Barbara Dane
Encyclopedia
Barbara Dane is an American
folk
, blues
, and jazz
singer.
in the 1920s. Out of high school, Dane began to sing regularly at demonstrations for racial equality and economic justice. While still in her teens, she sat in with bands around town and won the interest of local music promoters. She 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.
and Kid Ory
and locals like Turk Murphy
, Burt Bales
, Bob Mielke and others invited her onto the bandstand regularly. Her first professional jazz job was with Turk Murphy
at the Tin Angel in l956.
"Bessie Smith
in stereo," wrote jazz critic Leonard Feather
in the late 1950s. Time said of Dane: "The voice is pure, rich ... rare as a 20 karat diamond."
To Ebony, she seemed "startlingly blonde, especially when that powerful dusky alto voice begins to moan of trouble, two-timing men and freedom ... with stubborn determination, enthusiasm and a basic love for the underdog, [she is] making a name for herself ... aided and abetted by some of the oldest names in jazz who helped give birth to the blues." The seven-page Ebony article was filled with photos of Dane working with Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Clara Ward, Mama Yancey, Little Brother Montgomery and others.
By 1959, Louis Armstrong
had asked Time magazine readers: "Did you get that chick? She's a gasser!" and invited her to appear with him on national television. She toured the East Coast with Jack Teagarden
, appeared in Chicago with Art Hodes
, Roosevelt Sykes
, Little Brother Montgomery, Memphis Slim, Otis Spann
, Willie Dixon
and others, played New York with Wilbur De Paris
and his band, and appeared on Johnny Carson
's The Tonight Show
as a solo guest artist. Other national TV work included The Steve Allen Show
, Bobby Troop's Stars of Jazz, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
.
In 1961, the singer opened her own club, Sugar Hill: Home of the Blues, on San Francisco's Broadway in the North Beach district, with the idea of creating a venue for the blues in a tourist district where a wider audience could hear it. There Dane performed regularly with her two most constant musical companions: Kenny "Good News" Whitson on piano and cornet and Wellman Braud, former Ellington bassist. Among her guest artists were Jimmy Rushing
, Mose Allison
, Mama Yancey, Tampa Red
, Lonnie Johnson
, Big Mama Thornton
, Lightnin' Hopkins
, T-Bone Walker
, Brownie McGhee
and Sonny Terry
.
spread and the Vietnam war
escalated. She sang at peace demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and throughout the US and toured anti-war GI coffeehouses all over the world. In l966, Barbara Dane became the first U.S. musician to tour post-revolutionary Cuba.
In 1970 Dane founded Paredon Records, a label specializing in international protest music. She produced 45 albums, including three of her own, over a 12-year period. The label was later incorporated into Smithsonian-Folkways, a label of the Smithsonian Institution, and is available through their catalog.
issued a compact disk titled Sometimes I Believe She Loves Me, from tapes recorded 30 years earlier when Dane sang solo and improvised blues with Lightnin' Hopkins. Tradition Records
reissued her only purely folk-style LP, "When I Was a Young Girl," with Tom Paley
on guitar and banjo in 1997 under the title Anthology of American Folk Music. Later, Runt Distribution brought out Barbara Dane and The Chambers Brothers on its DBK Works label.
Dane has issued some of her earlier blues and jazz recordings as CDs which are available onlineDane Cds. Titles include:
. Their son, Jesse Cahn, also became a folk musician. Pablo Menendez, Dane's son with jeweler Byron Menendez, leads a jazz fusion ensemble in Cuba, 'Mezcla'. Dane's daughter, Nina Menendez, is the artistic director of The Bay Area Flamenco Partnership.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
singer.
Early life
Barbara Dane's parents arrived in Detroit from ArkansasArkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
in the 1920s. Out of high school, Dane began to sing regularly at demonstrations for racial equality and economic justice. While still in her teens, she sat in with bands around town and won the interest of local music promoters. She got an offer to tour with Alvino Rey
Alvino Rey
Alvin McBurney , known by his stage name Alvino Rey, was an American swing era musician and pioneer, often credited as the father of the pedal steel guitar...
's band, but she turned it down in favor of singing at factory gates and in union halls.
