Most importantly to them and their fans, the Indigo Girls have built a solid community that sustains them, and each other, to this day. (In a crazy twist, they lost Best New Artist to Milli Vanilli: talk about a lack of justice!). They’ve gotten mainstream recognition, including a Grammy album win in 1990. The impeccable Nomads Indians Saints (1990), Rites of Passage (1992), and Swamp Ophelia (1994) form a core of work that cemented the duo in the musical canon, and " Galileo" became the duo's first modern rock top 10 track. You can hear those details in “ Didn't Know A Damn Thing,” from Ray’s 2018 solo album Holler, about a white kid growing up in the Jim Crow South.įrom the late Eighties through the Nineties, seven Indigo Girls albums sold in gold or platinum numbers, including a live collection. Eventually, those barriers start to fall away, and you begin to understand each other.”
As Ray told Out Smart magazine, “I exist in a place where you get to know your neighbors and you help each other out, regardless of where you come from. Living as political progressives in the Bible Belt makes for plenty of songwriting fodder, looking beyond broad polarization to the daily details of very different people living very close together. It surfaces in a practical way, about how we act in the world, like in Saliers' "Hammer and a Nail": "A distant nation my community/A street person my responsibility/If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring."ĭecidedly and proudly Southern, Ray and Saliers have settled, with their partners and children, in Georgia. With Winona LaDuke they founded Honor the Earth, in support of Indigenous environmental justice.īoth have roots in the church - Saliers' father is a retired theology professor and Ray was a religion major in college - so a spiritual streak runs through Indigo Girls' songs.
Both lesbians, the duo, who were never a romantic couple, are longtime activists for gay rights, the environment, the rights of Native Americans, and against the death penalty. Indigo Girls lyrics tell our stories: They plumb the depths of relationships, chart the struggles it takes to live our best lives, and speak with passion about the greater world and our responsibility to advocate for social and legal justice. Ray and Saliers, both accomplished composers and players, build arrangements together that use their individual talents to temper and augment their natural leanings, creating a shared catalog of songs that have connected with millions. Does it lean to the rockier side, with gutsy fervor and a rousing crescendo? That’s an “Amy song” (See: “ Land of Canaan,” “ Three Hits”).īut the beauty of their teamwork is in how the sum of those two parts bloom. Sophisticated, soaring melodies and intricate guitar and banjo work? That’s an “Emily song” (See: “ Power of Two,” “ Watershed”). The duo write their songs separately, and you don’t need to read the liner notes to know which is which. Enough women were finding success in the folk-rock sphere that radio (or rather, the consultants that dictated programming) was growing less leery of female voices, and together they found a home in a community of thoughtful and talented peers. In 1985 Saliers and Ray put out their own EP and first album, found a manager (Russell Carter, who still holds the post), and signed with Epic records within three years.
They’d already been singing together for years at that point, childhood friends from outside Decatur, Georgia. There is a perfect yin-yang balance to the music of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray, known as (the) Indigo Girls since their college days in the mid-’80s.
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