[amplifier feedback]
[electric guitar strum]
Growing up, when I discovered
these incredible women making rock music,
I mean, that's, like-- that's the dream.
People would be like, "Whoa,
look at that little gal with that big guitar,"
like a novelty.
[Benatar] I wanted to break the boys' club.
I wanted to break down that bullshit.
[Khan] I said, "Let me tell you something.
I'm going to be a star with or without you."
[Jett] Growing up, I thought,
"There's gotta be other girls
that wanna play rock 'n' roll.
I can't be the only one."
[Twain] There's something very liberating
about being able to take on a rock 'n' roll attitude
and not have to abandon your femininity
at the same time.
[Crow] There were lots of obstacles along the way for me,
but I knew the only person that could drive my ship
that I felt I could trust was me.
[Staples] I'm not a diva.
I love people. I'm a people person.
I'm just Mavis.
Just Mavis.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
What are you doing with this?
I remember climbing up on this airplane.
People were in the plane.
And they were looking out the window at us.
The photographers say,
"You Staple Singers, y'all do anything."
So, you wanna hear this?
What do you want me to do with it?
♪♪♪
♪ Oh, huh
♪ Mm
♪ I know a place
♪ Ain't nobody cryin'
♪ Ain't nobody worried
♪ No
♪ Ain't no smilin' faces
♪ Mm, no, no
♪ Lyin' to the races
That's the sound of America right there.
You know?
Mavis Staples, the best part of America.
There's no bigger gangsta than Mavis Staples.
She's Mavis Staples.
♪ I'll take you there
-♪ Oh, oh -[Jones] It's the truth
that comes through her songs
and the way she sings them,
and it's the love.
-I get nothing but love. -♪ I'll take you there
Mavis' voice told me
about the joy of life and the pain of life.
[Crow] When I get to sing with Mavis Staples,
or when I get to sing with any of these women
that paved the way for me,
there's something bigger than my experience.
There's something more.
um, heavenly about it.
[Khan] There was a lot of hometown pride
about the Staple Singers.
"I'll Take You There," when it came out,
it transcended
Chicago's petty-ass racism.
[applause]
[Staples] My father started us singing,
and the first song that he taught us
was "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."
He called us children into the living room,
set us on the floor in a circle,
and began giving us voices to sing
that he and his sisters and brothers would sing
when they were in Mississippi.
One night, my Aunt Katie said,
"Shucks, y'all sound pretty good.
I believe I want you all to sing in my church Sunday."
And, oh, they would have to stand me up in a chair,
'cause I was so little,
But we ended up having to sing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"
three times.
Pops said, "Shucks, these people like us."
It happened that Vivian Carter,
who was the president of Vee-Jay Records,
she was in the audience that day,
and she called Pops and asked him
if we could make a record,
so we learned more songs,
and we went in the studio and we recorded "Uncloudy Day."
"Uncloudy Day" took off, you know,
and mostly in the South.
That was the very first gospel record to sell a million.
But in the meantime,
people are calling us to come and sing.
We would go to places like Atlanta, Georgia.
New Orleans.
Memphis.
But as we started traveling on "Uncloudy Day,"
the people would come on the radio
and say, "That's little Mavis Staples.
"That's this little girl.
She's singing this song."
And people just wouldn't believe it.
My part was
♪ Well, well, well, oh
♪ Lord, they tell me now
I was singing a lady's bass.
And we'd get to these towns and they would tell Pops,
"People are betting that's not your daughter
singing that song."
So as the four of us were singing,
and then, when my part came,
Pervis, my brother.
he would step up like it was gonna be him saying that,
and you would hear all over the audience,
"I told you that wasn't no little girl.
I told you that wasn't no little girl."
And while they going through that,
I'm easing up to the mic,
and I say, ♪ Well, well, well
[laughing]
We--we--
we would have so much fun with that.
[giggling]
So, I was having fun singing with my family.
♪♪♪
♪ Early one morning
♪ Yes, sir
♪ I felt the pain
♪ Oh, yeah
-♪ Felt like death -♪ Mm-hmm
-♪ Done sung my name -♪ Oh, yeah
-♪ I started to tremble -♪ Whoa, yeah
♪ Deep down inside, yeah
♪ And I felt the fear
♪ Of the swelling tide
♪ Yeah, yeah
♪ Wish I had answered
♪ Wish I had answered ♪
♪ Wish I had answered when he ♪
♪ Called
[Clayton] The Staple Singers would come
maybe once a year in town,
and sometimes we were blessed
to have them at my dad's church in New Orleans.
