“I don’t think that I was ever struck with a worrying and historical moment here. “You sort of see them as comrades - women in solidarity,” Saliers says. But Ray and Saliers weren’t cognizant of being a part of history when they came out. lang and Melissa Etheridge were making waves as successful musicians who were also out lesbians. Ray and Saliers have spoken openly about their struggles with internalized homophobia before they came out in the early 1990s zeitgeist when k.d. “I think it hurt people’s feelings when we were like, ‘We can’t play this festival if you can’t let trans women in.’” “That community is so important to me,” Ray says. Ultimately, they stopped playing there over the trans women issue. Meanwhile, Saliers recalls an openness at Michfest that was freeing. “ Womyn’s Fest, that turned our heads quite a bit,” Ray says. The duo later went on to find great community at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, which ran from 1976 to 2015, a seminal experience for so many lesbians that ended amid controversy over the organizers’ refusal to allow trans women on the land. “She just blew our minds…I learned her songs on guitar, and I just lived through her music.” Amy and I totally latched on to her songwriting and her singing,” Saliers says. One of the greatest songwriters in American history. She names Williamson’s album The Changer and the Changed from Olivia Records, the premier label for what was then called “women’s music,” as critical to her early knowledge of how music and identity could collide. “Joni, she was more like a songwriting Renaissance woman - artistic inspiration for me,” Saliers says. Meanwhile, Saliers cites the rock band Heart as women in music who resonated with her early on. And it’s like, my story - that kind of feeling.” “Here’s my person, you know, and I can directly relate to the lyrics. “Someone who I just really had to kind of think Where am I? Who am I? was Ferron,” Ray says. Punk rock really did that in a bigger way than anything else had for me,” Ray says.īut it was Ferron’s music that first touched Ray on another level of identification. “I listened to groups that were not only talking about women’s music and stuff but were talking about gender identity and fluidity and really opening my eyes up to just being what you want to be. Ray also nods to queer punk groups like The Butchies and Team Dresch as hugely important to her later on. She’s like, pure art, because forces you to confront things inside yourself, because you’re not quite sure where she’s coming from. You never really know where she’s coming from. “Patti Smith clicked a little bit in my head of like, OK, she’s so contrary. Her records Testimony (1980) and Shadows on a Dime (1984) became staples of the queer women’s canon.Įarly on, Ray says she was inspired by male musicians like Elton John and Gregg Allman before discovering the rocker and poet Patti Smith. ![]() When asked to name their earliest queer women inspirations, there’s one they emphatically cite: Ferron.Ī lesbian musician from Canada, Ferron began to rock the music scene in the late 1970s with her 1977 self-titled album. The Indigo Girls - Saliers and Amy Ray - have been a part of queer consciousness for 35+ years now, with a through line from queer and women musicians who came before them like Cris Williamson, Holly Near, and Joan Armatrading to the next generation that includes Brandi Carlile and Janelle Monáe. Certainly, for many who’ve ever experienced an Indigo Girls show with the audience belting along to classics “Galileo,” “The Power of Two,” and the ultimate sing-along, “Closer to Fine,” the vibe is nothing short of a revival, and one that centers queer women. “Music is a galvanizing force,” the Indigo Girls’ Emily Saliers says about the power of song to create communal experiences and inspire activism.
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