When Girls Wore Skirts

 I suppose one could say that “Feminism” began when Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique in 1962, and co- founded National Organization for Women in 1966, but in reality, didn’t it start in the late 1950’s?... That’s when Girl Groups began to emerge on the music scene…  Ah, the girl groups… Young female singers who could harmonize, teaming up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles… The Chantels released the song Maybe, arguably the first true glimmering of the “Girl Group-Sound", in 1958…. It reached #15, and ka-ching… Songwriters and producers quickly recognized the potential of this new genre, and started recruiting existing acts or, in some cases, creating them from Jump Street… Phil Spector recruited/created The Crystals, The Blossoms, and The Ronettes… Soon The Motown label was also masterminding popular girl groups… The Marvelettes first… And later Martha and the Vandellas and The Supremes… Often featuring copious production values, top shelf studio musicians, and fueled by Brill Building and 1650 Broadway song writers like Spector, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, and Paul Simon as Jerry Landis the girl groups of the 60’s supplied listeners a seemingly ends stream of rich sounds… The high-production, harmony-heavy sound of girl groups was so popular, that many individual singers adopted the “Girl Group-Sound." Lesley Gore, Little Eva and Mary Wells were solo artists, but are considered by many part of the girl group genre. Other groups, such as Ruby and the Romantics and The Essex, had the “Girl Group-Sound,” even though they were not composed entirely of females. Let’s tune in WIBG, I bet there’s a girl group playing…