The 80s all-women rock band returns to rekindle the fire
The Covergirls are back, and the fire never went out—it was just waiting for the right moment to flame again.
Three women sit around a table in the permanent pavilion behind a downtown Whitehorse house, their conversation punctuated by birdsong and the occasional drift of cigar smoke from Bernie, Pam’s husband, who tends the garden. It feels nothing like downtown anywhere—more like a secret Vancouver backyard with its abundance of greenery. But this is where the story of the Covergirls picks up again, 40 years after their last show.
Darcy Ward leans forward in her sunglasses, short blonde hair framing her animated face. “We were so good,” she says. Beside her, Barbara Chamberlin—gracious in a maroon sequin dress, her signature hair still magnificent—nods in agreement. Pam Phillips, in a dark-green fedora and tank top, grins from beneath the brim. These three, along with drummer Marlene Peterson, will reunite as the Covergirls on July 5 at Lefty’s Well.
The story begins in 1981 Seattle, when Darcy was “just a green kid out from Hawaii” looking for fame and fortune. She’d landed a fill-in guitar gig with an all-women band called Sapphire, when fate stepped in. “Pam and Marlene had put together a group called the My Dolls, and their bass player up and quit on them,” Darcy recalls. “They came over to commiserate and I’m like, ‘I can do it.’ I’d never picked up a bass in my whole life, but I knew it would translate.”
That leap of faith led to two weeks of intensive training at a gig in Westport, Washington, where Darcy learned four sets of music while the band found its chemistry. “We were a very good four-piece band,” Pam remembers. “We f*cking kicked it.”
The evolution—from the My Dolls to Velvet Hammer to the Covergirls—mirrors the band’s journey from local Seattle act, to touring professionals. When Vancouver’s influential Feldman Agency—the management behind Loverboy and Bryan Adams—signed them, they found themselves playing A-rooms across Canada. “We were very honoured to be on that roster,” Darcy recalls, “playing the best venues for a couple of years.”
The transformation accelerated when Barbara joined as lead singer and keyboardist, bringing with her an arsenal of original songs and a home recording studio that was cutting-edge for the early 1980s. “Barb was ahead of the curve,” Darcy explains. “She had her own home recording studio back in the day, when it was still reel-to-reel. She was a demo queen.”
Barbara’s arrival shifted the band’s focus toward original material while maintaining their reputation for note-perfect covers. They spent a month in a coastal barn, working exclusively on originals—a disciplined retreat that crystallized their sound. “Barb would bring us the song, cooked, but then we would just add pepper and salt,” Darcy says. “Everybody had room to be who they were.”
What made the Covergirls special wasn’t just their musicianship—though listening to their old recordings still gives them goosebumps—but their chemistry. Five women in their twenties, each bringing different strengths: Barbara’s songwriting and keyboards, Pam’s guitar tone achieved with just one overdrive pedal, Darcy’s dynamic bass playing, Marlene’s drumming, and Gretchen’s additional keyboards creating what they describe as a “wall of sound.”
“We had four different lead singers,” Darcy explains. “I was the ‘Joan Jett girl,’ doing all the Joan Jett and Billy Idol. Each one of us had our own genre that we were masters of.” The harmonies were particularly strong—three voices weaving together on songs like “Sweet Dreams,” while keyboards layered underneath.
Their touring took them across North America and to Germany, where they replaced the metal band Vixen on a military base tour. Playing to crowds of 5,000 soldiers who rushed the stage during “99 Luftballons,” they felt like rock stars. “We were so appreciated,” Pam remembers. “And thank God they didn’t have phones then.”
The Yukon connection began in 1983, when they first came north to play the Dustbowl and the Sluicebox. The territory’s music scene was wild then—venues like the Capital Hotel, 60 Below, the Brass Rail, and the KI all hosted live music six nights a week. “Can you believe that?” Pam marvels. “There were like several places having music six nights a week.”
It was here, in this smaller but musically-vibrant community, that the band made deep connections. Pam met her future husband, Bernie, in 1984, and the women found themselves part of a tight-knit scene that included other touring acts like Marg and Ivan Zenovitch. “We would jam,” they recall.
The end came naturally, as these things do. After years of intense touring—“six nights a week, week after week, year after year”—different members wanted different things. Their final show was at Whitehorse’s Sluicebox, on Halloween 1984, closing a chapter that had defined them.
Now, four decades later, the fire is rekindling. Gretchen McKendry won’t be able to join, but the four—Pam, Barbara, Darcy, and Marlene—are ready to prove that some connections transcend time. “I wish I was this good back then,” Darcy admits. “I’m just more confident now.”
They’ve been working up their setlist remotely, sharing ideas and memories across the continent. The plan is all covers—the songs that made them legendary in Whitehorse—but they know that once they start rehearsing together, magic might happen. “It’s going to be so organic,” Barbara says. “Who knows what’ll happen?”
As our conversation winds down, the talk turns to memories and music, to the mysterious act of creativity that happens when the right people find each other at the right time.
The Covergirls are back, and the fire never went out—it was just waiting for the right moment to flame again.
The Covergirls will perform three shows during their Yukon reunion: Wednesday, July 2, headlining the Whitewater Wednesday Jam at the 98; Friday, July 4, also at the 98; and Saturday, July 5, at Lefty’s Well.
