What does the chick vocalist in a rock band do onstage when she’s not singing?

Cafe Society
1

I’m listening to some tasty live Grateful Dead in Hartford, 1977, just a couple weeks after the famous Cornell concert at Barton Hall. They’re still in top shape.

Donna Jean Godchaux is doing fantastic harmonies in the backup vocals. But she doesn’t have a guitar to play like Jerry or Bobby. Or Phil’s bass.

Just wondering what she…or any other instrumentless woman singer…DID up there In full audience view when she wasn’t singing. Donna Jean wasn’t a shimmy-shimmy go-go dance type, and they didn’t even give her a tambourine.

2

What do male singers do? That’s probably going to have the same answer.

3

In that case she just stood behind the mic and swayed a bit. It varies by band. Stevie twirls and changes outfits. Grace would prowl the stage like a panther. Annie would usually grab the mic stand and sway, then lightly bounce over to Mick, then back to the mic.

4

True.

5

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chick singer swing a mic around/ Or mic w/stand.

6

(snicker). I’m enjoying your oblique references, mainly because none of them have gone over my head so far.

Grace also enjoyed showing her snatch to the audience, on the evenings when she wore a short skirt onstage. She was not an underwear wearer. Unfortunately she wore pants to Woodstock, and floor-length skirts on most of her live performances on YouTube.

7

Donna Jean would go off stage if it was a song that didn’t use her. If it was a jam, she’d sway around like the rest of the crowd until it was time to sing again?

8

I kinda remember that. My first show was in January 1979, one of the last shows Keith and Donna Jean were in, and the only one I saw with them.

But I was doing a large dose of Green Dragon blotter, and I can’t remember exactly what she was up to.

Did she twirl?

9

Tambourine.

10

They gave Betty one of those in the comic book version of “The Archies.” Veronica played a keyboard, but I suspect it wasn’t plugged into anything.

Betty probably hit it on the downbeat, and all the black kids in the audience groaned.

11

Can we really not find any better terminology than “chick vocalist”?

12

If you dislike the vernacular, I would go with “woman backup singer.”

13

Womyn lead singer.

14

It’s the Straight Dope, we’re lucky he chose that.

15

I would have opened with that one.

16

You’re right, but my brain retracted back to the 1970s while I was typing the OP. No one would have ever called Donna Jean anything but the “chick singer.”

I apologize on behalf of of my species.

17

My first show was in the Brent era but I’ve seen video. She was the original spinner.

Donna was the back-up singer on nearly every song where she performed. She only occasionally sang lead.

18

Cite? I must have missed those performances.

19

Apologize for yourself - we’re all the same species. Did you really need to throw in that comment about Grace Slick “showing her snatch”? I’m a guy, but even I find that comment tasteless.

20

Um. She did that. Really did do that. Should I have used another term? Grace probably wouldn’t. “Nether region in the front?”

Oh, Christ, Chronos is gonna come crashing down on me sometime in the next hour…