Индиго Гёрлз: История американского фолк-рок дуэта.

American folk rock duo

Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo from Atlanta, Georgia, United States, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. The two met in elementary school and began performing together as high school students in Decatur, Georgia, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. They started performing with the name Indigo Girls as students at Emory University, performing weekly at The Dugout, a bar in Emory Village. They released a full length record album entitled Strange Fire in 1987, and contracted with a major record company in 1988. Outside of working on Indigo Girls–related projects, Ray has released solo albums and founded a non profit recording label that promotes independent musicians. Saliers is an entrepreneur in the restaurant industry as well as a professional author; she also collaborates with her father, Don Saliers, in performing for special groups and causes. Saliers and Ray are both lesbians, though not a romantic couple, and are active in political and environmental causes. They are regarded as queer icons.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers first met and got to know each other as students at Laurel Ridge Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia, just outside Decatur, Georgia, but were not close friends because Saliers was a grade older than Ray. While attending Shamrock High School (now Druid Hills Middle School), they became better acquainted, and started performing together, first as "The B Band" and then as "Saliers and Ray". By 1985, they had begun performing together again, this time as Indigo Girls. Their first release in 1985 was a seven inch single named "Crazy Game", with the B side "Everybody's Waiting (for Someone to Come Home)".

The success of 10,000 Maniacs, Tracy Chapman, and Suzanne Vega encouraged Epic Records to enlist other folk based female singer songwriters; Epic signed the duo in 1988. Their first major label release, also named Indigo Girls, which scored No. 22 on the album chart, included a new version of "Land of Canaan", which was also on their 1985 EP album and on Strange Fire. In 1990, they won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Their second album, Nomads Indians Saints, went gold in December 1991 and included the hit song "Hammer and a Nail", a No. 12 modern rock music track; it was not as successful as their first, which was certified platinum at about the same time. The Indigo Girls followed it with the live Back on the Bus, Y'all and 1992's album Rites of Passage, featuring the song "Galileo", They then recorded Swamp Ophelia in 1994, In fact, its melodies, harmonies, and arrangements are so ingratiating that the album carries the weight of an instant classic." Thom Jurek from AllMusic wrote: "part of an emotional journey as complete as can be. More relevant than anyone dared expect. It's accessible and moving and true. It's their own brand of rock & roll, hewn from over the years, that bears a signature that is now indelible. A moving, and utterly poetic offering." After releasing Despite Our Differences, the Indigo Girls' contract was terminated by Hollywood Records during their 2007 tour.

Following their break with Hollywood Records, the Indigo Girls announced their next record would be released independently. Poseidon and the Bitter Bug was released on March 24, 2009, from IG Recordings, the Indigo Girls' label, and distributed through Vanguard Records. This album is their first fully independent release since 1987's Strange Fire, and their first two CD set since 1995's live album 1200 Curfews; the first disc has the 10 tracks accompanied by a backing band, and the second includes the same 10 songs with only Ray and Saliers on vocals and acoustic guitars, and an additional track. On June 29, 2010 Indigo Girls' second full length live album, Staring Down the Brilliant Dream, was released on IG Recordings/Vanguard Records. This was followed on October 12, 2010 with their first holiday album Holly Happy Days. Indigo Girls' thirteenth studio album, Beauty Queen Sister, was released on October 4, 2011, and their fourteenth studio album, One Lost Day, was released on June 2, 2015 (both on IG Recordings/Vanguard Records). Beginning in 2017, the Indigo Girls have toured the United States performing their music arranged for symphony orchestra. After more than 50 performances, in 2018 they released a live double album entitled Indigo Girls Live with the University of Colorado Symphony Orchestra. In 2020, they followed this with the studio album Look Long.