They would come and do programs,
and during the program,
everybody was assigned records,
albums, to sell,
and I would always have my little five albums,
and I would walk, you know, the aisles of the church,
and people would buy, and I--
and it would do me the greatest deed for me
to be able to go to Pop Staples and give him the money
for whatever the records were I sold.
So, yes, I have very fond memories of the Staple Singers,
and boy, could they sing.
It felt great to sing with my family.
If one of us were off key,
the other would help get it right.
But I'll tell you, one of my sisters, Yvonne,
was very proper.
Now, if you notice how I talk,
I have a Southern accent like my mother.
Where I would say,
♪ Ev'ry day, ev'ry hour okay?
Yvonne said, ♪ Ev-e-ry day, ev-e-ry hour
and we would just die laughing.
She would even be proper singing.
You know? [laughs]
But to sing with my family, to travel with my family,
that's the best thing that could happen in the world.
Kept us loving one another, kept us together.
You know? That's home.
That's home.
One day, Pops came in from work.
He said, "Mavis, guess what?"
I said, "What, Daddy?"
He said, "Tabernacle Church
"wants us to open up for Mahalia Jackson
Monday night."
And, oh, my little heart just almost came out.
Lucky for me, we were in the same dressing room.
And I walked up to her.
I said, "Well, hello, Miss Sister Mahalia Jackson."
And she looked at me, and she said,
"Well, how are you, baby?"
I say, "I'm fine. My name is Mavis,
and I sing too."
She said, "Well, I wanna hear you sing."
I said, "Oh, you'll hear me, because I sing loud."
[laughing]
I--I got through singing.
Sister Mahalia Jackson,
she said, "You a good little ol' singer."
I was just the happiest little girl on this planet.
♪ I've
♪ been 'buked and
♪ I've been scorned
[Clayton] Mahalia Jackson would come to my dad's church
and be a guest singer,
so I wanted to be just like Mahalia,
and so much so that everything that she would sing,
I would emulate.
And when you sing in church
as much as Mavis and I sung in church coming up,
that's where you really develop your voice
is in church choirs,
singing solos,
and this was every Sunday.
♪ God said touch her
♪ In my name
♪ I rose this morning
♪ I rose this morning ♪
♪ I rose this morning
♪ I feel like shouting
♪ I feel like shouting ♪
♪ I feel like shouting
♪ I feel like shouting ♪
♪ I feel like shouting
♪ I feel like shouting ♪
[Staples] Sister Mahalia was my idol,
my friend, and my teacher.
You know, people from different Southern states
migrate to Chicago,
especially the blues and gospel singers.
Mahalia came out of New Orleans.
But all of them, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, you know,
and a lot of the gospel people like Sallie Martin,
and my father. He came from Mississippi.
I'll tell ya, for gospel, blues, R&B, you name 'em,
you can't beat Chicago for music.
You just can't do it.
[Contreras] That was really the beginning
of when Chicago was becoming a mecca for the blues.
The interesting thing about that scene
for the Staple Singers
is that there were so many folks that presaged it.
Mavis, in so many ways, was drawing from artists
like Clara Ward and her amazing voice.
I'm even thinking about Lovie Austin
and Ida Cox back in the 1920s and '30s
with some really amazing, beautiful blues music.
I--I think there's just such a long lineage of wild women
that all of these artists are drawing from.
♪ My man's got a heart
♪ Like a rock
♪ Cast in the sea
[George-Warren] Bessie Smith was
the great, great blues singer
of the 20th century.
You know, she kind of made the music industry boom
with her popularity on Columbia Records.
Without Bessie Smith, there would be no Janis Joplin.
It's one of those great tragedies that when she died,
she was forgotten for a while,
but same thing with Ma Rainey, too.
She was another great, great blues singer,
and both of these women were also very entrepreneurial
at a time when women were barely, you know,
allowed out of the kitchen.
But thank goodness they left behind
this incredible music.
There were so many other women in that era
who were sadly forgotten.
[Hendryx] When I think of the women
who were singing back at the time,
the first time I heard Big Mama Thornton,
this was so powerful,
and, yes, it's the name "Big Mama Thornton,"
but I think the voice was there, big or not,
And--
I think the other voice would be Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
[Weymouth] They were big stars.
They were the icons of their day.
But Sister Rosetta,
I didn't even know who she was
until maybe the last ten years.
