October 10, 2013 – Jan Kuehnemund (Vixen) was born on November 18th 1961 in St.Paul Minnesota. She was the original founding member of the all-female American hard rock band Vixen in 1973.
In 1981 she moved the entire band to California to get better exposure. Hailed as “the female Bon Jovi”, the band achieved commercial success during the late 1980s and early 1990s as part of the Los Angeles, California glam metal scene and Kuehnemund was called “the best female guitarist around” back in the day.
She toured with the Scorpions, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss and Bon Jovi, as did an appearance in the era’s definitive documentary, Penelope Spheeris’ “The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years.”
Her trademark guitar playing can be heard on their debut album Vixen in 1988, the follow up album Rev It Up in 1990 which was less successful than the debut album and their reunion album Live & Learn released in 2006. Vixen in the original line up performed for the last time with Deep Purple in England before breaking up in 1991.
They reunited after a VH1 effort called Bands Reunited in November 2004 and resulted in the album “Live and Learn”.
Living in Los Angeles beautiful, talented Jan Kuehnemund sadly died while battling cancer on October 10, 2013 at age 51.
This video tells the reunion of the band Vixen in 2004.
