Happy Birthday Tanya

It’s a pretty cool thing when you form a band and that band becomes successful. It’s even cooler when you do it twice. But three times? Pretty unheard of, right? Not so for today’s birthday girl, Tanya Donelly.

Around age 14 in Rhode Island, Donelly and step-sister Kristin Hersh picked up guitars and started playing Beatles songs. About a year later, the two started the band Throwing Muses. Donelly and Hersh traded lead vocals and songwriting credits for the band with Donelly taking on the role of lead guitarist. Her style emulates guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costell) while her writing style takes on inspiration from The Beatles, Leonard Cohen and Lucinda Williams.

Throwing Muses released four albums before Donelly left the band. The band was known for performing music with shifting tempos and unorthodox song structures. Donelly’s contribution was more melodic and pop-ish than Hersh. Throwing Muses are known for performing music with shifting tempos, creative chord progressions, unorthodox song structures, and surreal lyrics. Some of my favorite tracks are “Dizzy”, “Counting Backwards” and “Not Too Soon”.

By 1990, Donelly began working on a side project, a band called The Breeders with Kim Deal of Pixies. Deal and Donelly had struck up a friendship while on tour together in Europe. The first album (the only one with Donelly), Pod, was recorded for next to nothing and was quite different from what Donelly had done with Throwing Muses. The music was sparse and the majority of vocals on their first album centered on Deal with Donelly focused on her great guitar playing and backing vocals. The plan was to use more of Donelly’s songs for the next album. However, Tanya decided to form a whole new band.

In December of 1991, Donelly formed the band Belly as the main singer, songwriter and guitarist. The music fit more into the style that Donelly brought to both Throwing Muses and The Breeders. It was now her time to step into the spotlight. Their first album, Star, was much more bouncy and jangle-pop than Donelly’s other bands music. On the strength of the single “Feed the Tree” the band soared to great success, topping the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and receiving significant airplay on MTV. Their follow up in 1995, King, was tighter and more polished and had my favorite "Super-Connected". It had some fantastic tunes, but commercially didn’t live up to their debut.

Donelly eventually broke up Belly and started performing solo, while making guest appearances with other bands (check out her incredible backing vocals on “Judy Staring at the Sun” by Catherine Wheel). Belly eventually reunited (and it felt so good?) and released their third album Dove in 2018.

To me, no what Donelly has done, it’s been gold. I can’t wait to hear what comes next from this amazing performer. Happy birthday Tanya - hope it’s a great one!