The actress and singer most known for creating the groundbreaking feminist song “I Am Woman” has…
Helen Reddy famously remarked, “The only business that permitted you to keep your name and receive the same wage as a male was show business.”
The 78-year-old singer and actress, most renowned for her groundbreaking feminist hit “I Am Woman,” passed away in Los Angeles. She was a symbol of women’s emancipation and one of the most well-known Australians in the world in the 1970s.
Max Reddy, son of vaudeville artists Max Reddy and Stella Lamond, was born in Melbourne in 1941. Reddy was raised to sing, dance, and play the piano. She began appearing in her father’s touring act when she was in her late teens.
She wed pianist Kenneth Weate at the age of twenty. After their short marriage ended, she and her daughter Traci relocated to Sydney.
Determined to make a name for herself in America, she joined and triumphed in a singing competition in 1966. Her prize was a recording deal and a vacation to the United States. Once they arrived in New York with Traci, age three, the hoped-for contract vanished. To make ends meet, Reddy gave performances in US and Canadian bars.
When Reddy and Wald first tried to advance her career, the music industry resisted them. Nevertheless, their efforts were fruitful, as she recorded a rendition of the song I Do not Know How to Love Him from the show Jesus Christ Superstar in 1970. The song peaked at number one in Australia and number thirteen in the United States charts.
Reddy joined the women’s movement after relocating to Los Angeles. She spoke about her growing interest in women’s liberation and her search for music that reflected her pride in being a woman in her 2005 memoir, The Woman I Am.
She “eventually realized I was going to have to write the music myself” after failing to locate one. Reddy authored the lyrics to I Am Woman, while Ray Burton wrote the music.
