
Heavy Music Mothers
Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions
ABC-CLIO (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 27. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
152 pages
979-8-216-37161-8 (ISBN)
Description
Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions is an exploration of women and heavy music and the ways in which women have historically engaged with musicking as mothers. Julie Turley and Joan Jocson-Singh, musicking mothers themselves, largely employ an ethnographic lens, foregrounded in powerful one-on-one original interviews as vignettes that narrate thematic patterns. Other chapters examine motherhood identity embedded in respective published rock music memoirs, discussions of rock performance as a site of maternal bonding, and themes that arise when heavy music mothers write about motherhood. Autoethnographic portions throughout give the book an intimate and personal tone: one such chapter presents the concept of vigilante motherhood within an auto-ethnographic context. The authors reference the book's limitations, meditating on historically marginalized moms the authors predict and hope the focus will be on for the future. Heavy Music Mothers is a robust study of women and motherhood set within a music culture historically inhospitable to both women and mothers. This book, the first scholarly study of this topic, is just the beginning.
Reviews / Votes
Heavy Music Mothers is a celebration and a critique, challenging essen-tialist narratives of who gets to rock and who gets to mother while offering a roadmap for those who seek to do both ... The authors' honest acknowledgement of imperfection underscores the book's nuanced and empathetic portrait of mothers navigating extreme identities. * Metal Music Studies * Turley and Jocson-Singh's focus on motherhood sets this work apart. Heavy Music Mothers is engaging, unique, well-researched, and an important contribution to the literature concerned with music and gender and how women navigate these traditionally male-dominated spaces. -- Stacy Russo, author of <i>We Were Going to Change the World: Interviews with Women from the 1970s and 1980s Southern California Punk Rock Scene</i> Heavy Music Mothers by Julie Turley and Joan Jocson-Singh offers a brave and important look into what it takes to make extreme music while mothering-and highlights the structural and social barriers that get in the way. These mothers' stories are raw, vulnerable, harrowing, and beautiful, just like the music they make. Heavy Music Mothers will change the way you understand metal, punk, and motherhood. -- Beth Winegarner, author of <i>Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa</i>More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
12 b/w photos; 1 tables;
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
243 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-216-37161-8 (9798216371618)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2023
Lexington Books
€32.99
Available for download
Persons
Julie Turley is assistant professor and open education librarian at Kingsborough Community College/City University of New York in Brooklyn.
Joan Jocson-Singh is library director at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, CA.
Joan Jocson-Singh is library director at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, CA.
Content
Contents
Chapter 1: Mother Framing: Methodologies
Chapter 2: The Stories We Tell: Qualitative Interviews (Vignettes)
Chapter 3: The Rock Mom Memoir
Chapter 4: Vigilante Motherhood: The Embrace of Anger
Chapter 5: Daughters on Rock Moms: Life, Performance, Musicking, and Bonding
Chapter 6: Mother Tracks: Rock and Metal Moms Write Motherhood
Chapter 1: Mother Framing: Methodologies
Chapter 2: The Stories We Tell: Qualitative Interviews (Vignettes)
Chapter 3: The Rock Mom Memoir
Chapter 4: Vigilante Motherhood: The Embrace of Anger
Chapter 5: Daughters on Rock Moms: Life, Performance, Musicking, and Bonding
Chapter 6: Mother Tracks: Rock and Metal Moms Write Motherhood