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Artist
Barbara Dane
12+ albums
folkbluessinger-songwriterfemale vocalistspolitical
about
Barbara Dane (born Barbara Jean Spillman in in Detroit, MI, on 12 May 1927; died 20 October 2024) was an American folk, blues, and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and political activist. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber. Born into a white middle-class family, as a child Dane sang and played piano in Sunday school and also learned to play guitar. Right out of high school, she began to raise her strong voice regularly at demonstrations for racial equality and economic justice. From the mid-40s she became involved with the labor, civil rights and feminist movements. While still in her teens, she began to sit in with bands around town and won the interest of local music promoters. She even got an offer to tour with Alvino Rey's band, but she turned it down in favor of singing at factory gates and in union halls. In 1949 she moved to San Francisco and began raising her own family and singing her folk and topical songs around town as well as on radio and early TV. The traditional jazz revival was then shaking the town, and by the mid '50s she became a familiar figure at clubs along the city's Embarcadero with her own versions of the classic women's blues and hot jazz tunes. She worked with Pete Seeger, Kid Ory, George Lewis, Turk Murphy and others, appearing at festivals and on television. Dane appeared at many prestigious venues and shared bills with distinguished performers, including Louis Armstrong, Memphis Slim, Lightnin' Hopkins (with whom
top songs
albums
Anthology of American Folk Songs
I Hate the Capitalist System
When I Was a Young Girl
I'm On My Way
On My Way
The Origin
Hot Jazz, Cool Blues & Hard-Hitting Songs
The Tradition Years: Anthology of American Folk Songs
Anthology Of American Folk Songs / Livin' With The Blues
Barbara Dane Sings the Blues
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American Folk Song
FTA! Songs of the GI Resistance