I said, "Who is this? This is--
"Why did American network television
deprive us of these amazing people?"
♪♪♪
♪ Didn't it rain, children?
-[audience cheering] -♪ Rain? Oh yes
♪ Didn't it? Yes
♪ Didn't it? You know it did ♪
♪ Didn't it?
♪ Oh, oh, yeah
I loved Sister Rosetta Tharpe
playing the guitar in her high heels,
in her fur coat, and a dress,
rocking out on the guitar.
I mean, it's just, like, badassery, you know?
She's just doing her thing.
♪ Oh, my Lord, how it rained
[guitar solo]
Over the years,
we've had some great, great female singers.
Etta James, I loved her.
Oh, she's a fun person, too.
I love Sarah Vaughan.
And, of course, Aretha.
She's the greatest.
♪ Ooh, your kisses
♪ Sweeter than honey
♪ And guess what?
♪ So is my money
♪ All I need
♪ Is just a little respect when you get back ♪
-♪ When you get home -♪ Just a little bit
♪ No doubt about it, yeah ♪
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T
♪ Find out what it means to me ♪
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T
♪ Take care of TCB
♪ Oh
♪ A little respect Baby ♪
-♪ Just a little bit -♪ A little respect
-♪ I get by -♪ Just a little bit
-♪ Keep on by -♪ Just a little bit
-♪ Whoo -♪ Just a little bit
-♪ I'm not lying -♪ Just a little bit
♪ Respect
♪ That's what I want
♪ Respect
♪ Sure what I need
♪ Respect
♪ I gotta have it
♪ Just a little bit
♪♪♪
In the 1950s, you get these incredible artists
taking different eras of music
and combining it together
and creating a whole new genre of music.
It was the beginning of rock 'n' roll.
One of the great early rock 'n' rollers
was Wanda Jackson.
♪ A hard-headed woman
♪ A soft-hearted man
♪ They've been causing trouble
♪ Ever since the world began
♪ Oh yeah, ever since the world began ♪
♪ Whoo, yeah
♪ Well, a hard-headed woman
♪ Is a thorn in the side of a man ♪
♪ Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh
♪ A hard-headed woman
♪ Is a thorn in the side of a man ♪
Let's go again. Yeah.
Back in the day, Doris Day was kind of the role model,
just to stand there and sweetly sing,
and Wanda puts all this kind of raunch into it
with that amazing voice and her movement.
her incredible outfits that her mom made with the fringe,
so I love Wanda Jackson.
She really kicked down the doors
of the boys' club of those early rockabilly dudes.
Wanda Jackson is a pioneer,
and I think that--
you know, she was one of the original bad girls.
She has had a massive influence
over bridging rock 'n' roll and country music.
Wanda Jackson is an absolutely crucial
founding figure in rock 'n' roll,
But, of course, at the beginning of rock 'n' roll,
rock is colliding with society's norms.
People were afraid that this new phenomenon of music
endangered young people.
[Staples] In our home, I only heard gospel music.
Pops wouldn't allow any other.
So for me to hear rock 'n' roll,
I had to get to school,
put a quarter in the jukebox, and play James Brown.
But, um...
it was--it was-- it was not for us to hear
when we were kids.
Black people looked at it as the Devil's music.
You know, "I'll Take You There."
When we recorded "I'll Take You There,"
people started saying, "The Staple Singers
are singing the Devil's music."
You know, because of the beat.
[singing bass line]
And people jump up on the floor
and start dancing, you know?
So they just think,
"The Staple Singers are gone to the Devil."
[Clayton] The church members would tell me,
"My God, we don't want you to sing rock 'n' roll
and sing in the church."
It was rock 'n' roll.
[chuckles] It was--
It was what they would call "hellish music,"
and it would lead you down a path that was not very savory.
I believe with all of my heart
that rock 'n' roll music is a contributing factor
to our juvenile delinquency of today.
I 100% believe.
And why I believe that
is because I know how it feels when you sing it.
I know what it does to you.
And I know the evil that you get into in the beat.
If you talk to the average teenager of today,
and you ask them what it is about rock 'n' roll music
that they like,
and the first thing they'll say is "The beat.
The beat. The beat."
[Staples] When we recorded "I'll Take You There,"
I remember we were in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
That was the first time we had gone there to make a record.
And these guys, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins,
David Hood, and Jimmy.
they were probably the best rhythm section
at that time in the world.
They'd had a lot of hits come out of there.
But long before we were singing "I'll Take You There,"
we sang strictly gospel songs
for, oh, ten, 12 years.
