Sound

Helen McCookerybook

Helen McCookerybook (born Helen McCallum, a.k.a. Dr Helen Reddington) is a British musician and singer-songwriter, who was the bass player and co-singer with the Chefs (a Brighton-based punk band), during the late 1970s and early 1980s. She went on to form Helen and the Horns in the mid-1980s. Both bands were admired by John Peel, recording six BBC Radio 1 sessions between them. After a long break from her music career, Helen McCookerybook started again as a solo artist in 2005. She regularly plays live gigs, releases recordings, and promotes occasional revivals of Helen and the Horns. Her academic career began at the University of Westminster, where she lectured in commercial music, and where she obtained a doctorate. As Dr Helen Reddington, she published The Lost Women of Rock Music: Female Musicians of the Punk Era in July 2007. With Gina Birch (of the Raincoats), she co-produced and co-directed the documentary film Stories from the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda, which was released in 2018. Since 2006 she has lectured at the University of East London, and her second book She's at the Controls: Sound Engineering, Production and Gender Ventriloquism in the 21st Century was published in March 2021. [Text adapted from WIkipedia. Profile photo: ©Ruth Tidmarsh 2024]