JOURNAL 11.

WOMEN’S STUDIES 1
JOURNAL-Week 11.

Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy was born on October 25th 1941 in Melbourne, Victoria and is known as an Australian pop singer and actress. Her Australian show business family is well-known performers of the vaudeville circuit. Helen’s mother was Stella Lamond and father writer-actor-comedian Max Reddy, and her older sister is actress-singer Toni Lamond who along with her son singer Tony Sheldon make up the the very talented family
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Helen, this year, would have just turned 66 years old; she started her career performing on stage with her parents when only 4 years of age and in her late teens had a brief marriage to an older musician, which produced a daughter, Traci. They divorced soon after the child was born.

After starting her career in radio and television in Australia, she appeared on the TV pop music show “Band-stand” and won their talent contest, this win opened new doors and in 1966 she decided to moved to the USA first living in New York. There after living together for only four days, she married hubby number two, Jeff Wald, he became her Manager and to further her singing career they moved to Los Angeles, California where in 1970 she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records.

Along with her Aussie friend Olivia Newton-John, Helen became one of the most successful female recording artists of the Seventies, with 14 U.S Top 40 singles between 1971-1978. She also was a big influence in Olivia’s career, persuading her to also move, from England, and settle in the United States thus leading to her winning the staring role of “Sandy” in the hit musical “Grease”.

Helen’s first top 40 U.S hit was in 1971- “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and then in 1972 she recorded “I am Women” which she co-wrote and this song became her first number 1 hit. She attributed the writing of this song to her early awareness of the women’s movement and the Australian rock critic – pioneer feminist Lillian Roxon. As she couldn’t find a song to record, which reflected the “positive self-image she had gained from joining the women’s movement”, she decided she would have to write one. At first the song didn’t get much airplay but soon female listeners began repeatedly requesting it from their local radio stations – this constant attention pushed the song up the charts and the song is a total classic and has become a feminist anthem. The song earned her a Grammy Award for Female Pop Vocal Performance and at the awards ceremony she ended her acceptance speech by thanking GOD “ because SHE makes everything possible”

Over the next few years Helen had many hits songs some of these hits were earlier refused by other artists like Cher and Bette Midler but were recorded by her and with her strong voice and female following became instant hits. One of these songs was “Delta Dawn” which was turned down by Bette Midler and Tanya Tucker and Barbra Streisand even went as far as putting down the backing tracks but refused to sing a pop song so her agent contacted Jeff Wald, Helen’s manager/husband, offering her the already recorded music tracks and song, and with Helen’s strong vocals this became her number two hit on the charts in 1973. Cher was offered “Angie Baby” but refused it and once again Helen snapped it up and in 1974 this became her number three hit.
Helen became the most successful artist on the U.S Adult Contemporary charts, gaining fourteen top ten singles from 1971 to 1977 with eight of these songs reaching number one and three making number two.
Some hits were “You and Me Against the World”, “Leave Me Alone”, “Let Me Be Your Woman”, “The Happy Girl’s”, “Emotion”, “Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady”.

Recently Helen became active in community affairs and served as the state of California’s Parks and Recreation commissioner for 3 years. In 2002 she retired from performing and moved back to Australia were she published an autobiography and appeared on the “Today Show” in May 2006. She was also recently added to the ARIA Hall Of Fame, with a tribute performance by Vanessa Amorosi of “I Am Woman”.

Unfortunately Helen suffers from Addison’s disease, a failure of the adrenal glands, which requires ongoing medical treatment to maintain normal activities. Helen has sold more than 15 million albums and 10 million singles, and was the first Australian-born performer to win a Grammy award. In 1974 she became an American citizen, but currently is working as a Clinical Hypnotheapist and practicing in Sydney and is Patron of the Australian Society of Clinical Hypnotherapists.

Well- what a well-earned list of achievements for one woman, an Aussie born women especially, her career and songs are inspirational to women around the world. I must admit apart from her name and the “I am Woman” song along with a bit of history about her families connection to the entertainment industry I never realised how talented and famous she was and probably still is. She would be earning royalties for her recordings and I’m sure her feminist anthem song “I Am Women” would be sung many times a week by entertainers in gay and karaoke bars around the world. I have seen many performers dress-up and sing to Helen’s song. Everyone knows the words and everyone sings it loud!

This is Helen Reddy’s journey and the strong words in her anthem song hopefully gives encouragement and pride and self-esteem to many women maybe frightened to step out of the shadows of a loveless, violent relationship and move on. We do not have to be home-bound or unwilling to progress, if Helen can sing this song in the 1970’s when women were still being dominated and under-paid compared to men’s wages and most churches were still against birth control then we as women in 2007 should be thankful to her by being proud to be ourselves and make the most of our lives, as free thinkers.

Instead, many Muslim women are coming to this country to live- and want to live under a veil-controlled by loser men, too afraid to give freedom of choice to their daughters. And this is happening here right now in Australia. It makes me sick how in the 21st century these people want to turn back women’s rights and even demand that Doctor’s through the free Medicare system perform circumcision on young women REGULARLY, in Australia, all in the name of religion and I find when they come to this country instead of joining and strengthening the feminist bonds, hate us for our freedom of sexuality and dress code.

PLEASE HELEN RE-RELEASE YOUR “I AM WOMEN” SONG FOR ALL THE YOUNG AND SOON TO BE WOMEN OF AUSTRALIA, LET THEM KNOW IF YOU CAN DO IT 35 YEARS AGO THEN AS WOMEN THEY MUST UNITE AND HAVE AN IMPORTANT INPUT INTO THE FUTURE OF OUR CHILDREN.
We need happiness in life to raise happy well-adjusted children or there will be only hatred and unrest and division in this beautiful multi-cultural country, my birthplace Australia.


The end