We started singing in 1949,
and in 1960,
we happened to be in Montgomery, Alabama
on a Sunday morning.
Pops said, "Listen, y'all.
This man, Martin Luther King, is here.
I'd like to go to his 11:00 service."
So we all got in the car and went down
to Dexter Ave. Baptist Church.
We heard Dr. King's sermon.
[King] I'm worried about America.
-Yeah. -I'm worried about our nation,
because it's sick with racism.
Pops said, "Listen, y'all, I really like his message,
and I think that if he can preach it, we can sing it."
And that was the beginning of our message songs.
"March Up Freedom's Highway."
"Why? [Am I Treated So Bad]."
You know?
♪ Made up my mind
♪ And I won't turn around
♪ Made up my mind
♪ And I won't turn around
Marching up freedom's highway.
♪ Made up my mind
♪ And I won't turn around
Pops used to tell us stories
about how if a white man
was coming towards him on the same side of the street,
he'd have to cross over,
and I couldn't believe that,
but it was real,
and it was just so sad that it had to be that way.
But it was.
It took Pops to let me know,
"Unlock your mind, Mavis,
and see what's going on around you."
You know, I was-- I was the youngest.
I was still having fun. You know?
I was--I was still a kid,
but I realized what was going on
because we were living it.
I saw how Black people were treated in the South.
I saw the signs for "colored only."
I saw Emmett Till,
I saw Rosa Parks,
and I knew we needed to sing these songs to help.
Music played a big part in the change.
A huge part.
♪ And I won't turn back
♪ And I'm on my way
♪ I'm on my way
♪ And I won't turn back
♪ And I won't turn back ♪
♪ And I'm on my way
♪ I'm on my way
♪ And I won't turn back
♪ And I won't turn back ♪
♪ I'm on my way
♪ Thank God I'm on my way
[Clayton] Odetta was a folk singer.
She was very soulful.
And then she would play this guitar,
and it was just beautiful.
She was like a mom to me,
and she would always give me great advice
about anything that I talked to her about.
♪♪♪
[George-Warren] At the time, folk music
was becoming popular again,
and Odetta was trained as an opera singer,
musical theater,
but then, she really fell madly in love
with folk songs, blues,
and, you know, using music as a form of protest.
She was such a powerful presence.
[Hoff] There was so much great folk music
when I was growing up in the '60s,
and I loved Odetta,
the badass guitar playing and just the soulfulness,
and I--I like it
when it's just so raw and real, you know?
And truthful.
[George-Warren] In the early '60s
with new faces coming along in the folk scene,
they were in awe of Odetta,
and there were these women working in the folk tradition
that had very powerful things to say with their music.
[Hendryx] The change in this country
that was going on
meant people needed a lot of--
a lot of truth,
so you had to be authentic and be you.
Even if it was a show, even if it was entertaining,
it had to be authentic entertainment.
Nina Simone was just an incredible artist
who was a musician, singer, songwriter,
a fierce advocate for social change,
and a friend as well.
So, you know, she was a few years older than me,
but just being able to have a conversation with her
about music and about what she was fighting against...
that was very much a blueprint for my foundation.
[Gray] Being a woman and being Black
in the '50s and '60s,
and being really gifted and being really smart
made her life really difficult.
So when I listen to her music,
I just feel like I'm--I'm so blessed.
Like, I'm so blessed to be able to hear
what came from somebody like that.
♪♪♪
♪ Alabama's got me so upset
♪ And Tennessee's made me lose my rest ♪
♪ Everybody knows about Mississippi ♪
♪ Goddamn!
[Staples] I loved Nina Simone.
She was tough. She was tough.
And when she'd hit that piano,
and stand up, and--
and turn around, and--
oh, she was powerful.
♪ Everybody knows about Mississippi ♪
♪ Goddamn!
[Amos] Nina Simone's voice was a challenge to wake up.
"Mississippi Goddamn."
Wow. "Goddamn"?
As a minister's daughter, just, Goddamn,
how great is that?
But...wow.
To look at what's happening
and then have the courage to sing about it,
that's what she stands for.
That's it!
[applause]
[Hendryx] I was able to learn from someone like a Nina Simone,
Abbey Lincoln.
These women, they had gone through things
that I didn't have to go through.
In the early '60s,
I was in the girl group Bluebelles.
We were dressed alike,
and we had coiffed hair,
and sometimes tiaras, gloves.
You know, all the sort of, like,
trappings of the feminine.
