Tiffany Minton at the inaugural She's a Rebel in 2015
“He hit me, and it felt like a kiss.”
It’s a chilling introduction to an unsettling song. “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin and recorded in 1962 by The Crystals, a New York girl group that had its first hit the year before with “There’s No Other (Like My Baby)” and would later hit again with “Da Doo Ron Ron.” The song relays the story of a woman who, when struck by her jealous partner, tells herself that the abuse is a sign of his true love. The brutal lyric is presented against a sublime musical backdrop crafted by producer Phil Spector — himself an accused abuser and, as of 2009, convicted murderer — in which The Crystals’ voices soar and swell, Barbara Alston taking the lead vocal as drums roll amid cascades of strings.
That powerful, complicated song is one sample of a vast catalog of underappreciated music made by the girl groups of the ’50s and ’60s. Though The Crystals, The Shirelles, The Ronettes and others — groups often featuring women of color — produced memorable hits, their work hasn’t been enshrined in the same way as that of male contemporaries like Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Beach Boys. That inspired several women in Nashville’s music scene to start the collective She’s a Rebel.
“We started it … as kind of, at first, a dream of our own,” co-founder, producer and house-band drummer Tiffany Minton tells the Scene. “We were like, ‘Oh, this is some of our favorite music, and wouldn’t it be great to pay tribute?’ And then we realized it was an opportunity to build a community around other women and this music, and that other women had connections to it. We realized there was a community and an audience.”
Each February since 2015, She’s a Rebel has put on a sold-out show, in which a crack band re-creates the lush arrangements typical of these songs while spotlighting an array of talented vocalists. The fourth iteration happens Friday and Saturday at 3rd & Lindsley. The project takes its name from “He’s a Rebel,” a song credited to The Crystals (though actually recorded by a different group called The Blossoms, led by Darlene Love). The show dovetails with the sentiment of the song, in which the protagonist falls in love with a boy who questions authority. It also flips the gender in the title. As Minton explains, everyone performing or working the show identifies as a woman.
“What we’re trying to do is change the structures of the inequity,” Minton says. “Women not only have to be advocating for their own acceptance and their own equity in the larger culture, but we have to take up those roles and those jobs. So, with the show, top to bottom, everybody involved is a woman for that reason.”
Kyshona Armstrong is a phenomenal vocalist and songwriter who has performed at each previous She’s a Rebel show. Though she’s not able to participate in this year’s shows, she sees the organization as one successful piece of the larger, decades-long dialogue about gender equality that has come to the forefront of our culture with movements like #MeToo and Time’s Up.
“We’ve been working together and uplifting one another, and the community is there to support,” says Armstrong. “The first year I was part of She’s a Rebel we sold it out, and nobody even knew what it was. ... If anything, I feel like She’s a Rebel was standing firm and supporting women before it even became a movement as it is now, which I think says even more about this community here in Nashville.”
During each of this weekend’s shows, the She’s a Rebel family will pay special tribute to Jessi Zazu, the former Those Darlins frontwoman who contributed to She’s a Rebel from the very beginning until her death in September at age 28. Though Zazu’s loss will undoubtedly hang heavily over this year’s She’s a Rebel, Minton remains optimistic about the project’s future, and she’s grateful for the growing community of women she’s able to work with. This year, that includes a six-member band (plus strings, horns and harmony singers) and more than 30 vocalists, running the gamut from revered soul-rocker Dianne Davidson to mellifluously voiced pop-schooled singer Emily West and Jake-Leg Stompers’ jazz-and-blues ace Lisa Law Fatzinger. There will also be special guest performances from folk-pop group SHEL and rock outfits Queens of Noise and Bang Bang.
Looking forward to future years, Minton hopes to invite some original girl-group members to perform alongside the She’s a Rebel band, giving them a new opportunity to earn credit and appreciation for their groundbreaking work.
“It’s all with the idea of making the community of women around this project larger,” Minton says. “I feel like every year that circle of women widens, and we continue to build relationships with dozens of women. It’s kind of its own self-fulfilling thing at this point, as long as we keep women at the center of it, and women of color specifically.”
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