Biographical Note
Barbara Dane was born May 12, 1927, and raised in Detroit, Michigan. She is a folk, blues, and jazz singer, and co-founder of Paredon Records with her husband Irwin Silber. Paredon published songs, poetry, and oratory related to social and political activism. Throughout her life, Dane sang at demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and in small towns all over the U.S. and the world. During the 1950s and 60s, she performed and recorded with many great musicians from Earl Hines to Willie Dixon. She appeared on national TV’s Timex Jazz Show with Louis Armstrong. In 1966, Dane became the first American musician to tour post-revolutionary Cuba. In February 2018, the Smithsonian Folkways released a 2-CD retrospective, Hot Jazz, Cool Blues and Hard-Hitting Songs along with her historic folkways LP, Barbara Dane and the Chambers Brothers. On her 85th birthday, The Boston Globe music critic James Reed called her "one of the true unsung heroes of American music."