Welcome to Tunes For Tuesday – It’s Women in Music for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October!
Image: Daisy
For National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I’m highlighting some of the great women in music. While I’m well aware that men also can be diagnosed with breast cancer (according the American Cancer Society the risk of breast cancer for men is 1 in 1,000 vs 1 in 8 for women), I figured that giving the spotlight to women for the month wasn’t a bad idea.
Today’s Tunes For Tuesday pick was an exceptionally controversial figure in the 1990’s but Sinead O’Connor has always been a favorite of mine. Whether I agreed with whatever she said or did (or still says or does), it doesn’t matter. I’ve always been in awe of someone who speaks their mind no matter what! I was lucky enough to see Sinead sing just a few feet in front of me at the Daltrey Sings Townshend Carnegie Hall event that I worked in 1994 (see details here) and she was mesmerizing. She was tiny and shy but her voice was incredible.
Today’s Tune is one of my favorite SO tunes, “Mandinka”. This clip is from 1989 when Sinead was 21 years old and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance, Female. It’s worth waiting the 5 seconds to skip to the ad.
Enjoy!
Did you know that “Mandinka” is the name of an African tribe and mentioned in the book, “Roots” by Alex Haley and that Mr. T wore his hair and gold necklace to represent his Mandinkan heritage? See here.
I had no idea that Mr. T wore all that gold and a mohawk for anything other then awesomeness! I have always loved this song (of course) and seeing her that young is just crazy. Takes me right back to high school!!
Glad that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know about Mr. T 😉