Women Speak Out On Their Unique History In Male-run Music Industry: An Airplay Airplay Monitor...

In most stories of the black music industry, the heroes are male: Berry Gordy, Dave Clark, Jack Gibson, Jerry Wexler, etc. But a more thorough history of the business reveals the contributions of several crusading women who carved out impressive achievements in an industry dominated by males.
To bring a different perspective to Black History Month, we asked several key women at record labels and in broadcasting to share their experiences of breaking into the industry and their firsthand viewpoints on the historical development of women as a force in the music business and the degree to which things have changed for women in the industry. Their stories confirm both the best of the human spirit and the worst in business trends, as the industry's boom/bust cycle has limited the growth of African-American women into executive jobs and even weakened some of the bonds among colleagues, who say that a network among women is tenuous at best.
'50s & '60s: SECRETARIES & SALESGIRLS
Mike Bernardo, a veteran promotion woman who now runs the 331 Foundation to benefit Washington, D.C.-area children who lost their parents to violence, got her start in New York packing records in a warehouse. She soon moved on to work for the Scepter, Roulette, and Tico labels. 'Whenever there was a job available in something in the industry, I moved on. And there were no other black women in the business that I saw. I think there was one woman, Bunny Jonz, who worked for Scepter, but mostly the women were secretaries or saleswomen at the time,' says Bernardo, who was last senior VP of R&B promotion at Mercury.
'I was always fighting because I was black and from another country,' adds Bernardo, who is from Haiti by way of Canada. 'I think I might have opened the door a little bit and paved the way, because I was determined I wasn't just going to be a saleswoman or a secretary. I was going to be a good promotion person.'
'Mike Bernardo was one of my mentors, and (Universal president of black music) Jean Riggins was another one who helped me out a lot at Capitol,' says Barbara Lewis, another veteran promotion person who is currently MCA's Southeast field promotion manager. Lewis was a college graduate with a degree in psychology, testing children in New Orleans, when a college girlfriend, Jackie Ward, asked her to help out with Ward's growing indie promotion company. In 1978, Lewis began working accounts for United Artists, Warner Bros., CBS, and others, setting up in-stores, hanging posters, visiting radio stations, and even organizing daylong picnics in Baton Rouge, La., for radio personnel and their families on the record company's dime.
While Lewis counts Bernardo and Riggins among her mentors, those relationships came later. In the early days, when she taught herself to promote records, 'the fellas were doing promotion then: A.D. Washington, Bill Magnus, Step Johnson, and Ernie Singleton,' Lewis says. 'Those guys took me under their wing. I didn't have any real big problems. They were like, 'This is my little sister; look out for her.' '
Maye James, president of Unique Artistry and Hampton Marketing in New York, also got into the business to help a childhood girlfriend, Motown singer Mary Wells. Throughout the '60s, James toured with Wells and other Motown artists, and even the Beatles, at a time when other women were talent or secretaries. Later, she joined Scepter Records as assistant to president Florence Greenberg.
'It was the kind of company where, when someone would leave, they would move up people from inside. I ended up being the national promotions director, the first woman in that position at that company and possibly at any label,' James says. 'They originally had hired a guy, but he wasn't doing anything. I was doing all the work, Florence saw that, and she said, 'Hey, we're gonna get rid of this guy. Can you do it?' I said, 'You bet!' There were a few women doing promotions, but I can't recall their names. But I don't think they were doing national promotions.'
'70s: THIS FAR AND NO FARTHER
Though women were getting a foothold in regional promotion as early as the late '60s, women were mostly behind the scenes at radio. Until the growth of FM in the '70s, the women at R&B heritage AMs were often the hosts of gospel or homemaking shows. Women such as Irene Ware, who can still be heard hosting gospel at WGOK Mobile, Ala.; pioneering station owner Dorothy Brunson, who now owns television outlets; and longtime Philadelphia gospel host Louise Williams Bishop became household names during this era.
