WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE

Rock writer Hirshey (Nowhere to Run, not reviewed) gives an emotionally charged, densely packed tour of women making popular music across five decades.

Janis Joplin tumbles out her purse contents in the first chapter, and from that point on Hirshey never stops revealing unique and intimate details about what it is to be a woman in the world of music. Going far beyond rock, her chronology stretches from the blues of Bessie Smith and the groundbreaking guitar-strumming of Mother Maybelle Carter through the high-haired, high-voiced girl groups of the 1960s and punk revolutionaries of the 1980s to turn-of-the-millennium phenomena like Lauryn Hill and Lilith Fair. Hirshey’s comprehensive survey has the drama of a novel, thanks largely to fresh anecdotes that get to the heart of women’s powerful contributions to music while dealing with such issues as reconciling family life with life on the road, contending with the pressures of body image, and finding a place in male-dominated music. Even with subjects whose stories are already legend, Hirshey takes readers somewhere new. (Aretha Franklin is quoted as saying, “It seems simple to me, but for some people I guess feelin’ takes courage. When I sing, I’m saying, ‘Dig it, go on and try.’ ”) The author’s 20 years in magazine journalism are regrettably evident in prose that too often seeks to impress at the expense of the subject and in a distracting preoccupation with pop-culture concerns like lifestyle and fashion. This is regrettable, because when Hirshey focuses on the music, her writing can inspire and transport. “If only for the duration of a red light,” she states, a great song “is for millions of human beings, as nourishing as the greatest literature, as reassuring as prayer.”

An overly slick but still appealing treatment of a worthwhile subject.