You know, you were--
you were cute, you were kind of these...
dolls that were on stage,
and, you know, that was about a fantasy of women.
People really saw
the girl groups of the '50s and '60s
as just sort of a manufactured pop phenomenon,
acting at the behest of the puppetry
of the, you know,
gleaming male producer on the mount.
But I really see girl groups like
Diana Ross and The Supremes
as breaking out and actually seeking agency.
[Jones] Well, the first one I noticed, I suppose,
is Diana Ross.
She had an unusual voice,
and when I now try to sing a Diana Ross song,
the thing that I notice is
she makes everything sound very easy.
It's so natural,
and the songs are actually not, any of them,
not easy to sing.
[Ross] We just wanted to do harmony things
where the three voices blend,
but as we began to release records,
we separated ourselves into a lead and background singers,
because in the rhythm 'n' blues feel,
and rock 'n' roll,
this is the way it is now
with the lead voice and the back harmony notes
or even the back unison notes.
The Supremes were kind of like a girl gang.
They were a little bit more sophisticated
than, say, the Girl Gang or The Ronettes,
who had a little meaner, kind of, tougher stance,
and same thing with The Shangri-Las,
but these were amazing singers.
They totally knew how to rock a song.
I loved the girl-group thing with the look, the hair.
like, lashes out to there,
hair higher than the sky,
and the incredible. incredible singing,
and it was mostly Black women
that were at the forefront of all these groups,
and so that kind of coincided with the Civil Rights Movement.
-♪ No more brothers in jail -Off the pigs!
-♪ Pigs are gonna get killed -Off the pigs!
♪ No more brothers in jail
[Hendryx] The period was very...volatile
in terms of the country changing...
and the people who peopled my life very closely,
a lot of them were poets, writers,
people like Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers.
Angela Davis was a friend,
Nikki Giovanni,
you know, Muhammad Ali.
You know, so all these people were a part of my life,
and I could see what was happening to them.
If we do not seize the time,
if we do not realize that the time is now,
then the time will never come.
So everybody who believes it, and can say it,
and can fight for it, all power to the people.
[Hendryx] These were thinkers.
These were people about change.
They were people about social change.
They were crossing lines, kicking down doors.
You know, they were fierce people.
That's what raised my consciousness.
The change that had happened in the country,
in the world,
and specifically in our world,
there was no way of going back to being that fantasy.
When we were the girl group Bluebelles,
we felt that we, you know--
that we were being fake,
and that's when we began the transition to Labelle.
I think Labelle brought something completely different.
I was interested in writing music about the future,
writing music about space travel,
so that also became a part
of what it was that we were wearing.
Larry LeGaspi and a whole gaggle of gay guys
who were very into a futuristic vision
of fashion and design
said, "Get rid of what you're wearing.
"It doesn't work.
We have some better things, better ideas for you."
Larry had a vision
about how to bring this futuristic look to Labelle.
This just happened about four years ago
when we changed our name and our everything.
We saw that as Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles,
we weren't going anyplace, really.
And after changing, we could see the change,
It was very necessary.
But you seem with your music
to really be taking us somewhere.
I get the feeling
that there's a lot more to it than--
than the way you-- you know, the space clothes,
and I think you're saying something.
Am I tuned in there?
The space clothes
came about just by us being us.
It wasn't an intention to put something, a facade up
for the people to look at rather than to listen.
But don't you feel that you're part of the future?
-Oh, yes. -Yeah.
Well, in the sense of being in the future, we're present.
We deal with what's going on now.
♪ About love
-♪ Oh yeah -♪ What you say, y'all
♪ Oh yeah
[Hendryx] What we were wearing
was ornamental and fun and creative,
but it wasn't the reason for
our being there on stage.
The reason was to communicate.
We could have this fantasy look,
becoming these birds.
these bird-like characters,
but also say things like,
"People of color are going to be in the future."
People didn't know that that's what we were saying,
but that's what we were saying.
[Contreras] The audacity of believing
that there is a place for you in the future
as a Black person in America,
especially back in the 1950s, '60s, '70s,
is--is--it's--
you know, that takes some cojones.
Basically Labelle is just sort of like a power trio,
because you had Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx,
and then you had Sarah Dash.
Labelle was part of a larger imagining
that was coming from growing up
around sci-fi movies and the space race.
If you think about it, outside of Lieutenant Uhura,
there weren't really any Black people in those spaces.
You know?
So we're gonna imagine our own future.
