Each woman is distinct, in both her individual vocal style and in her singular transformation of American music history. Reading Group GuideĬarly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music.

Girls Like Us is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them-confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul. Sheila Weller captures the character of each woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new information. The history of the women of that generation has never been written-until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs.įilled with the voices of many dozens of these women's intimates, who are speaking in these pages for the first time, this alternating biography reads like a novel-except it’s all true, and the heroines are famous and beloved. Their stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation-female version-but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers and Carly Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America’s most important musical artists-Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon-charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time.Ĭarole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music.

Girls Like Us by Sheila Weller