Girlschool
Girlschool are a British rock band that formed in the new wave of British heavy metal scene in 1978. Frequently associated with contemporaries Motörhead, they are the longest-running all-female rock band, still active after more than 40 years. Formed from a school band called Painted Lady, Girlschool enjoyed strong media exposure and commercial success in the UK in the early 1980s with three albums of "punk-tinged metal" and a few singles, but lost their momentum in the following years.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Girlschool focused on shows and tours and made few studio albums. During their career they travelled the world, playing in many rock and metal festivals and co-headlining with or supporting important hard rock and heavy metal bands. They maintain a worldwide cult following, and are an inspiration for many female rock musicians. Despite frequent changes of line-up, all original members who are still alive—Kim McAuliffe, Enid Williams and Denise Dufort—had been in the band until 2019, when Willams quit. Original lead guitarist and singer Kelly Johnson died of cancer in 2007.
History
1975–1978: Painted Lady
In 1975, school friends and neighbours from Wandsworth, South London, Kim McAuliffe and Dinah Enid Williams formed an all-girl rock cover band called Painted Lady, together with Tina Gayle on drums. Deirdre Cartwright joined the new band on lead guitar, Val Lloyd replaced Gayle on drums and they started playing the local pub scene. "The reason we were all girls was we couldn’t find any blokes who wanted to play with us! This was the natural thing to do", McAuliffe explained to Gary Graff in 1997 about the all-female composition of the band.Cartwright, who was older and more musically experienced than the other members, left in 1977 to form the band Tour De Force and then followed different professional opportunities in the music business; she is now a renowned jazz guitarist. Her place in the band was briefly taken by visiting American Kathy Valentine, who approached the band through an advertisement in the British music newspaper Melody Maker. When Valentine returned to the United States in 1978 to form the Textones and later join The Go-Go's as bass player, Painted Lady broke up. However, McAuliffe and Williams were still willing to pursue a musical career to escape their day jobs in a bank and a bakery; they reformed the band, recruiting lead guitarist Kelly Johnson and drummer Denise Dufort in April 1978. The new line-up changed their name to Girlschool—taking it from "Girls' School", the B-side of the hit single "Mull of Kintyre" by Paul McCartney and Wings— and immediately hit the road, touring small venues in France, Ireland and Great Britain.
1978–1982: N.W.O.B.H.M.
In December 1978, Girlschool released their first single, "Take It All Away", on the independent record label City Records, owned by Phil Scott, a friend of the band. The single had some radio airplay and circulated in the underground scene; it came to the hearing of Ian Kilmister, commonly known as Lemmy, leader of the British rock band Motörhead, who wanted to meet the band. He, together with Motörhead and Hawkwind manager Doug Smith, went to see the band performing live and offered them a support slot on Motörhead's Overkill tour in the spring of 1979. This was the start of an enduring relationship between the two bands. After the tour and a few other shows supporting Welsh band Budgie, Doug Smith became the manager of Girlschool and obtained an audition with the British label Bronze Records, at the time home of Uriah Heep, Motörhead and Juicy Lucy. Bronze's owner Gerry Bron himself attended the audition; he was impressed by Girlschool's stage presence and musicianship, offering them a contract with his label in December 1979.The British rock movement known as the new wave of British heavy metal, which started in the late 1970s and broke in the mainstream in the early 1980s, was just exploding in the United Kingdom and the band gained the support of a strong label at exactly the right time to exploit the moment and form a solid fan base.
The band entered the recording studio with experienced producer Vic Maile in April 1980. Vic Maile had been working as live sound engineer for many important acts, like The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix, producing also the first two seminal albums of Dr. Feelgood and a few punk bands in the late 1970s. He captured the raw but powerful sound of Girlschool in ten short songs, with lead vocals shared by Williams, McAuliffe and Johnson. Girlschool released their debut album, Demolition, in June 1980, alongside the singles "Emergency", "Nothing to Lose" and "Race with the Devil". Demolition reached No.28 in the UK Album Chart in July 1980.
In the same period, albums and singles from Judas Priest, Saxon, Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Motörhead and other bands of the NWOBHM reached high positions in the UK charts, while the same bands did tours and concerts all over Europe. Girlschool participated in this frenzied touring activity, travelling in Great Britain and visiting Europe both as headliner act and as support to label mates Uriah Heep and Motörhead. On 20 August, Girlschool and Motörhead were filmed performing live at the Nottingham Theatre Royal for the Rockstage programme, broadcast by the ATV station on 4 April 1981. In this period, the band was subjected to intense media coverage by music magazines, radio and TV, interested in the novelty of a successful British all-female metal band. The barrage of interviews and promotion did not stop the production of songs and the girls released the new single "Yeah Right" in November 1980.
In December 1980, Girlschool officially started recording the follow-up to Demolition, again with producer Vic Maile, who had meanwhile produced Motörhead's classic album Ace of Spades. During the sessions, Maile suggested a studio recording team-up with Motörhead, resulting in the release of the EP St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The EP contains the cover of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ song "Please Don't Touch" and two self-covers, with Motörhead performing Girlschool's "Emergency", and Girlschool playing Motörhead's "Bomber". Dufort played drums on all songs, because Motörhead's drummer Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor was recovering from a neck injury. She also played the drums during the BBC One Top of the Pops TV show of 19 February 1981, where the two bands performed "Please Don’t Touch" under the moniker Headgirl. The EP reached No.5 in the UK Single Chart in February 1981 and was certified silver in December 1981, the best sale performance for both bands at the time.
