Bringing women out from the shadows of music history. Familiar characters, new perspectives.
Carrie Snodgress turned her back on Hollywood so fast that she didn't even attend the Academy Awards when she was nominated for Best Actress. Her dream was never stardom; it was love and family. But it was hard to find the stability her own childhood had lacked when she went to live with Neil Young on his remote ranch, just as Neil's solo career went into high gear.
Read moreLinda Eastman was born a free spirit, but she was also the daughter of a strict and demanding father, a poor Jewish boy who became a wealthy lawyer and rebranded himself as a WASP. Linda fought her own nature to try and please him, and then her first husband, before finally breaking free to find success as a freelance photographer in Manhattan. Shooting and hobnobbing with ‘60s pop stars led her to Swinging London.
Read moreLou Reed was fascinated and inspired by all kinds of real people who existed on the edges of society — junkies, street hustlers, gender non-conformists — but he fell in love with trans woman Rachel Humphries, a beautiful mystery even to him.
Read moreWhen Tammy Wynette was a young girl, she dreamed of singing with George Jones at the Grand Ole Opry. Her single-minded drive to be a star brought her to the top and to George Jones, and these two great voices of country music fell in love. But once seated as the queen of country, Tammy was lost, while George proved to be a troubled and dedicated alcoholic.
Read moreLong before June Carter came along, there was Vivian. Johnny Cash and Viv were deeply in love, and had four daughters together, before... well, you probably know the rest. But you might not know the heartbreaking story of a young woman who went through hell to save her family, whose racial identity became a scandal emblematic of mid-century American strife, and who made it through the dark times, only to be insulted and written out of history.
Read moreA songwriter and singer so erotic, raw, and ahead of her time that no one was ready for her. An eathquaking icon of feminism and Black power during a time when it was unheard of for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to own her sexuality so explicitly. Betty Davis pushed her legendary husband out of cool jazz and up to the cutting edge, before divorcing him and releasing three of the most unexpected and astonishing albums of the 1970s. Then she disappeared.
Read moreNorma Tanega was a soulful American Latina artist, a one-hit wonder who never wanted stardom, but who fell in love with Dusty Springfield, the Queen of White Soul, who wanted stardom very much. They kept their contentious love affair from the public, but Norma had to leave behind Dusty's glittering world for the pain it concealed.
Read moreBehind Marvin Gaye's incredibly smooth, affable exterior was a soul tortured by the abuse he suffered as a child, insecurity, and paranoia. Like many victims, he turned perpetrator and dragged his child bride into his world of pain, drug dependency, and more sexual abuse. But Janis is a survivor...
Read moreThe White Stripes. Jack and his sister Meg. His wife Meg. His ex-wife Meg. The non-musician who became a rock star. The unassuming, pretty, porcelain-complexioned woman who evoked thunder from behind the drum kit. Her silent intensity became a riddle and compelled millions of fans to puzzle for the solution. And her disappearance has made clear that none is forthcoming.
Read moreThe daughter of a blues pioneer catches falls in love with two brilliant musicians. Sly Stone takes her out of her quiet life, but almost drags her into the dark world of his own demons. Then she meets Carlos Santana, a long partnership built on a mutual search for transcendence.
Read moreFaith Evans met and married Christopher Wallace in 1994. Within a year, they both became stars. The new marriage suffered under their grueling work schedules, but their connection remained strong, despite external drama and pressure. Just as Biggie was looking forward to the next stage of his life, though, it all caught up with them.
Read moreA beautiful English girl drifts into pop stardom and the inner circle of the Rolling Stones in 1960s London. As the girlfriend of Stones frontman Mick Jagger, the glare of public attention and personal misadventures take their toll on her mental health. She withdraws from her life, descending into addiction and hitting bottom before returning with a new voice (figuratively and literally) and an artistic triumph.
Read moreMayte Garcia, a young dancer from Puerto Rico, meets Prince and slowly becomes immersed in his extraordinary world. Their collaboration becomes a romance and then a marriage, before tragedy pulls them apart.
Read moreBrooke Shields was a young star who had her first taste of massive fame — and controversy — with the film Pretty Baby, in which she’d played a child prostitute. Michael Jackson, youngest of the Jackson Five, was transitioning to solo stardom as an adult. They met in 1981, each with an uncertain path before them, but Brooke and Michael would find comfort and friendship in each other.
Read moreLos Angeles, the mid 1990s. Tupac Shakur is one of the biggest emcees in the world, a lyric poet of a rapper. Kidada Jones is the daughter of music legend Quincy Jones. With her mother acting again, her younger sister Rashida headed to Harvard, and her father as active as ever, twenty-one year old Kidada was left to search for her place in the world. She would find it in Tupac, ironically after he’d blasted her interracial family in an interview.
Read moreLos Angeles, 1957. In the time of drive-in movies and sock hops, high school student Donna Ludwig liked to sneak out of the house to have fun with her friends. On one night out, she met a young guitarist named Richard Valenzuela and was immediately smitten. As Ritchie Valens, he would have a chart-topping hit with a song he wrote for her, before his life was tragically cut short.
Read moreIn rural Alabama, circa World War II, a farm girl named Audrey Mae Sheppard was at the tail end of a series of bad decisions. An ill-fated marriage and a pregnancy made her a single mother at the age of 18, and she’d had to move back home. An aspiring singer herself, she one day discovered an unassuming, lanky singer-songwriter named Hank Williams, and they fell in love. Their tumultuous union was defined by her singular, driving ambition to make them both stars.
Read moreIn 1959, an American teenager named Priscilla Beaulieu, daughter of an Air Force officer, was living in West Germany. Lonely and bored, she was introduced to another American who understood the feeling. Elvis Presley, already a huge star, was serving a stint in the U.S. Army, and fell in love with the beautiful, though very young girl. The troubling relationship only became more complicated as the years passed.
Read moreA story of young love set against the wild days of Beatlemania and the cultural revolution of the 1960s. The grounded, upper class actress and the identity shifting, working class pop star struggle in the eye of the storm.
Read moreThe beautiful young star of The Mod Squad (and later Twin Peaks) crushes hard when she meets the dynamic Quincy Jones, bandleader, record producer, and composer of Oscar-winning films. They confront racism along with the challenges of marriage in the spotlight.
Read moreMary Austin, shopgirl. Farrokh Bulsara, art student. They formed a bond that didn’t have a name and couldn’t be defined. Even as he morphed into Freddie Mercury, international superstar, their connection lasted until the end.
Read moreGirl meets boy, boy becomes international rock star, girl tries to save boy from his darkest impulses, girl and boy both end up descending into the blackness. That old chestnut.
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