Viv Albertine (The Slits)

British singer and songwriter Viv Albertine is best known as the guitarist in 70s English punk group, The Slits. Their 1979 debut album Cut has been called one of the post-punk era’s defining releases. If all-girl rock bands are few and far between now, they were nigh on unique in the 70s.

Viv Albertine hid who she had been and her early fame on the Punk scene – her daughter didn’t know her mum had been in The Slits for a long time.

She came back to music as a middle-aged woman, again forging a path not much trodden before her. Jack Bruce from Cream and Jenny Lee Lindberg from Warpaint immediately came forward to collaborate.

Her 2014 memoir Clothes Clothes Clothes. Music Music Music. Boys Boys Boys was critically acclaimed – it was Sunday Times’ Music Book of the Year, Rough Trade’s Book of the Year and MOJO Book of the Year. It was also eye-opening and shocking reading, offering insight into the life of The Slits and Albertine’s life since.