Barbara Dane

Barbara Dane
Black and white photograph of Barbara Dane singing and playing the acoustic guitar
Dane performing in 1960
Background information
Birth nameBarbara Jean Spillman
Born(1927-05-12)May 12, 1927
Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
DiedOctober 20, 2024(2024-10-20) (aged 97)
Oakland, California, U.S.
Genres
  • Jazz
  • vocal jazz
  • folk
  • blues
OccupationSinger
Instruments
  • Vocals
  • guitar
LabelsSmithsonian Folkways
Websitebarbaradane.net

Barbara Jean Spillman (May 12, 1927 – October 20, 2024), known professionally as Barbara Dane, was an American folk, blues, and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and political activist. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber.

"Bessie Smith in stereo," wrote jazz critic Leonard Feather of Dane in the late 1950s. Time wrote of Dane: "The voice is pure, rich ... rare as a 20-carat diamond" and quoted Louis Armstrong's exclamation upon hearing her at the Pasadena jazz festival: "Did you get that chick? She's a gasser!"[1] On the occasion of her 85th birthday, The Boston Globe music critic James Reed called her "one of the true unsung heroes of American music."[2]

  1. ^ "Nightclubs: A Gasser Time". Time. November 24, 1958. Archived from the original on October 18, 2007. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  2. ^ Reed, James. "In song and struggle, Barbara Dane a singular voice". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on November 16, 2018.