'I am the first woman to be heard on New York prime-time radio, black or white,' says Vy Higginsen, a Fashion Institute of Technology grad who was hired by Frankie Crocker in 1970 for WBLS New York's midday shift after she sent him a tape outlining ideas for a fashion and beauty show. 'I had always been told I had a very distinct-sounding voice, so I thought that I would marry the voice with the interest in beauty and fashion . . . When he heard the voice, he said, 'I need a disc jockey.' And I said, 'I don't want to be a disc jockey. I don't know how.' But they convinced me to do it.'
Higginsen, who is now doing middays at WRKS New York, says that there were no other full-time women on the air at the time, and she looked up to Alma John, who gave out health tips on WBLS. Later, WBLS hired Lamarr Renee, another popular voice. Higginsen and Renee represented a new style of female announcer: warm, sultry, intimate--even sexy.
'I wasn't sure how people would respond to me on the air, because it was so different,' Higginsen says, '(but) I never was so satisfied and gratified, rewarded, inspired, and uplifted, because it felt like I found my place. The warm acceptance by black women and men was overwhelming. I was at WBLS for five years. It was the beginning of FM radio, and our radio station went from obscurity to No. 1, which was a life-changing process for me.' But Higginsen says her own popularity occasionally caused jealousy at the station. She eventually left WBLS because she didn't see any opportunities for advancing to management. 'I didn't sense that a woman would ever be part of that. I felt that I would be held back,' she says.
'Vy Higginsen was my radio role model, along with Lamarr Renee, who was one of the first women in contemporary FM radio,' says Dyana Williams, co-chair of the International Assn. of African-American Music. Williams caught the radio bug in 1972 at City College in New York; eventually she became a DJ on WHUR Washington, D.C., then PD of rival WMMJ, Radio One's first FM acquisition. Owner Cathy Hughes is a lifetime friend and a mentor, says Williams.
Like many of the women we spoke to, Williams had men as her first mentors: WWRL New York's Van Jay and WOL Washington, D.C.'s Bob 'Nighthawk' Terry. 'When Cathy and I started there were very few women, so we made it our business to always hire women,' she notes, one of them being a young Wendy Williams, years before that personality's WQHT New York notoriety.
Eventually, jocks such as Wendy Williams would help define a more aggressive, hip-hop-influenced vocal style for women. But like Higginsen, this Williams had a come-hither on-air style at a time when not many women were on the air. 'Alfie Williams was the first woman at WHUR, but even when I came, people made a big fuss about me being a woman on the radio in the nation's capital!' recalls Dyana Williams. 'Perhaps it was my voice. In my day, the women had to sound sultry and sexy; they were softer in their approach. That was part of what was expected of women on the radio. They had a softer, warmer edge than the women I hear today.'
'70s, PART II: SOUL POWER
In the '70s, the record industry was characterized by both the continued presence of strong independent labels, including Motown, Stax, Buddah, and Casablanca, and the formation of black music departments at major labels. African-Americans were attaining executive titles and hiring more women.
Carol Cruickshank, affiliate-relations manager for SW Networks, started as an assistant to her brother, Cecil Holmes, then VP of promotion for Buddah, at a time when promotion departments handled everything, including marketing, publicity, and sales. Again, her mentors were men, including Sussex's Ron Mosely and Casablanca's Neil Bogart, but change was in the offing. 'Some of the other women who were around at the time I began in the industry were Sylvia Rhone, who ended up coming on board at Buddah for Alan Lott after I left to work at Arista, (and) another woman who started soon after I did is Sharon Heyward,' she says.
Heyward, now an independent marketing consultant, came into the industry as a high school graduate and young mother working for a graphic-design company that packaged 8-track tapes. She moved to Buddah as a sales assistant to Jean Pierre and then as assistant to Hank Talbert in dance promotion. By the late '70s, Heyward says, there was a clique of promotion women, including Belinda Wilson, Grace Spann, Sylvia Rhone, and Jackie Thomas. She recalls ABC Records' Otis Smith and his ' 'Otis' Angels,' a whole crew of promotion women.'
Women were also making inroads at radio. 'I actually just accidentally fell into the business, because originally I wanted to be a journalist,' says Daisy Davis, APD/MD of WDAS Philadelphia. As a college graduate in search of a job, she became a sales assistant at a radio station. 'I didn't have a person who inspired me to get in, but I did have some strong role models, including a lot of men, because obviously they were in the positions to help. In terms of females, I would have to say Maye James, who was one of the first MDs I met when she was at WBLS.'