[Hendryx] We knew that people would want to see us
because of what we looked like,
but then we can inform you
about what was going on in the world
in a way that was celebratory
as opposed to beating you over the head with the issue.
[applause]
[Khan] In the late '60s, I was still in high school,
and I was going to a lot of Black Panther rallies.
Black Panthers were beautiful to me,
because if you put your life on the line for something,
that's beautiful.
I did join the Panther party,
but they wouldn't let me do much, you know?
I was a young chick with jeans on,
and I didn't wear shoes a lot.
I was so cool, and, um,
I sold kisses once to raise money.
I started a free breakfast for children's program
with the Panthers backing,
and I became very close to Fred Hampton.
-I. -[crowd repeats]
-Am. -[crowd repeats]
-A revolutionary. -[crowd repeats]
-I am. -[crowd repeats]
-A. -[crowd repeats]
-Revolutionary. -[crowd repeats]
[Khan] I loved that man.
And I used to cut class
and beeline down to LouCity College
and watch "Battle of the Algiers"
over and over again.
Over and friggin' over again.
It was a Panther movie.
This night watchman came in.
He said, "Y'all not supposed to be in here,"
so we all rushed him to the floor.
We didn't hurt him,
but while he was on the floor, I--
I took the .38 police special,
and everybody thought I was so...
"right on" doing that, so... [laughs]
I took it. I secretly took it home.
And I just had it there.
And in my mindset, I said,
"Well, you know, if shit goes down,
I'm gonna have to use this."
And I have to make sure--
I've devoted my life to this shit.
I have to make sure I wanna die for this.
Do I feel that strong?
And the one main thing about the Panthers
that I really loved
was that they're willing to fight for something,
to die for something.
[Bobby Rush] And we are going to see to it, Freddy...
that you did not die in vain.
[applause]
[Khan] When Fred Hampton got killed,
that was when I made the decision.
so I ended up throwing the gun in Botany Pond.
And that's the first time I really sat down
and really took stock
of what I was gonna do for my future.
And that's when I decided I was gonna do music.
I was with a group called Life.
We played at five or six clubs
that were on Rush Street in Chicago,
and we did four or five sets a night,
but I was 16 when I started doing that work,
and I had no business in a club at my age.
Of course, they didn't card anybody,
but I used to love peppermint schnapps.
Anybody who loves peppermint schnapps,
you have to be pretty young, German,
or really out of your mind,
Right, so I was doing shots of peppermint schnapps,
and so, they had to, like,
pour me in the car most of the nights.
But, in retrospect,
singing that much, it was training,
and I did develop some kind of stamina and strength.
But those were good days.
I--you know, I was--
I don't think I can think of a time
where I was happier.
You know, it was a great place to be.
You'd meet all the bands,
and that's where I met the guys from Rufus,
'cause they were also playing the same...
five or six clubs that were on Rush Street.
So, whenever I had my 20-minute break,
I'd run across the street to see Rufus,
because they were doing all original music,
and this girl named Paulette McWilliams
was singing lead.
Paulette was very beautiful, and she knew everything,
and she taught me a lot about makeup
and, you know, what to wear, and things like that.
She sort of really was a big sister.
But then Paulette decided that she was going to go solo.
The guys immediately asked me to join them.
That was training for the rest of my life. Really.
In that day, it wasn't unusual
for a band to be discovered at a club,
and to sign a record deal on the spot at the very club.
♪ Love me right
♪ What's the matter with you?
♪ Hold me tight
♪ Why must I tell you what to do? ♪
♪ Smilin', smilin'
♪ Comes as no surprise, no
♪ So you're smilin'
♪ Ain't hidin'
♪ But what I see in your eyes
♪ The story goes
♪ A little deeper
♪ Than the eye can see
♪ Yeah
♪ Stop runnin' the game
Her artistry, her gift,
and the legacy to come from a band
and to be still standing strong
no matter what, you know,
that is the one and only Chaka Khan.
[Staples] The first time I heard her sing
was in our basement at our rehearsal.
I remember her singing "Amazing Grace."
And, and Pops, we all talked about this kid,
she has a beautiful voi--
Chaka was no more than 13, 14 years old.
She just had this high--
and she had a smile on her face when she would sing.
[Contreras] To an entire generation,
Chaka Khan represents Black radical imagination.
So you saw her with her jeans
that were festooned with feathers
and her little midriff top,
and she was fronting this bad band,
and she embodied this joie de vivre
that made you feel like anything was possible.
Here's the thing with Chaka Khan.