Career as singer
Moving to San Francisco in 1949, Dane began raising her own family and singing her folk and topical songs around town as well as on radio and television. A jazz revival was then shaking the town, and by the 1950s she became a familiar figure at clubs along the city's Embarcadero with her own versions of women's blues and jazz tunes. New Orleans jazz musicians like George LewisGeorge Lewis (clarinetist)
George Lewis was an American jazz clarinetist who achieved his greatest fame and influence in the later decades of his life.-Ancestry:...
and Kid Ory
Kid Ory
Edward "Kid" Ory was a jazz trombonist and bandleader. He was born in Woodland Plantation near LaPlace, Louisiana.-Biography:...
and locals like Turk Murphy
Turk Murphy
Melvin Edward Alton “Turk” Murphy was renowned as a trombonist who played traditional and dixieland jazz in San Francisco....
, Burt Bales
Burt Bales
Burt Bales was an American jazz stride pianist.Bales began on piano at age twelve, and played in hotels and nightclubs in California in the 1930s...
, Bob Mielke and others invited her onto the bandstand regularly. Her first professional jazz job was with Turk Murphy
Turk Murphy
Melvin Edward Alton “Turk” Murphy was renowned as a trombonist who played traditional and dixieland jazz in San Francisco....
at the Tin Angel in l956.
"Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
in stereo," wrote jazz critic Leonard Feather
Leonard Feather
Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.-Biography:...
in the late 1950s. Time said of Dane: "The voice is pure, rich ... rare as a 20 karat diamond."
To Ebony, she seemed "startlingly blonde, especially when that powerful dusky alto voice begins to moan of trouble, two-timing men and freedom ... with stubborn determination, enthusiasm and a basic love for the underdog, [she is] making a name for herself ... aided and abetted by some of the oldest names in jazz who helped give birth to the blues." The seven-page Ebony article was filled with photos of Dane working with Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Clara Ward, Mama Yancey, Little Brother Montgomery and others.
By 1959, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
had asked Time magazine readers: "Did you get that chick? She's a gasser!" and invited her to appear with him on national television. She toured the East Coast with Jack Teagarden
Jack Teagarden
Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden , known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an influential jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".-Early life:...
, appeared in Chicago with Art Hodes
Art Hodes
Arthur W. Hodes , known professionally as Art Hodes, was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:...
, Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes
Roosevelt Sykes was an American blues musician, also known as "The Honeydripper". He was a successful and prolific cigar-chomping blues piano player, whose rollicking thundering boogie-woogie was highly influential.-Career:Born in Elmar, Arkansas, Sykes grew up near Helena but at age 15, went on...
, Little Brother Montgomery, Memphis Slim, Otis Spann
Otis Spann
Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....
, Willie Dixon
Willie Dixon
William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...
and others, played New York with Wilbur De Paris
Wilbur de Paris
Wilbur de Paris was a trombone player and band leader, especially known for mixing New Orleans jazz style with Swing.De Paris was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, where his father, Sidney G...
and his band, and appeared on Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...
's The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
as a solo guest artist. Other national TV work included The Steve Allen Show
Steve Allen
Steve Allen may refer to:*Steve Allen , American musician, comedian, and writer*Steve Allen , presenter on the London-based talk radio station LBC 97.3...
, Bobby Troop's Stars of Jazz, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
.
In 1961, the singer opened her own club, Sugar Hill: Home of the Blues, on San Francisco's Broadway in the North Beach district, with the idea of creating a venue for the blues in a tourist district where a wider audience could hear it. There Dane performed regularly with her two most constant musical companions: Kenny "Good News" Whitson on piano and cornet and Wellman Braud, former Ellington bassist. Among her guest artists were Jimmy Rushing
Jimmy Rushing
James Andrew Rushing , known as Jimmy Rushing, was an American blues shouter and swing jazz singer from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, best known as the featured vocalist of Count Basie's Orchestra from 1935 to 1948.Rushing was known as "Mr...
, Mose Allison
Mose Allison
Mose John Allison, Jr. is an American jazz blues pianist and singer.-Biography:...
, Mama Yancey, Tampa Red
Tampa Red
Tampa Red , born Hudson Woodbridge but known from childhood as Hudson Whittaker, was an American Chicago blues musician....
, Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson
Alonzo "Lonnie" Johnson was an American blues and jazz singer/guitarist and songwriter who pioneered the role of jazz guitar and is recognized as the first to play single-string guitar solos...
, Big Mama Thornton
Big Mama Thornton
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was an American rhythm and blues singer and songwriter. She was the first to record the hit song "Hound Dog" in 1952. The song was #1 on the Billboard R&B charts for seven weeks in 1953. The B-side was "They Call Me Big Mama," and the single sold almost two million...
, Lightnin' Hopkins
Lightnin' Hopkins
Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...
, T-Bone Walker
T-Bone Walker
Aaron Thibeaux "T-Bone" Walker was a critically acclaimed American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was one of the most influential pioneers and innovators of the jump blues and electric blues sound. He is the first musician recorded playing blues with the...
