Tina Bell: The Overlooked And Forgotten Pioneer of Grunge

Disclaimer: This article is written for educational purposes to the best of my knowledge and may contain errors and omissions. I am not a qualified historian or a teacher and this blog may change focus at any time please read this at your own risk.

Introduction

When you think of grunge music, who do you think of? White men in a band such as Nirvana. Even though there are black people in famous indie rock bands such as Skunk Anansi or Bloc Party, grunge tends to be associated with predominantly white men. It ignores other bands that don’t fit into the white male image of rock music.

Who are the Bam Bam?

Did you know that a black woman called Tina Bell was in a rock band called Bam Bam who helped create the subgenre known as grunge by combining punk and heavy metal?

Bam Bam was a grunge rock band that was created in 1983 in Seattle, USA. The band included Tina Bell, the lead singer and songwriter, her husband and guitarist Tommy Martin, the drummer Matt Cameron and the bass guitarist Scotty Ledgerwood.

Cameron left the group in 1984 and formed other bands such as Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Tom Hendrickson replaced him. Ms Bell was known for her powerful vocals and stage presence that captivated the audience.

Who is Tina Bell?

Tina Bell was born on the 5th February 1957 in Seattle and she was the oldest daughter of 10 children and sang in the Mount Zion Baptist church as a child. She attended Washington State University, studied drama, and then joined the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute.

As a student, she was preparing to sing the French rendition of the song C’est Si Bon and needed a French tutor to help with the lyrics. She called Tommy Martin from an advert in the newspaper and Mr Martin and Ms Bell fell in love, they got married and had a son called TJ.

Bam Bam had loyal fans in Seattle and released 1 EP called Villains (Also Wear White), 2 singles called Ground Zero and Show What You Know and 2 albums called Free Fall from Space, and Bam Bam House Demo. They performed at packed gigs and live shows, and they were voted twice for the best Seattle bands and performed at the Metropolis.

What happened to Tina Bell?

According to the Culture Rock Griot interview, Ledgerwood explained that Bam Bam didn’t get the recognition they deserved because of the racism and sexism that contributed to the band being erased from grunge history.

Ledgerwood continued revealing how black women are meant to be portrayed as the “hip-hop, R&B or a soul diva” Since she was the lead singer of a rock band, it didn’t fit into the idea of what a rock band should represent at the time.

In the 1980s, Bam Bam moved to Europe with the aim that living in Europe would give them more opportunities for the band. However, things didn’t go as planned because by the time they left the USA, grunge had already reached the mainstream audience, and living in Europe didn’t advance their careers.

As the writer Jen B. Larson wrote in the article by The Stranger she explains that “audiences were not ready to see an African-American in a rock band.”

The lack of acknowledgement affected the band especially Ms Bell since she helped grunge thrive and erasure is nothing new to black artists who have created and innovated music, only to be forgotten. They returned to the US and Ms Bell left the band in 1990. She divorced Mr Martin in 1996, became depressed and turned to spirituality, religion and astrology.

How did she die?

Ms Bell died on the 10th October 2012 due to cirrhosis and struggled with depression and alcoholism. According to her son TJ Martin, Ms Bell was dead for a couple of weeks and her belongings were thrown out without notifying her family.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed reading this short blog post. I can imagine how she must have felt leaving the band, knowing how exhausted and frustrated she must have felt not receiving her recognition. The fact that I heard about her a couple of years ago shows that Ms Bell was forgotten and overlooked.

Don’t forget to share this blog post with other black women interested in knowing more about black women’s experiences and stories in society. And let me know what you think about this blog post in the comments.