You can't deejay a Chaka Khan song
without getting the room just completely lit.
Like, she's just fire.
[Jones] For me, there were two great vocalists at that time.
The first was Aretha, and the next was Chaka,
and they both had licks they did
that would be emulated by all singers
for the rest of time.
♪ Yeah is Aretha.
Chaka was ♪ Oh, whoa
It's just this thing they do.
It's a different thing that you might not even notice,
but as a singer, you go, "Nobody's done that before.
Nobody's done that before."
They brought it,
and now everybody in its wake
emulates it or imitates it.
[Khan] Rufus was like a really tight-knit family.
I was the little sister,
and if I had a boyfriend, the guys had to approve him,
and things like that.
I mean, we were on the road.
They would come to my room, do a walk-through,
make sure no one was in the room.
I was a prisoner. I was--
Once I was with Rufus, I was a prisoner on the road.
I couldn't go anywhere.
Certain members of the band would make sure
I would stay pretty fucked up, you know?
So I was, you know, pliant.
It can be an ugly, ugly world,
an ugly scene, you know?
My A&R man, his name was Otis Smith,
and he was a very powerful guy.
He was the guy who decided that the band would be
Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.
That was the beginning of the end
for Rufus, obviously.
I was working so hard all the time.
I don't think I'd found...
my power.
When I became a solo artist,
because of the way I was living before,
was I just went head-on
into some places that I--I--I shouldn't have.
Or, you know, were dangerous.
Etta James happened to be at the Warner Brothers offices
when I was having a meeting.
She pulled me aside and into a room,
and closed the door,
and she said, "I've been watching you.
"I know--I know what you're doing.
"You're doing a good job.
"You sound beautiful,
but I don't want you to end up like this."
She pulled up her sleeve,
and I saw tracks.
There's tracks up and down her arms.
"I don't want you to end up like this.
I don't want you like this."
When I saw her tracks,
I was like-- it was high impact.
That was like some wild shit.
I said, "Don't worry, Etta. Don't worry."
I said, "It's not gonna happen to me."
[applause]
There's no reason
why I shouldn't be making as much money
on tours as the Rolling Stones.
There's no reason why I shouldn't be.
But I'm not. You know?
There's no way that we are seen as equals in this game.
Period.
With the guys. Okay?
Forget about it. [laughs]
You know, you just have to go through them.
You know what I'm saying?
You just have to just go through them
to get what you want.
I had to fight for that.
I mean, I used to keep my band in check, you know?
If they started out a song on stage,
and I didn't like the intro,
I would just say, "Stop!"
[laughs]
I'd say, "Stop everything.
We're gonna do this song over again."
In front of the audience, I'd do that.
So...
I--yeah, I was doing stupid shit like that.
It was--you know, but...
I had to remind them who the boss was.
You have to be very meticulous about what is yours
and what you want for it,
because I am
a very strong, opinionated, ass-kicking woman.
So I took my power back.
When I got pregnant with my daughter, my first child,
I was 20,
and Otis Smith said to me--
I told him I was pregnant.
He said, "How the hell
"am I going to make a fucking star out of you
if you're gonna be having babies?"
I said, "Let me tell you something.
"I'm going to be a star,
"with or without you.
"With a baby, or without a baby.
"Any way I come.
I'm gonna be all right."
♪♪♪
[Staples] In the late '60s and into the '70s,
people were more alert
of what was going on around them.
People were so much more ready
to stand up...
and to--to work together to get it right.
[Khan] It seemed like a mass...
revelation was happening.
With the Vietnam War, a lot of the guys that went out
nice, clean, healthy young guys,
and came back addicts,
and all they wanted to do was be musicians,
or just--wild out, you know?
And everyone is trusting
and this beautiful, open-hearted thing was going on.
It'll never happen again.
[Staples] It was just a time you--you heard music.
Music had a lot to do with it.
I liked all kind of music,
and I've been fortunate to meet
most of the artists that I loved.
'Cause there would be times
when we would be on the same show, you know,
especially, like, festivals.
Tina Turner.
We all went to Ghana together on the same plane,
and we had big fun.
Another one was Janis Joplin.
I first met Janis Joplin
at Fillmore West in San Francisco.
Janis came into the dressing room.
She had a rabbit-fur shoulder bag
with her Southern Comfort in there.
You know, and she said, "Which one of you is Mavis?"
And the way she said it,
I was almost afraid to raise my hand.
I said--I said, "I'm Mavis."