, Brownie McGhee
Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown McGhee was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.-Life and career:...
and Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
.
Political activism
She continued to weave in appearances as a solo performer on the coffeehouse circuit with her folk-style guitar. She also stepped up her work in the movements for peace and justice as the struggle for civil rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
spread and the Vietnam war
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
escalated. She sang at peace demonstrations in Washington, D.C. and throughout the US and toured anti-war GI coffeehouses all over the world. In l966, Barbara Dane became the first U.S. musician to tour post-revolutionary Cuba.
In 1970 Dane founded Paredon Records, a label specializing in international protest music. She produced 45 albums, including three of her own, over a 12-year period. The label was later incorporated into Smithsonian-Folkways, a label of the Smithsonian Institution, and is available through their catalog.
Blues singer and role model
When she was in her late 70s, Philip Elwood, jazz critic of the San Francisco Examiner, said of her: "Dane is back and beautiful...she has an immense voice, remarkably well-tuned...capable of exquisite presentations regardless of the material. As a gut-level blues singer she is without compare." Blues writer Lee Hildebrand calls her "...perhaps the finest living interpreter of the classic blues of the 20's." In a 2010 profile on Barbara produced by Steven Short of KALW in San Francisco, Bonnie Raitt said "she’s always been a role model and a hero of mine – musically and politically. I mean, the arc of her life so informs mine that – she’s – I really can’t think of anyone I admire [more], the way that she’s lived her life." The interview is archived on the KALW website.Discography
In 1996 Arhoolie RecordsArhoolie Records
Arhoolie Records is a small record label run by Chris Strachwitz. The label was founded by Strachwitz in 1960 as a way for him to record and publish previously obscure "down home blues" artists such as Lightnin' Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin and Bill Gaither...
issued a compact disk titled Sometimes I Believe She Loves Me, from tapes recorded 30 years earlier when Dane sang solo and improvised blues with Lightnin' Hopkins. Tradition Records
Tradition Records
Tradition Records was an American record label that existed from 1955 to 1961.The label was founded by Guggenheim heiress Diane Hamilton in 1956. Its first president and director was Patrick "Paddy" Clancy, who was soon to join his brothers and Tommy Makem, as part of the new Irish folk group, The...
reissued her only purely folk-style LP, "When I Was a Young Girl," with Tom Paley
Tom Paley
Tom Paley is an American guitarist, banjo and fiddle player. He is best known for his work with the New Lost City Ramblers in the 1950s and 1960s.-Biography:Paley was born and raised in New York City, United States...
on guitar and banjo in 1997 under the title Anthology of American Folk Music. Later, Runt Distribution brought out Barbara Dane and The Chambers Brothers on its DBK Works label.
Dane has issued some of her earlier blues and jazz recordings as CDs which are available onlineDane Cds. Titles include:
- Trouble in Mind, with Don Ewell, piano; Bob Mielke, trombone; P.T. Stanton, trumpet; Darnell Howard, clarinet; and Pops Foster, bass.
- I'm on My Way, with Kenny Whitson, piano/cornet; Wellman Braud, bassist; Billy Strange, guitar; Earl Palmer or Jesse Sailes, drums; and Ray Johnson, Rocco Wilson and the Andrews Gospel Singers from Oakland.
- Livin' with the Blues, with Earl "Fatha" Hines, piano; Benny Carter, trumpet; Plaz Johnson, sax; Herbie Harper/John Halliburton, trombone; Shelly Manne, drums; and Leroy Vinegar, bass).
- Live at the Ash Grove, with Kenny Whitson, piano/ cornet; and Wellman Braud, bass.
- What Are You Gonna Do When There Ain't No Jazz?
Family
Dane was married to folk singer Rolf CahnRolf Cahn
Rolf Cahn was a folk musician, martial arts teacher, author, and social activist. Born in Germany, he and his family, who were Jewish, fled from Adolf Hitler's oppression and arrived in the United States in 1937. They settled in Detroit, Michigan...
. Their son, Jesse Cahn, also became a folk musician. Pablo Menendez, Dane's son with jeweler Byron Menendez, leads a jazz fusion ensemble in Cuba, 'Mezcla'. Dane's daughter, Nina Menendez, is the artistic director of The Bay Area Flamenco Partnership.
External links
- Barbara Dane's Website
- Barbara Dane CDs
- Illustrated Barbara Dane discography
- Selected Discography on Paredon & Folkways RecordsFolkways RecordsFolkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...