Watch this video to see the untold truth of the Indigo Girls.
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00:00Amy Rae and Emily Saliers comprise the musical duo known as the Indigo Girls, a folk act
00:07who were openly gay at a time when few people were out of the closet.
00:11Over their decades-long career, they've become icons who've inspired a generation of queer
00:16musicians.
00:18Amy Rae and Emily Saliers go back a long way.
00:21They first met at Laurel Ridge Elementary School in DeKalb County, Georgia, although
00:25it wasn't until they were in the choir together at Shamrock High School that they began singing
00:29together.
00:31Inspired by the likes of English writer Virginia Woolf and American poet Frank Stanford, the
00:35pair honed their skills by learning cover tunes while writing their own songs.
00:40While they were in high school, Rae and Saliers first called themselves the B-Band.
00:45After graduating, they both attended Emory University in Atlanta.
00:48Rae was experiencing confusion within her soul, and she found solace by making music
00:53with Saliers.
00:54She later explained to NPR,
00:57As soon as I felt the way our voices sounded together, I was inconsolable, except by the
01:01music we would make."
01:03It was surely an amazing time, as both young ladies came to realize that they weren't quite
01:08like other girls.
01:09Growing up in the South as a bar band, that's what we're used to and that's what we like."
01:15Being gay in the 1980s was no easy feat.
01:18Just two decades earlier, homosexuals were at risk of being jailed, ostracized by friends
01:23and family, losing their jobs, and being defined as mentally ill.
01:27Although the LGBT rights movement was well underway, the AIDS epidemic was casting a
01:32shadow over the community as marches on Washington pleaded for compassion.
01:37Luckily for Emily Saliers, she was raised by liberal parents who encouraged her to be
01:41in touch with the social and political issues of the time.
01:45Amy Rae's family was more conservative, but she lucked out by having two older siblings
01:49who were also gay.
01:51Over time, Saliers and Rae have come to hope that being labeled a lesbian duo would be
01:56seen as a mostly positive thing.
01:58As Rae told the Huffington Post in 2016,
02:00"...what we hope for is a day where that distinction doesn't matter and doesn't carry weight."
02:05However, she was still waiting for a time when being known as a lesbian singer-songwriter
02:11wasn't a derogatory insult, but an indication towards appreciating diversity.
02:16Nowadays, the band's website includes an entire section on activism, with support for everything
02:21from human rights to native and environmental causes and women's health.
02:26It's worth noting at this point that although Amy Rae and Emily Saliers are lifelong musical
02:31partners, they are not, and never have been, romantic partners.
02:35The truth is that both of the Indigo Girls are in long-term relationships, just not with
02:40each other.
02:41Rae has been with her partner, Carrie Schrader, since 2006, and in 2018, Schrader gave birth
02:46to a daughter.
02:47As Rae told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that year,
02:50"...I've wanted motherhood for a long, long time, so it was time."
02:54As for Saliers, in August 2013, she married her partner of 10 years, former Indigo Girls
03:00tour manager Tristan Chipman.
03:03They had welcomed a baby daughter together the previous November.
03:06The two married in New York state, since gay marriage was illegal in Georgia at the time.
03:11Regardless of the Indigo Girls' relationship status, they're happy to live as their true
03:15selves.
03:16Rae told the Huffington Post in 2016,
03:18"...we're proud of who we are, and what our identity is."
03:23There are no hidden meanings behind the name Indigo Girls.
03:26Amy Rae simply stumbled upon the word Indigo, and thought that it sounded cool.
03:31With this new moniker, Rae and Saliers continued playing local clubs with their favorite cover
03:36songs by popular artists of the day.
03:38But they were also writing their own songs, which led them to create their own record
03:42label in 1985.
03:44They called it J. Ellis Records, after an English teacher they both had a crush on.
03:49One gig in particular proved to be pivotal for the Indigo Girls.
03:53At the Little Five Points pub in Atlanta in 1986, the ladies held their first benefit
03:58show, entitled Songs for Shelter.
04:01The performance increased the band's popularity as well as their support of social justice
04:06causes.
04:07In 1987, they self-produced their first full-length album, Strange Fire.
04:12The LP fueled the Indigo Girls' career further, but it was also a stressful period.
04:17Signing with Epic Records in 1988 helped to relieve some of that strain.
04:22Amy Rae and Emily Saliers are both prolific songwriters in their own rights, but who are
04:27their influences?
04:29As it turns out, their inspirations are as diverse as the colors of the rainbow.
04:33In 2009, Saliers mentioned to American Songwriter the totally unsurprising revelation that she
04:39is a big fan of Joni Mitchell.
04:42Meanwhile, her less obvious selections included the likes of Beyoncé, Jackson Browne, Stevie
04:47Wonder, and even Public Enemy.
04:50Rae's list was a little more obscure, as she cited The Clash's Joe Strummer, The Crush,
04:55and Washington State musician Danielle Howell.