She says, "Oh. I like your voice.
My name is Janis, and I'm making a record."
She hadn't even recorded yet when I met her,
but I'd say about six months after that,
Janis was on top of the charts.
Janis had transcended this "pretty" thing.
She was so attractive,
and you wanted to hug her, as well as become her,
and I don't know how she did it.
She was boyish, but she was totally a woman.
She didn't seem to have
anything to do with the hippies.
She was more like that other generation.
[Cavett] Why aren't there more ladies who do what you do?
-Sing, you mean? -No, do--the kind you do.
You're not in the same category with Kate Smith, or--
I don't know why. I always wondered,
because it seemed so natural to me.
But, um. I don't know.
It's not feminine, maybe, that's why.
I mean, to get down and really get into music,
get on the bottom side of the music,
instead of float around on the top
like most chick singers do.
I think they [vocalizes] on the top of the melody
instead of get into the feeling of the music.
I don't know.
[George-Warren] Janis had to blaze a trail
because there were no women
doing the kind of work that she was doing.
She wasn't playing the game of a pretty little girl singer,
which was a role that had been "opened" to women.
Janis just laughed at, you know?
She wanted to do things the way she wanted to do them.
And it was through her many influences
and her own incredible talent that out came Janis Joplin.
Whatever the song needed, she could bring to that song,
and she was one of the few women that was in that scene.
There was Grace Slick with Jefferson Airplane,
but when Janis came along,
there weren't a lot of women doing it.
She's driven about 3,000 miles to get here in her Cadillac,
which she says is sometimes gray and sometimes brown,
but right now is mostly muddy.
So let's have a big welcome for Big Mama Thornton.
[applause]
[music begins]
♪ Well, you know hard luck and trouble ♪
♪ Is my only friend
♪ I wanna let you know, baby
♪ I've been down ever since I walked in ♪
♪ You know, I was born under a bad sign ♪
[Terkel] People who influenced you.
Big Mama Thornton.
[Joplin] Yeah, she's still playing.
We've played with her twice.
She's fantastic.
[Terkel] Did you and she sing together?
[Joplin] I wouldn't get on the same stage with her.
Oh, she'd kill me. [laughing]
No, but we have played at the same bill, you know?
And I was absolutely terrified. [laughs]
But it was really a thrill for me.
[George-Warren] One of the great, great rock 'n' rollers
who came out in the 1950s is Big Mama Thornton,
and of course, as the world turns, you know,
in the 1960s,
Janis sees Big Mama Thornton
playing a little club in San Francisco
and hear her do "Ball and Chain,"
which had not even been recorded yet,
and that really became Janis Joplin's signature song
after she and her bandmates saw her do it.
She goes backstage, meets Big Mama,
and says, "Hey, can we do your song?"
And Big Mama was like, "Yeah,
as long as you don't, you know, F it up."
So that really became
Big Brother and the Holding Company's
breakthrough song for them,
and what got them, you know,
their notoriety when they played it
at--at Monterey Pop.
♪ And I said, oh, whoa, whoa
♪ Well, honey, this can't be,
♪ Oh, b-b-b-b-be--be-- baby, no ♪
♪ In vain
♪ I said, no, no, no, yeah
♪ Aah
♪ And I--
♪ And I want somebody to tell me, come on ♪
♪ Tell me why
♪ Want to know why
♪ Oh, people tell me why love
♪ Honey, why love is like
♪ Well, it's like
♪ A ball and
♪ And a chain
[cheering]
[George-Warren] Everybody remembers
Mama Cass voicing, like, "Wow."
I think it was just such a shock
to see someone
who was able to put it all out there on the stage
without holding back.
It was this kind of opening of,
"This is who I am and this is my music,"
and it was--It just raised people out of their seats.
It was like a--
an orgy and a religious experience at the same time.
[Jones] "Ball and Chain" remains
one of the greatest live recordings ever done.
I don't know why we don't hear from it more.
The shame attached to dying
in a motel by yourself from heroin?
Why is she not remembered and talked about
as much as any guy who died by himself in a motel?
She was left behind as quickly as they could.
"Oh, good, I'm so glad she's gone.
Let's tie her and go on, and move into the 1970s."
♪♪♪
[Wilson] In the early '70s, the culture had shifted so much,
mainly from the Beatles.
We were just fresh-faced,
apple-cheeked girls from Seattle.
We just had it in our cap
that we were just gonna get on those stages
and rock out on big stages,
and it worked. [laughs]
♪♪♪