In separate recent interviews, Debbie Lempke, Suzanne Shanbaum, and Nancy Vogl look back on the band’s beginnings — how they met up in mid-1970s Berkeley, through a posting on the bulletin board of the Berkeley Co-Op and a significant softball game, and through the larger social dynamics of the Berkeley lesbian community.

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Debbie: There was a house where a group of really successful activists, people who were older than me. They were already in the workforce and really smart and could really speak about politics and articulate them. And they took an interest in me and they brought me and Suzanne together.

At some party at their house they brought Suzanne in and me. And then I would sing a song, and then Suzanne would, and I’d go and then she’d go. Back and forth it was like, Oh my God this woman is great.

Meanwhile I found a house to live in that was really cheap. It was $75 a month and that was cheap then. There was two other people living there and one of them was Jake, who was the drummer. I think I found Nancy Henderson. I had a softball game; I had made a hit and I landed at first base and I was just talking to her, and she’s like “Oh I play piano,” and I’m like “Oh, you want to play in a group?”

And there was another house where Nancy (Vogl) was living, and people were like, “Oh yeah, Nancy (Vogl) she’s great we’ve got to get her.” And I was like, okay.

And then we had a shift later on, right? For when, Henderson left. ‘Cause she wanted to finish her college degree and she couldn’t commit to the tour, so we needed somebody. And then I remembered Bonnie Lockhart. I don’t know if we’d met, I might have spoken to her, but her group had come and performed at Reed when I was there, The Red Star Singers, and I was really blown away, and she was living down there so she ended up, coming in later.

Suzanne: So I met Debbie Lempke through the people who lived in a collective lesbian house with this guy. And that was the formation of the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective, Lempke and I, and then I think she started to play with Nancy Henderson. And so, they invited me over and I played them some of my songs.

Nancy: I moved into a collective dyke house on College and Derby Street in Berkeley. It was the governor’s mansion from the eighteen hundreds and had been taken over by a collective of women. There were, I think 13 or 14 of us and only the pantry was available, so I got to move in for $40 a month. It was maybe eight feet by 15 feet with a closet but it was everything I needed. I had a bed and a dresser. Everybody shared cooking, and it was a really handsome house with a baby grand piano in the sitting room. One day I was practicing in my room and Nancy Henderson heard me and said, “Hey, you play really well. We’re starting a band.”

A few days later was the first meeting of the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective. Debbie had moved down from Oregon and put up a posting at the food co-op, so that next Wednesday we all met and just started playing music once a week. We were the only ones who showed up regularly, so we just formed a band.

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The above photo appears on the first page of the Berkeley Music Collective Songbook. The photo was taken circa 1975 and shows, from left to right, Susann (now Suzanne) Shanbaum, Nancy Vogl, Nancy Henderson, and Debbie Lempke.