By the late '70s, Cathy Hughes had already been a lecturer at Howard University's new School of Communications and worked with Inner City Broadcasting's WBLS GM Dorothy Brunson. Hughes helped turn on Inner City's WLBS in Detroit with Brunson, who went on to own WEBB Baltimore. '(Brunson) went into radio for herself, which was one of the reasons Inner City let her go,' Hughes recalls. 'They felt she had to part company with them because of her ownership aspirations, not knowing I had the same plans.'
'80s: NATURAL WOMAN
In 1980 Hughes established the Radio One Broadcasting company by purchasing WOL Washington, D.C., following the example of Brunson and WAAA Winston-Salem, N.C.'s Mutter Evans. 'It took me two years (to buy the station), because 32 lenders turned me down,' Hughes recalls. 'The 33rd was a Puerto Rican woman at Chemical Bank in New York. She had been on the job only two weeks, and she said 'yes.' All the other 32 presentations had been to white males.' She says that most colleagues tried to discourage her. 'I was told not to do it. Individuals I thought would support me, like (National Black Media Coalition head) Pluria Marshall (Sr.), told me I didn't know what I was asking for. He told me it would be a better career for me if I stayed working for Howard University and not pursue it.'
Keeping the station going in the early days was difficult, Hughes admits. She eventually lost her home and her car and spent 18 months living at the station until she turned a profit. 'I had some seriously rough moments,' she says, but adds that it was a Jesse Jackson speech about keeping a marriage together that inspired her to keep her business together. 'The only people who failed were the people who gave up, and a business is no different than a marriage.'
Today, Hughes' PDs include WWIN-FM Baltimore PD Kathy Brown, who recalls being impressed by WJPC Chicago announcer LaDonna Tittle. When she visited the station on Senior Ditch Day in high school and saw both Tittle and a black female engineer in the booth, she was hooked on radio. Her first PD at WLNR Chicago was a woman, Dee Hanley. Today, Brown counts Hanley, Hughes, and Radio One VP Mary Catherine Sneed as mentors.
At major labels, women were moving into positions in sales, promotion, marketing, and publicity at senior levels, sometimes bringing with them experience from other fields.
In 1982, Jean Riggins was working for the Red Cross as an L.A.-based regional representative to corporate America. While setting up a corporate blood drive for Capitol Records, Riggins was attracted to the lifestyle. 'I thought, 'Wow, this could be a really fun gig and something I could be interested in,' but I never had the hope of being included,' she says.
After a series of meetings with Capitol, she was offered a job as the black music marketing coordinator for the sales division, talking to retail accounts. 'Back then I was the only black and the first woman to attend the branch-manager meetings. And being a part of that whole thing for me was unique, for the industry was unique,' she says. Riggins' success in dealing with the field reps and the stores, gathering chart data, and designing marketing campaigns helped her rise through Capitol's ranks to director of artist and product development, then VP of marketing.
By the early '90s, black females were consolidating their power in the recording industry. Sylvia Rhone became Atlantic's senior VP/GM of black music and then president of Elektra; Karen Kennedy had been president of the fledgling Perspective Records; Heyward was senior VP of promotion at Virgin Records and by 1993 was named president of Perspective; Cassandra Mills was president of black music for Giant Records; Connie Johnson was VP of R&B promotion at Arista; Barbara Lewis was VP of black music promotion at Capitol; Sara Melendez was VP of black music and jazz marketing at Columbia; and Glynice Coleman was VP of R&B promotion at EMI, to name some of the highest-ranking African-American women of the time.
Many of radio's prominent contemporary women consolidated their positions in the '90s: Irene Johnson-Ware became GM at WGOK and president of the National Black Programmers Coalition; Bernardine Nash was now running WILD Boston, inherited from her late husband; Verna Green--who made a highly publicized transition from private industry--was GM of WJLB/WMXD Detroit; Helena DuBose controlled WQHH Lansing, Mich.; Karen Slade became GM of Stevie Wonder's KJLH Los Angeles.
