Black Diamond Queens
African American Women and Rock and Roll
Winner of the American Musicological Society’s 2021 Otto Kinkeldey Award
Winner of the Society for Ethnomusicology’s 2021 Alan Merriam Prize
Winner of the 2021 Marcia Herdon Prize awarded by the Gender and Sexualities Section of the Society for Ethnomusicology
Shortlisted for the 2021 MAAH Stone Book Award
One of Pitchfork’s Favorite Music Books of 2020
One of No Depression’s Best Music Books of 2020
African American women have played a pivotal part in rock and roll—from laying its foundations and singing chart-topping hits to influencing some of the genre's most iconic acts. Despite this, black women's importance to the music's history has been diminished by narratives of rock as a mostly white male enterprise. In Black Diamond Queens, Maureen Mahon draws on recordings, press coverage, archival materials, and interviews to document the history of African American women in rock and roll between the 1950s and the 1980s. Mahon details the musical contributions and cultural impact of Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, Betty Davis, Tina Turner, Merry Clayton, Labelle, the Shirelles, and others, demonstrating how dominant views of gender, race, sexuality, and genre affected their careers. By uncovering this hidden history of black women in rock and roll, Mahon reveals a powerful sonic legacy that continues to reverberate into the twenty-first century.
Pages: 408
Illustrations: 19 b&w illustrations
Published: October 2020
Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-1122-4
Cloth ISBN: 978-1-4780-1019-7
PRAISE
“We've got to know where we came from in order to get where we want to go, and there's no doubt that Maureen knows where she is headed! You can absolutely feel the passion in every word she speaks, whether in person or on paper, and Black Diamond Queens is no exception.”
— Quincy Jones
“I thought I knew the stories of the women who populate this stellar revisioning of rock and roll history. Now I realize how much I had to learn. A revolutionary read that should chasten rock historians and will delight anyone who wants the full picture of how black women shaped a culture that pushed them to the side and how they survived.”
— Ann Powers, author of Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music
“The book that's poised to set rock history free. Maureen Mahon's Black Diamond Queens sets the record straight by offering a meticulously detailed study of the ways in which Black women musicians and entertainers played pivotal roles in the birth of the genre and fearlessly revolutionized the form. Essential reading for anyone who cares about popular music culture.”
— Daphne A. Brooks, author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850–1910
"... Mahon has done plenty to expose how Black women rockers have been marginalized by musicians, audiences, historians, and critics. A well-researched, sociologically savvy effort to expand the rock canon."
— Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. "With depth and breadth, Mahon’s work centers the many African American women who heavily influence rock and roll, from LaVern Baker to Tina Turner. Rock and roll emerged neither from a vacuum nor from the minds of white, male performers alone. Mahon’s comprehensive research and intelligent thinking are captured in her compelling writing."
— Emily Dziuban, Booklist
"If you are curious about music and its development across genres or would like more examples of Black women’s exquisite impact on every aspect of life, Black Diamond Queens is for you. You won’t find many of these queens on the walls of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or in canonical texts discussing the origins of rock and roll. Still, crucially and inspiringly, you might see yourself in this group of Black women whose manicured fingers are all over rock and roll. At the very least, you will be exposed to some incredible new songs."
— Briana Spivey, Women's Review of Books
"As I read each page of Black Diamond Queens, learning about the Black women who contributed to not only the sound but the ethos of rock and roll, I felt like I was also learning about myself. In the end, the stories felt less like a permission slip to feel at home in a genre I most resonate with, but a reminder that, like these women, I should never feel the need to ask for permission at all."
— Erica Campbell, UPROXX
"[H]ighly recommended for anyone who is interested in deepening their knowledge of the legacies and profoundness of Black women in music."
— Jordannah Elizabeth, Amsterdam News
"A rare gem. . . . this meticulously researched book is a key entry in the ongoing record-correction of 20th-century popular music history, one that recenters women, and most crucially, women of color. . . . The collective telling of their complex stories, within an intersectional feminist framework, is the kind of illuminating scholarship that rock really needs."
— Jillian Mapes, Pitchfork
