Complete List Of Birtha Songs From A to Z

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Birtha needed only two albums to leave behind one of the toughest overlooked catalogs of early-1970s all-female rock. Shele Pinizzotto’s guitar, Rosemary Butler’s bass, Sherry Hagler’s keyboards, and Olivia “Liver” Favela’s drums supported four voices capable of moving between blues grit, soul harmonies, hard-rock weight, and melodic West Coast songwriting without surrendering the band’s identity.

Complete List Of Birtha Songs From A to Z

Feature Photo: Niranjan Arminius, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Birtha emerged from the Los Angeles and Orange County music scene in the late 1960s. Guitarist Michele “Shele” Pinizzotto and bassist Rosemary Butler had previously played together in the Fullerton-based Daisy Chain, which released the psychedelic garage-rock album Straight or Lame in 1967. After that group dissolved, Pinizzotto and Butler formed the project that became Birtha with keyboardist Sherry Hagler and drummer Olivia “Liver” Favela.

The four musicians built their reputation in clubs along the West Coast, traveling from California to Alaska while developing original material and a forceful live sound. Each member contributed vocals, giving Birtha a broader range than a lineup centered on a single lead singer. Much of the group’s material was written by its members, with occasional contributions from outside writers including Mark Wickman and Gabriel Mekler.

Birtha signed with Dunhill Records and released its self-titled debut in 1972. Produced by Mekler, Birtha contained nine songs, including “Free Spirit,” “Fine Talking Man,” “Judgement Day,” and “Too Much Woman (For a Hen Pecked Man).” The album captured the band’s combination of hard rock, blues, soul, and tightly arranged vocal harmonies.

Touring took Birtha through the United States, Canada, and Europe. During a British run with the Kinks, the group was promoted with the provocative slogan “Birtha has balls.” Birtha also appeared on BBC Two’s The Old Grey Whistle Test in October 1972, and the surviving performance of “Free Spirit” remains one of the clearest visual records of the band’s musicianship.

The second album, Can’t Stop the Madness, followed in 1973 with Christopher Huston producing. Its ten-song program included “Freedom,” “Don’t Let It Get You Down,” “Rock Me,” “All This Love,” and the title track. Birtha maintained an exhausting touring schedule and shared stages with artists including Fleetwood Mac, Alice Cooper, Poco, Black Oak Arkansas, B.B. King, Three Dog Night, and the James Gang.

Birtha disbanded in 1975, leaving a compact catalog of nineteen studio-album songs. Decades later, “Too Much Woman (For a Hen Pecked Man)” appeared in the 2013 Spanish film Perdedores Natos, introducing the group to listeners who had missed the original Dunhill releases.

Favela died on June 1, 2011, and Pinizzotto died on February 4, 2014. Butler later became a prominent backing vocalist and solo artist, while the two Birtha albums continued to circulate among collectors and listeners interested in overlooked women who helped shape hard rock during the early 1970s.

The list below contains every track from Birtha’s two studio albums. The album-by-album audit found no missing studio songs, and alternate spellings and capitalization have been standardized against the original release track listings.