The album Hit and Run was released in April 1981, soon followed by the eponymous single. Both releases were very successful in the UK, with the album reaching position No.5 and the single position No.33 in the respective charts. The album charted also in New Zealand and in Canada, where it went gold. Hit and Run was not released in the USA until 1982, with a different track listing including songs from Demolition. The success of their second album made Girlschool a rising attraction in the boiling British hard rock and heavy metal scene, ensuring headliner slots in medium-sized arenas in their sold-out UK tour or guest slots in stadium size concerts of major attractions like Black Sabbath and Rush. No dates in the USA were arranged, but Girlschool visited Canada in July. Their 1981 tour culminated on 28 August, headlining the Friday night of the three-day Reading Festival. The Friday Rock Show on BBC Radio 1 would later broadcast the Reading set, but the recording has not received an official release.
At the beginning of 1982, Girlschool did a European tour and, at the last Danish date in Copenhagen with supporting act Mercyful Fate, McAuliffe received a potentially-fatal electric shock from her microphone. She recovered fast enough to complete a Japanese tour, to do other European shows supporting Rainbow on their Difficult to Cure tour and to start working on new material for the next album. However, the gruelling schedule of recordings, promotional work and concerts had started to take its toll on the group, with bassist Enid Williams the first to give up, right after the release of Wildlife in March 1982, an EP designed to launch the upcoming album. On the recommendation of Lemmy, Williams was replaced by Ghislaine 'Gil' Weston, former bassist of the punk band The Killjoys.
Girlschool's third album Screaming Blue Murder was recorded in February and March 1982 under the direction of Nigel Gray, the successful producer of The Police and The Professionals. The album had a worldwide release in June 1982 but, despite the strong promotion, it reached only No.27 in the UK Album Chart. Critics generally considered Screaming Blue Murder a weaker offering in comparison with the preceding two albums.
Girlschool remained anyway a strong live attraction and their 1982 world tour led the band for the first time in the US to play in stadiums, supporting Iron Maiden and Scorpions. NWOBHM acts like Judas Priest and Def Leppard started to be very popular in America and the girls and their record label had no intention to fall back in the conquest of that large market.
1983–1985: American sirens
Back in England, the continuous succession of recording sessions, gigs and promotional work started again, but the strain of this routine was wearing out Kelly Johnson, who was also tired of the music the band had been playing for four years without a break. The other members struggled to convince her to stay and the chance to record with British celebrities Noddy Holder and Jim Lea as producers persuaded the guitarist to carry on with Girlschool. Holder and Lea, who had returned in those years to great success and popularity in Great Britain with the 70s rock band Slade, were hired to produce only a single, with the following album already scheduled to be recorded in Los Angeles with Quiet Riot producer Spencer Proffer. However, the good chemistry found with the two Slade members led the band to decide to record not a single, but their whole fourth studio album in North London with Lea and Holder, giving up the trip to the USA. This time the group changed sensibly both their appearance and their musical style in order to appeal to a large American audience, which Bronze considered more oriented toward AOR and glam rock than to the 'biker metal' Girlschool had produced before. Play Dirty, released in October 1983, is an album with a very polished sound, filled with keyboards, choruses and melodies, but it lacks much of the aggression and power of the preceding works. The album contains covers of the Slade songs "High & Dry" and "Burning in the Heat" and of T.Rex’s "20th Century Boy", which was also released as a single. Play Dirty failed to enter the top 50 chart in the UK and had a lukewarm reception by fans and critics at home. A struggle between Bronze and PolyGram for the worldwide contract of the band resulted also in poor promotion for the album in the USA. Moreover, a disastrous performance at Wembley Arena supporting ZZ Top did not help Girlschool's already degraded image in Great Britain.Girlschool embarked in a long US tour to promote the album, sometimes as support to Quiet Riot and Blue Öyster Cult, but more often as headliner in small venues after uncomfortable travels. Johnson, unable to tolerate the unhealthy life on the road, quit the band before completing the US tour, hurting the promotion of the album in America. She went to live in Los Angeles with Vicki Blue, former bassist of The Runaways. With the departure of Kelly Johnson, who was often considered the visual and musical focal point of the band, the almost bankrupt Bronze Records failed to extend the band's recording contract for a follow-up album.
At the beginning of 1984, Girlschool were in need of a new lead guitar player and singer, of a new recording contract and chart success but, despite the difficult situation, the band did not give up. The search for new members ended with the arrival of guitarist Cris Bonacci and singer and keyboard player Jackie Bodimead, both from the all-female hard rock band She. She were playing in London clubs at the time, trying to get a record contract and attract the attention of the British music press.
The new Girlschool, now a five-piece group, signed with the PolyGram American subsidiary Mercury Records, once home of the American all-girls rock band The Runaways. The label saw in the band an opportunity to produce a rival for chart-winning female-fronted bands like Heart and Lita Ford and pushed the music of the band even more towards FM friendly American hard rock. The band was paired with producer Nick Tauber, who had produced the first albums of Thin Lizzy and the most successful albums of Toyah and Marillion, contributing also to the launch of the British glam metal act Girl. The resulting album Running Wild, sported ten keyboard-laden tracks much different from Girlschool's most successful music. The record label decided to release the album only in the US in February 1985, but actually gave little support to its marketing. The review of the magazine Kerrang! reflects the opinions of Dufort and McAuliffe, which described years later the album as rubbish or even worse. Running Wild had insignificant sales on the US market, not representing the breakthrough the band and the label had hoped for. A live performance of Girlschool as a quintet at Camden Palace in London was taped for the VHS Play Dirty Live, which was released in 1985 and reissued on DVD with the title Live from London in 2005.
The band did some shows supporting the glam rock band Hanoi Rocks in Great Britain, before joining Deep Purple's comeback world tour, where Girschool played in a supporting role all over the USA. A tour of India and the Far East completed their live activities for 1985. Vocal duties were shared on stage between McAuliffe and Bodimead, who also played keyboards. At the end of the tour, Jackie Bodimead left the band to pursue a solo career.