Last week I slipped back onto this blog with a post about learning to appreciate women. A part of that journey has been about opening myself up to the things women create and building a need for female voices in my life. In that vein, for today’s Friday Four I bring you:

Four Five Women You Should Be Listening To (and Possibly Aren’t)

01. Jenny Owen Youngs

Youngs is exactly the kind of thing I would have refused to listen to before. A young woman with a guitar who writes songs about her feelings and her relationships. It’s so easy for that to stray into the dewey sentimentalism that still makes me pretty uncomfortable even as it’s making me weep into my chai. But just as we’re supposed to imagine people complexly, we should imagine musicians more complexly still. She has a real gift for hooks. Her song ‘Pirates’ has what is possibly one of my favorite hooks ever as she plaintively tells the audience that loves no good, but it sure beats the hurt, beats the hurt, beats the hur-ur-ur-ur-urt. Her music is incredibly catchy, even the slow stuff, and when she does give us stories they come with fearlessness, like this Bonnie & Clyde tale from her last album. She writes the kind of songs that keep you company all day, which is good for me, because I hate feeling entirely alone.

02. Carolina Chocolate Drops

This band has two ladies with a strong grasp of what it means to embody a song. The one in the video above, Rhiannon Giddens, has been with the band since its inception. She plays five string banjo, fiddle, and kazoo. There’s no singing in the video I’ve posted here, but I had to choose this one because of how the percussion in it makes me happy. If you happen to hear her sing, you’ll know immediately that her voice is strong and clear, as evidenced here in the video where she’s singing ‘I Know I’ve Been Changed’ with her sister. The second lady, Leyla McCalla, joined the band on tour in 2012 as a cellist. I could listen to her talk about music all day. She seems to have need for music and a great understanding of poetry which I admire.

03. The Puppini Sisters

While I feel that the Carolina Chocolate Drops take a classical southern sound and ground it in the now, The Puppini Sisters sit firmly in an imagined past grounded in the tightly sung girl groups from the 40s and 50s. (I imagine Noh-Varr would approve.) They do a lot of period appropriate covers as well as their own songs and they wear a lot of costumes and I pretty much adore all of it. Don’t even get me started on the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. While it’s an old style, it’s not dusty. Their voices sound great together and they bring a modern flair to their old time sound. Mainly they’re fun to have around if you need a pick me up or are having a party.

04. Valerie Meiss

Valerie Meiss has been a part of several projects I really enjoy. I first learned of her when I stumbled onto a Hellblinki Concourse set at Dragon*Con in 2008. Hellblinki is the least accessible band on this list. I’ve been told over and over by friends that they just can’t get into the sound, because of how strange it is and the different ways they mix sounds and instruments and even audio clips on their albums. These are pretty much all of the things I love about Hellblinki, so I can’t exactly sympathize. But what I do say is ‘how about Valerie’s voice though? It’s great right!?’ Because it is. It’s why I chose the above video instead of any of the more polished or professional things I could have posted. Just listen to her. And it doesn’t stop there. She can sound like an old time skat performer, a baroness of the plains, like a zombie, like a Disney princess, those last two in the same song! Valerie has since moved on to a new project called Miss Mousie and the Rigamarole which is well worth looking into if you like her voice above. Just for fun, here’s a link to an accordion, fiddle, and upright bass version of Salt n’Pepa’s ‘Push It’.

I hope you find a new voice here. Fall in love a little, it’s the best feeling in the world.

Next week’s Friday Four will be about Birds. You can suggest Friday Four topics in the comments below or over twitter. Have a good weekend!