Ray and Saliers do not ordinarily collaborate in writing songs. Saliers described herself as "a lyric person. [ ] I’ve always respected Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan". Saliers said: "Amy is much more a combination of music and lyrics. She really likes alternative rock a lot, and she likes the feel of certain kinds music as well as the lyrics. Amy is more stream of consciousness. She doesn’t censor herself at all; she just channels it through herself, so in her lyrics, she has tons of different kinds of images, sensual images, things of the earth, that connection to nature. Mine is a much more singer songwriter intellectual narrative style. I take an idea and try to really pinpoint it, make it as clear as possible". They write separately and work out the arrangements together. There are a few exceptions, mostly unreleased songs from their early, pre Epic days: "I Don't Know Your Name" and "If You Live Like That." "Blood Quantum", which appears on Honor: A Benefit for the Honor the Earth Campaign featured Ray's verses and chorus and Saliers's bridge. Finally, "I'll Give You My Skin", which appears both on Tame Yourself (a benefit album for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and on the Indigo Girls release Rarities, is a collaborative work by Ray, Saliers, and Michael Stipe, which is doubly rare because Saliers and Ray usually write their songs without outside collaborators. In September 2020, the Indigo Girls released "Long Ride", the first song Ray and Saliers had written together in 30 years.

In 1990, Ray founded Daemon Records, which has signed Magnapop, Ellen James Society, New Mongrels, Kristen Hall, Rose Polenzani, Girlyman, Athens Boys Choir, and James Hall among others. Ray has put out six solo albums, entitled Stag, Prom, Live from Knoxville, Didn't It Feel Kinder, Amy Ray: Live MVP, Lung of Love, Goodnight Tender and Holler through Daemon. She has toured with both The Butchies and her bands The Volunteers and the Amy Ray Band. Saliers also released a solo album, Murmuration Nation, in 2017, and was a founding co owner of Watershed Restaurant in Decatur, Georgia. She sold Watershed in 2018. Saliers was an initial investor in the Flying Biscuit Cafe in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2005, Saliers and her father, Don Saliers, a theology professor at Candler School of Theology at Emory University, released the book A Song to Sing, a Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice. They promoted the release of the book together including several days of speaking and performing together at the Washington National Cathedral College in Washington D. C.

Ray and Saliers appeared in the 1995 film Boys on the Side, playing short excerpts from their songs "Joking" and "Southland in the Springtime", as well as singing "Feliz Cumpleaños" ("Happy Birthday" in Spanish) with the gathered group of friends during the birthday cake scene, and standing on the far side of several shots over the next few scenes. Neither had spoken lines. The duo also appear in the 2006 documentary Wordplay, where they discuss their reaction to appearing in a New York Times crossword puzzle and then begin to solve one together. They performed onstage in the 1994 revival of Jesus Christ Superstar in Atlanta, titled Jesus Christ Superstar: A Resurrection. Ray starred as Jesus with Saliers as Mary Magdalene. A collection of Indigo Girls' songs is used in the jukebox musical movie Glitter and Doom, which has been touring movie festivals across North America. The film has no confirmed release date.

Both Ray and Saliers have long identified themselves as lesbians. Because of their engagements for LGBT rights, they are regarded as icons of the movement. Amy Ray currently lives in the foothills of North Georgia. She and her longtime partner, Carrie Schrader, have a daughter, Ozilline Graydon. Saliers married her longtime girlfriend, former Indigo Girls tour manager Tristin Chipman, at New York City Hall in 2013. Chipman, a Canadian, is from Calgary, "but she spent most of her adult life in Toronto," according to Saliers between songs when performing onstage in Vancouver in 2013. is a political confrontation with George W. Bush about war, poverty, LGBT rights, abortion rights, and the No Child Left Behind Act. Returning the favor, Pink performed on the Indigo Girls' "Rock and Roll Heaven's Gate," which is about, among other things, sexism and heterosexism in the music industry. In June 2007 the Indigo Girls were part of the multi artist True Colors Tour 2007, on the tour's Las Vegas stop which benefited the Human Rights Campaign and other organizations that provide support to the LGBT community. The Indigo Girls performed again on the True Colors Tour 2008. In April 2013, in response to criticism from transgender activists, the Indigo Girls issued a statement that they would play at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, but would protest the festival's "womyn born womyn" policy from the stage, would donate any money received to trans activism, and would not return to the festival without "visible and concrete signs" that the policy would be changed. In November 2017, the Indigo Girls were nominated to Out magazine's "OUT100" for 2017 in recognition of their work and their visibility. The Indigo Girls are also members of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism and have worked with them on awareness campaigns.

Indigo Girls allow fans to tape their shows, and appropriately gathered recordings can be traded, obtained for free from a number of sources.