Between 1940 and the early 1980s, a formidable woman named Ivy Benson ran the first nationally known, and longest running, all girl dance band in British history. Throughout her career as a bandleader, Benson organized her eighteen to twenty-four piece band like a music school for young women by recruiting, training, mentoring and managing over 300 musicians over a period of four decades.
From the height of the big band era to the end of the disco days, Ivy and her girls played alongside all the top British bands including the Beatles and Tom Jones. This band biography tells not only Ivy Benson’s story but brings to light the hidden stories of Britain’s top female musicians who made a career in what was otherwise a man’s world.