Barbara Dane

One of the leading protest singers of the early 1960s in the United States, Barbara Dane's music spanned blues, folk and jazz. Born Barbara Jean Spillman in Detroit, Michigan, on May 12, 1927, her youth was marked by racial segregation, and she abandoned her university studies to sing at demonstrations and perform with bands. In 1957, the independent label San Francisco Records offered her the opportunity to record her first album, Trouble in Mind, in which she covered blues classics. Acclaimed for her interpretation by the revival of the genre in the late 1950s, she rubbed shoulders with blues greats and performed at the Ash Grove club. In 1959, Louis Armstrong invited her to sing on the Jackie Gleason TV show. Signed to Dot Records, she recorded the album Livin' with the Blues with Earl "Fatha" Hines' orchestra, and toured the country with blues and jazz bands. In 1961, she opened her own club, Sugar Hill: Home of the Blues, in San Francisco. Her third album, On My Way (1962), was recorded in a small group with pianist Kenny Whitson and guitarist Billy Strange. She continued to record under her own name, as well as with Lightnin' Hopkins and The Chambers Brothers. An activist against the Vietnam War, she sang at demonstrations in Washington and performed in Cuba in 1966, before founding the Paredon Records label with fellow activist Irwin Silber in 1969, releasing FTA! Songs of the GI Resistance (1970) and I Hate the Capitalist System (1973). She then devoted her time to producing records of protest songs, poetry and political speeches. Considered a pioneer and role model by her peers Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan, she retired to Oakland, California, where she died on October 20, 2024 at the age of 97.

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