black be Presley’s backing band.

Four years and millions of Elvis’ records sold later, Marion had grown tired of hearing Sam bark orders, so she joined the US Air Force.

While now-Captain Marion (Keisker) MacInnes was working at the Air Force’s television station in West Germany, she met up with her old protégé at a press conference. Sergeant Presley announced,  “We wouldn’t be having a press conference if it weren’t for this lady. Marion, I don’t know whether to kiss you or salute!” She replied, “In that order.”

Mary Martin, who worked for Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, watched Dylan in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival, only to be appalled by the hastily assembled band’s sound.  She believed that her fellow Canadian, bassist Rick Danko, who had sent her a demo tape, and his band, the Hawks, were a much better musical match for Bob.  Dylan noted in a 1969 Rolling Stone interview, “Mary was a rather persevering soul. She kept pushing these guys, the Hawks to me.” Dylan said he’d give two of the Hawks, Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson, an audition only for Helm to tell Dylan that he’d either take the whole band or none of the band.

Martin also convinced a certain poet to record his demo in her bathroom.  Her friend, Judy Collins, loved three of the songs (“Priests,” “Sisters of Mercy” and “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”) so much that she recorded them for her 1967 album Wildflowers.  A year later, the world took notice of that poet, Leonard Cohen, when he released his debut album.

Mary later became an artist manager who took Van Morrison under her wing.  She got him out of what she noted was a “ruthless and rude and mean” publishing contract with Bang Records, then into a Warner Brothers studio to record his Moondance album.  After Van whined that he wasn’t making enough money to pay her commission, she sent him a two-word telegram: “I quit.”

Mary, who recently passed at the age of 85, is the star of Mary Martin: Music Maven; a soon-to-be-released documentary.  Perhaps Linda Keith will one day be the subject of her own documentary, where she can explain how Keith Richards greeted her in England after her dad brought her back home.  As she told the Guardian: “There Keith was, looking rather smug.  I told him to f_ _k off. Keith did do a bit of the dirty on me. But he genuinely felt I was in danger and he could save me. And God bless him, maybe he did.”

-Mark Daponte

Photo: Jimi Hendrix (Getty Images)