Extraordinary Women: This Week's Music

There are men that don't listen to music by women, men that won't read a book if a woman wrote it or if the narrator is female. These men make no sense to me, as men without women are nothing but the title of a Hemingway novel hardly anyone reads anymore.

I got to thinking of some of my favourite female musicians. That would be this week's theme, I decided. It wasn't a remotely geographical exercise (hated geography in high school; my wife is the map reader in our family). It was, rather, pure pleasure, pure inspiration, a pure and simple run down my iTunes list to see which females stood out. It was chance then, I think, that though you probably associate most of them with the US, only two were born there, and of those the one actually made her name in Vancouver.

Fate, chance, dumb luck, the Gods of Music, whatever it was, it turned out my ladies were pretty far-flung born, internationally speaking. I am willing, though, to bet dollars to donuts (I'm aiming to bring that expression back into popular parlance) that at least four of the five have lived for some time in The Big Apple. Who wouldn't, if they had the balls that are big (ovaries that are large?), the cash that is much, and/or the card that is green.

This Week's 'Music to Read By' By Birthplace:
1. New York, U.S.A
2. Moscow, Russia
3. Ibadan, Nigeria
4. Alexandria (Virginia), U.S.A
5. Reykjavik, Iceland