Lessons from Mad Dogs & Englishmen on International Women’s Day
Commemoration is an important tool in my historian toolbox, particularly my work with museums and historic sites. We memorialize to remember—whether through archives or museum collections, historic sites, historical markers, books, programs, memorials to Duane (https://www.longlivetheabb.com/p/remembering-duane-allman-part-2), you name it.
It helps that we set times on the calendar to remind us, again, to reconsider the past as it relates to the present.
During Black History Month, on International Women’s Day, and events like them,1 we reflect on change over time: where things have been, where they are today, and why.2
Two films about the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour—the eponymous 1971 film and the 2021 Learning to Live Together documentary—offered me the opportunity to consider change over time for women and rock & roll.
This came from an interview for my Conversation from the Crossroads podcast.3
“Conversation” is as intentional a word choice as “Crossroads.”
Great conversation, like jazz, begins at what looks like a single intersection, two fellow travelers talking—a way to explore the world through another’s eyes and experiences. The conversational format works well for me as an opportunity to curate my own thoughts in post-production. Such is the case with the attached video.
Unlike any other rock & roll story of their era, women are represented as vital members of the creative equation from the get-go.
The 1970 Mad Dogs and Englishmen film and the 2021 Learning to Live Together documentary each show this in on-/offstage moments from the 1970 tour and the 2015 reunion set with Tedeschi Trucks Band.
Claudia Lennear, Pamela Polland, and Rita Coolidge shine as keepers of the story. As does Rita Coolidge’s courage in light of drummer Jim Gordon’s brutal assault on her during the tour.
Women and the Mad Dogs & Englishmen legacy
Rarely are women as well represented in the rock & roll story than in Mad Dogs and Englishmen, the Joe Cocker/Leon Russell tour from 1970, the live album, the incredible film that came out of that.
Fast forward to the twenty-teens, Tedeschi Trucks Band seizing the mantle, bringing that band back together and playing a reunion set. That became a documentary, Learning to Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & Englishmen. Phenomenal documentary.
Women are really well-represented across the board, not as objects, but as active participants in the rock & roll story. You can see them working out arrangements, how vital they are to the music, how vital they are to the entire ensemble.
And they’re keepers of the history, as you see Jesse Lauter’s Learning to Live Together.
This is me with Teresa Knox of The Church Studio in Tulsa, Leon Russell’s studio. It’s from a recent episode of Conversation from the Crossroads—Southern music, history and culture, Tulsa-style: longlivetheabb.com/p/crossroads-tulsa.
Women are an important part of the band.
And it shines through in these films.
Rita Coolidge, in particular, has been a muse and inspiration but was ripped off by the lack of songwriting credits on “Layla” and “Groupie (Superstar).” How many millions of dollars she has lost on just those two records alone?!4
But it’s more than being ripped off musically. During the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, Coolidge endured a heinous attack at the hands of her boyfriend, drummer Jim Gordon, who called her out into the hallway away from others, and knocked her out cold without provocation.
After the incident, everyone on the tour protected her.
In 2025 (probably even 2000), an incident like that would have probably ended the tour. At the very least, Gordon would have been hauled off to jail and kicked off the tour.
Rita’s sequence in the Learning to Live Together documentary shook me.
She clearly knew she dodged a bullet with Gordon, who suffered from schizophrenia and murdered his mother Osa in a psychotic episode in 1983. (He spent his last 40+ years incarcerated.)
Lagniappe
Tribute: Cocker Power
My video does not acknowledge Linda Wolf’s wonderful photography of the 1970 tour and the 2015 reunion. Her book Tribute: Cocker Power https://cockerpowerbook.com/ is wonderful—a must-have for any fan of rock & roll history, particularly rock & roll photography. Dig also Behind the Seen: Linda Wolf, which has some fantastic Mad Dogs & Englishmen tales.
(Regarding the title of this post, yes, the pun’s intended.)
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Coda
“The story of women's struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” Gloria Steinem
Thanks for joining me at the crossroads.
For example, Black History Month began as Negro History Week in 1926 and International Women’s Day evolved from the first Women’s Day in NYC in 1909.
Thus far I’ve posted three full episodes and several mini-episodes. Available with a longlivetheabb.com subscription and on all podcast platforms.
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Fortunately for Bonnie Bramlett, her name is on a few songs, including “Groupie (Superstar).”
