The Feminine Complex

Infobox musical artist
Name = The Feminine Complex
Background = group_or_band


Img_capt =
Origin = Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Genre = Pop, Rock, Psychedelic pop
Years_active = 1966 to 1969
Label = Athena Records
Past_members = Mindy Dalton Judi Griffith Lana Napier Pame Stephens Jean Williams

The Feminine Complex were an all-girl American pop-rock band in the 1960s. The band formed while the girls were attending Maplewood High School in Nashville, Tennessee. They released only one album, Livin' Love, in 1969. The album has been reissued twice and has since developed a minor cult following. [allmusic.com, " [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:g9fixqy5ld0e~T1 allmusic (((The Feminine Complex > Biography )))] ", retrieved 29 March 2008]

The group's career

The Feminine Complex consisted of Mindy Dalton (guitar/vocals), Judi Griffith (tambourine/vocals), Lana Napier (drums/vocals), Pame Stephens (organ/vocals) andJean Williams (bass/vocals). Lana and Jean decided to form an all-girl band in the fall of 1966, eventually asking Mindy and Judi to join. All four were members of the Maplewood High School girl's basketball team, giving themselves the name of The Pivots, which was also their team's name. By the summer of 1967 they added Pame, a friend of Jean's, and changed the their name to The Feminine Complex. [Jonathan Marx, liner notes, CD reissue of Livin' Love, 1996, p 4.] According to Napier, "Everybody was just throwing out stuff...And somebody threw out a name, and I don't remember which one of the girls, I think it was Mindy, said, 'No, we need something feminine'--and I just added 'Complex' to it. We weren't simple!" [Quoted by Marx, p 4.] They played small local gigs in Nashville and surrounding areas from 1967-68. Dee Kilpatrick of Athena Records signed the group in 1968, and they recorded their debut, Livin' Love. They broke up when school began, in fall of that year. Livin' Love was released in 1969. [Marx, p 6.]

Livin' Love

2 singles were released from the album: "I've Been Workin' on You" and "Hide and Seek", both Top 40 hits in Nashville.

Jonathan Marx, who researched and wrote about the band for the 1996 CD reissue of the album on Teenbeat Records, recounts: "Lee Hazen, the engineer who recorded the band...played me the album--which, he was quick to tell me, was recorded with session musicians. And it sounded like it too: A couple of songs brimmed with feedback and psyched-out guitar solos, while others were punched up with a Memphis-style horn section. Then Lee remembered, 'Yeah, I recorded some demos with just the band too,' and a short rummage through his vast library of reel-to-reel tapes turned up the original recordings." [Marx, p 2.]

These demos were included on the 1996 Teenbeat reissue, and a subsequent 2004 reissue by Rev-Ola Records. A separate CD of demos and live recordings, To Be In Love, was released by Teenbeat in 1997.

Hoax

Jason Ankeny of Allmusic claims there are rumors the band didn't actually exist, but were a product of "latter-day pranksters." [allmusic.com, " [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:g9fixqy5ld0e~T1 allmusic (((The Feminine Complex > Biography )))] ", retrieved 29 March 2008]

References