In 1981, Connie Kuhns approached Vancouver Co-op Radio about doing a show dedicated solely to playing music by women. At the time, Kuhns was already reviewing women’s music and concerts for Kinesis, a monthly publication put out by Vancouver Status of Women. I was a fan of Kuhns’s show, Rubymusic Radio, and listened to it every Friday. Rubymusic the book, from Caitlin Press, is a collection of those Kinesis columns, with other pieces Kuhns has written over the years, including several published in Geist. It’s an astonishing snapshot of the world of women’s music, and a look at women in folk, soul and rock music of the times, including Lillian Allen, Yoko Ono, Ferron, Ellen McIlwaine, and bands from the Vancouver punk scene, such as the Dishrags and the Moral Lepers, as well as many, many more. One thing that’s clear from Rubymusic is just how hard it was (and still is) for women to succeed in the music industry. Major labels weren’t that interested. “I cannot stress strongly enough how the contributions of female musicians and the women who support their networks have been overlooked and dismissed, even into our modern times. In a story that may be familiar to some, my mother was the nighttime cleaning lady at her hometown radio station. In the dark and damp basement, she found hundreds of demo 45s that had been thrown away. She saved them for me. Most of these records were by women.” And so a passion was born. Rubymusic is a book you can dip in and out of, reading up on your favourite artists first if you’re so inclined, and then finding out about other amazing women whom you may not have heard of before.

—Peggy Thompson

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