An iconic woman who inspired me growing up well there have been many from susie
sue and stevie nicks to debbie harry of course polystyrene of x-ray specs
but today i would like to salute chrissy hind of the pretenders for always doing it her way
no one told chrissy hind what to do not then not now the way she looked the way she played her
guitar that was chrissy's way and the heavy shaggy fringe the thick black eyeliner the jeans t-shirt
the leather jacket that low slung guitar it's still there today nothing changes she's still as
rock and roll as she ever was and she's discovered this new talent for art her paintings are
incredible a surprising use of color as well uh her portraits are still life all very abstract but
stunning i would love a chrissy hind original to hand on my wall but for international women's days
for doing it her way and no one letting no one tell her what to do all power to you chrissy hind
for international women's day my most inspirational woman has got to be the woman who
started it all sister rosetta farp she in the 1940s was just a titan of music she was the
first person male or female to turn up that amp and give a much grindier heavier fatter sound
but she really became influential in terms of her worldwide and respectability
when she played in manchester on a disused train station i think it was like 1952.
and everybody all the artists all the british artists that saw that the rolling stones
the beatles they were all hugely and heavily influenced by her sound the way she was singing
they'd never seen anything like it before so as a consequence they went back and they just developed
their own sound and started playing they were already into that sound but they started really
trying to emulate those sounds and trying to um take what they wanted from her and to do their
new thing which was rock and roll and in terms of inspiration i think we all
may not be here if she hadn't started off that road to rock and roll a female in music who
inspired me a lot growing up is brody dahl i went to see her punk rock band the distillers
at rock city when i was only like 15 years old in nottingham and it was the first time
i'd seen a female lead band i'd seen a lot of male lead bands a lot of male leg bands
so this was quite life-changing for me it wasn't just her stage presence talent confidence it was
her attitude she was just there in a t-shirt and jeans pair of chick tailors messy hair
and she looked like me and she looked like every other woman in the audience that night
and for the first time in my life this sort of false narrative that we have forced upon us as
women that we are competing and we're always trying to outdo one another it just didn't
exist in that sweaty rock venue for that evening it was just a load of punk rockers enjoying the
talents of this amazing woman and that moment was very empowering um so i feel like brody
doll changed a lot for me that night and um i've been obsessed with her ever since can i have a top
three can i have debbie harry for just being an icon um stevie nicks for being inspirational and
continuing to be i had a podcast really recently with stevie nicks and i just wanted to applaud
every single thing she said um and tori amos who was hugely influential to me as a teenager
and beyond i remember hearing the song crucify in 1992 and just kind of feeling it was so powerful
music i love but telling stories from a uniquely female perspective so those
i would say the female artist that's had the biggest impact on me would be alanis morissette
because i can remember the day i first found jack the little pill and the weird thing is i came to
that album late but i remember at the time being very confused about myself and my own identity
and there was this pressure or i felt this pressure as a young woman to be hyper sexy
because that was the image i was seeing everywhere and then i heard this song from alanis morissette
you ought to know and the start of it where she's going i want you to know she
sounds so angry breathless and she's almost saying nice things on one hand like
wishing them both the best but this rage and she really set me down a path of understanding myself
and knowing that i wasn't here just to wear short skirts and i could have this range of emotions
and so musically and my taste in music but also identity wise she had a huge impact on me
absolute radio