'I WILL SURVIVE'
Now, as the year 2000 looms, some worry that the boom time for women in the music business is on the wane. Many women who worked hard through the last decade or two say that opportunities have dwindled because opportunities for African-Americans as a whole are down.
'I think at one time, say five years ago, there was a lot more of us out here, people like Cassandra Mills, Sharon Heyward, Mike Bernardo, Martha Thomas Frye, Barbara Lewis,' says Riggins. 'There are fewer key black executives overall (today). There was a roar at one point that women were taking over the industry.'
'A couple of years ago, there were all these women who were executives, and now they are all gone. That's scary,' notes WDAS' Davis. 'With less jobs overall in the business, there will be less higher-level jobs for women. And as far as this industry for blacks, we're all in trouble anyway.'
Many of the women interviewed for this story say that while the 'boys' club' does exist, they rarely encountered sexual harassment, mostly because of their own no-nonsense attitudes. 'The women who are strong are able to buck the system and survive, and they did not tolerate it,' notes Dyana Williams. 'They are very goal-oriented, powerful personalities; indomitable spirits who refuse to be depressed or repressed. These are sisters with attitude, and they ain't havin' it. It is these women who need to be heralded and championed.'
But gender discrimination did exist on a subtle level that grew stronger as more power was attained. And women say that any 'old girls' network' that does exist does not yet carry enough weight in the industry.
'It was really difficult; it was probably as difficult for them as it was for me,' recalls Higginsen of the struggles she had with WBLS management in the '70s. 'It was worthwhile, though, especially now, when I look back and see (that) no radio station worth their salt is without a woman on the air. I feel like I kicked down the door, so whatever happened seems incidental.'
'Being a woman never made a difference until I got higher in the ranks,' says Heyward. 'You were just a promotion person, and there was a lot of camaraderie . . . I just think being a woman got to be an issue at the senior level, because there was no one to hang on to. There never seems to be a network. There was not a mentor (at that level), and as you got higher, it got lonelier. There was no 'godmother' for women.'
Cruickshank believes that it is harder for women today to make strides in the industry because of the overall competitive atmosphere. 'I think the loyalty back then was stronger, although you still find a few loyal people now. I just felt that in coming up, people really supported you . . . There was genuine camaraderie. I don't see that now,' she says. 'I think it's because the companies are larger, the demands are greater, and, therefore, you have a lot more on your shoulders. You have to really concentrate on what you have to do, and you can't worry about the other guy.'
WWIN's Brown agrees. 'Unfortunately, we are so busy trying to keep our jobs and do our thing, we never have a chance to sit down and say (to somebody else), 'I'm looking for a midday person' or 'I'm having a problem, what do you think?' As women, we are so busy trying to compete not only for the station but to keep our jobs (that) we don't have time for mentoring and networking.'
Those contacted for this story agree that women often have to work twice as hard at their jobs to compete with men, in addition to taking care of family. Barbara Lewis, once a VP and now a regional for MCA, says that women are more adaptable and that flexibility is a strength that will help many survive in the business.
All women spoke strongly in favor of mentoring, not only to bring more African-American women into the business, but young men as well. And most were more concerned with issues of racism and ageism in the business than with issues particular to women.
'Why is 'old school' only applied to black executives? Why is it that we've done ourselves a big disservice?' demands Universal's Riggins, referring to the recent use of the term in contrast to the new crop of so-called 'young guns.' Ageism is keeping experienced veterans from growing old in this industry, something that happens in other music formats, she says.
Hilda Williams, Eastern regional promotion manager for Epic, notes, 'There is life after the music biz. We have to look at those marketing and sales jobs in the general-market arena or even doing our own thing. Also, look at other forms of music; there is jazz, gospel, top 40, and even rock or country. We have to look beyond the black music division, because if we don't, we're going to find out there is no place to go. Of course, we have to deal with the problem of being pigeonholed. I should not be regulated to work just black music, and that is something we have to change in the industry overall; we need to change perceptions.'

(c) BPI Communications, 1998 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED