Hippie Chick: A Tale of Love, Devotion & Surrender

Book excerpt: Hippie Chick is a fine art, hardcover coffee table book by famed rock and roll photographer Jay Blakesberg. Featuring 445 images shot over the past three decades, Hippie Chick celebrates the unique connection between the vibrant community of free-spirited women who are inspired by, and help inspire, live music. Blakesberg's visual anthropology beautifully captures the feminine festival and concert archetypes, and the individuals, who have graced the fields and performance halls of America since 1980. Earth mamas and fairy princesses, hula hoopers and whirling dervishes, front row regulars and flower crown makers; the entire tribe of dedicated, music-loving women-their fashion and their passion-is sensuously brought to life through Blakesberg's artful lens. Iconic rocker and pioneering hippie chick Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane) provides the book's Foreword, offering a retrospective of women in the original hippie-era music scene. In the Afterword, modern-day hippie chick and freewheeling frontwoman Grace Potter considers how women today carry on the legacy of the demographic. Freelance journalist Edith Johnson contributes the book's Introduction and chapter essays, entitled "Love," "Devotion," and "Surrender." During the preparation of Hippie Chick, Johnson interviewed 81 different women from the live music scene. Their colorful anecdotes have been distilled into a series of quotes selected to accompany Blakesberg's images, bringing further dimension to the book's overarching theme of what it means to be a hippie chick.