Rock'n'roll midrash redux...

Never to be forgotten, the Wild Women and Sirens of the Spirit also demand a reckoning as my rock'n'roll midrash with John the Baptist and the genealogies of Matthew and Luke continues to devolve... Perhaps the first Wild Woman of rock and roll who totally grabbed my imagination was Rolling Stone's NUMBER ONE vocalist of all time: Lady Soul Aretha Franklin. It was during the summer of 1968, while listening to her sing "Think" while riding home to Connecticut in the back of a Ford Mustang after visiting Washington, DC in the wake of Dr. King's assasination, that I sensed a call to ministry. So... Aretha is surely number one. (Damn - can that woman GET DOWN!!!!! Can I get a witness?!!!))

And the list continues to embrace:
+ Grace Slick
+ Janis Joplin
+ Joan Baez
+ Tina Weymouth
+ Suzy Creamcheese
+ Mary Chapin Carpenter
+ Lucinda Williams (this song KILLS me!)

+ Big Momma Thorton
+ Patti Smith
+ Patti Scialfa
+ Loreena Mckinnet
+ Willis
+ Etta James
+ Joan Osborne
+ Chrissy Hynde (OMG ain't nobody better!)

+ Sarah McLaughlan
+ Martina Topley-Bird
+ Altan
+ Carole King
+ Heart
+ Laryn Hill
+ Sinead O'Connor
+ Sheryl Crow (and she keeps keepin' on!)

And I probably need to add: Tina Fey, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett, Madeline Kahn, Whoppi Goldberg, Larraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Sara Silverman, Lily Tomlin, Barbara Brown Taylor, Rosemary Reuther, Elsa Tomez, Barbara Jordan, Fannie Lou Hammer, Rosa Parks, Mother Jones, Shirley Chissom and Hilary Rodham Clinton. And let me never forget Germaine Greer, Maya Angelou, Mary Magdalene, Anna Ahkmatova, Emily Dickonson, Annie Dillard, Denise Levertov and Mary Oliver.

These women - as well as my wife, Dianne, and my daughters, Jesse and Michal - have continued to shape and form me. And like the wild men, they aren't the whole truth either but damn they sure come close!