On this intimate evening at Avonova she will be joined on guitar by her longtime accompanist Johnny Harper – one of the few musicians anywhere capable of embracing the strengths and subtleties of Barbara’s free-ranging musical interests. Johnny is also a powerful singer and songwriter in his own right, and will add these gifts to the program as the evening develops.
Dane has been recording since 1957, but due to the workings of an industry that does not favor the true rebel, only a small percentage of her output has remained commercially available. However, most of her albums have now been reissued on CD by Dreadnaught Music, and are available directly through her website http://www.barbaradane.net. On these albums you’ll find her singing a very wide range of styles – folk, jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, and more! – with many great and legendary musicians.
During the years when she was appearing on national television and making records for major labels, Barbara continued to follow her heart, maintaining her lifelong commitment to the movements for peace and justice. She sang in the Mississippi Freedom Schools and the first Women’s Music Festival, became the first U.S. singer to tour Cuba in solidarity with the revolution, and essentially set her career aside for years to work with the GI movement against the Vietnam War. As a way of allowing for more time at home with her three growing children, Dane also opened her own club in San Francisco, creating a venue where audiences could hear aging blues and jazz greats like Mama Yancey, Tampa Red, Jimmy Rushing, and Big Mama Thornton. In 1970, with her husband Irwin Silber, she founded Paredon Records, producing and issuing nearly 50 albums of songs of resistance and struggle from movements around the world — all still available through Smithsonian/Folkways records at http://www.Folkways.si.edu/.
Dane’s passionate commitment to peace and justice has never diminished, but time takes its toll, and her performances are rarer these days. Sold-out concerts at Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage may happen once or twice again, but the time is past when Barbara would dash off to East or West Germany, Holland or the Netherlands, Spain or Mexico, Nicaragua or Cuba, Japan, Vietnam or China in pursuit of her dream of a better world. In recent years she has begun to limit her presentations to intimate house concerts and benefits in her home town. Her voice may show signs of all those miles on the road, but she still has a lot to say and plenty of voice to say it with. This performance at Avonova is certain to be surprising, powerful, and uplifting, a rare treat for us all!