04:58The Indigo Girls also draw inspiration from the social issues of the day when making their
05:02music.
05:03Their 2020 song, Muster, for example, addressed the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
05:09shooting in Parkland, Florida.
05:12As Rae told KCRW,
05:13"...I just felt like we really screwed up, the adults right now, and we need to make
05:18it up to these kids."
05:19Naturally enough, the duo also write about their queer identity.
05:23Their 2020 song, Country Radio, for example, touches upon how growing up gay can be a lonely
05:28road to travel when the music you're listening to is targeted primarily to straight people.
05:34"...I think what we are always trying to capture is, like, the core of what is important about
05:41us."
05:42Rae and Saliers aren't just talented musicians.
05:45They also have strong heads for business.
05:47When they signed on with Epic Records in 1988, they made sure to retain artistic control.
05:52Nine albums later, they switched over to Hollywood Records, which is owned by Disney.
05:57Hollywood dropped them in 2007, but ultimately that wasn't a problem for the Indigo Girls.
06:02As Rae told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal,
06:04"...it definitely didn't feel like a bummer.
06:07It felt like, okay, good, now we can just sort of do our own thing and do our own kind
06:11of marketing."
06:13And that's exactly what they did.
06:15Without missing a beat, the Indigo Girls soon had their own label, IG Recordings, and they
06:19found it quite liberating to once again be independent.
06:23And it sounds like they would love if other artists could have the same sort of freedom.
06:27As Saliers told Arts Atlanta in 2020,
06:30"...I have resentment for big labels that now are making all of the money off of streaming,
06:35while so many artists who are struggling aren't seeing anything from that.
06:38It's the same as it ever was.
06:40You know, big corporations see profit as the guiding force of business."
06:45The Indigo Girls are a dynamic duo.
06:47But sometimes, Rae and Saliers go their own ways, as they both have plenty of other projects
06:52to keep them busy when they aren't working together.
06:55We just do so many separate things that Indigo Girls remains interesting to us, and we support
06:59each other's individual endeavors."
07:03Rae has her Demon record label, which launched in 1990.
07:07And Saliers will surely never forget the time that she and her father, theologian Don Saliers,
07:12promoted their book, A Song to Sing, A Life to Live, Reflections on Music as Spiritual
07:17Practice at a United Methodist Women's Convention.
07:21Some church members called for the event to be canceled because of Emily's orientation.
07:25But instead, she said no way, as she declared to the crowd,
07:29"...I want to hang with the Methodists!"
07:31And after she performed an anti-war song, her father joined her in singing Psalm 139
07:37to the crowd.
07:38Rae has also produced her own projects, including nine solo albums between 2001 and 2020.
07:44As for Saliers, in 2017, she produced her own first solo album, Murmuration Nation.
07:51Rae had nothing but praise for the effort, telling The Daily Progress,
07:54"...it's quite an accomplishment.
07:56It's kind of alternative folk.
07:57It's got beats."
07:58Meanwhile, while working together, the Indigo Girls are proud to be the only duo to have
08:03placed in the Top 40 charts every decade from the 1980s to the 2010s.
08:09Unsurprisingly, the Indigo Girls have fueled support for gay rights throughout their careers.
08:15They came out just a year after their 1987 debut album, and as Amy Rae would later admit
08:20to the Anchorage Daily News,
08:22"...we were scared in the 80s.
08:24We were scared to talk about it.
08:25We were young and trying to figure it out."
08:28Despite that initial hesitancy, before long everyone knew that the Indigo Girls were lesbians,
08:33and they were willing to help people going through the same experiences.
08:37But that effort didn't necessarily come easy.
08:39There was one time, in 1998, for example, when they were banned from playing local high
08:43schools after parents complained.
08:46As Saliers told Mother Jones in 2000,
08:49"...first your feelings get hurt, and then you get pissed."
08:53The biggest and best weapon the Indigo Girls have is their voices, both in their songs
08:57and in interviews.
08:59In 2012, Rae saluted President Barack Obama's support for gay marriage in an interview with
09:04Outfront magazine.
09:06As she noted,
09:07"...it helps when you have such a strong visionary, that even when he is not effective in some
09:11ways, he's effective in the way that we think about ourselves."
09:16The Indigo Girls' website cites their dedication to numerous causes, including the environment,
09:21independent media, Native American rights, voter education, women's health, and, of course,
09:27queer rights.
09:28As far back as 1990, Amy Rae was telling The Baltimore Sun,
09:32"...there are so many problems that we don't feel like we can do enough."
09:36One notable moment of political activism happened in 1998, when the girls publicly criticized
09:42then-Texas Governor George W. Bush for refusing convicted killer Carla Faye Tucker's plea
09:48for mercy before she became the first woman executed in Texas since the Civil War.
09:54One of the most notable aspects of their activism is their connections with the places they
09:57visit.
09:58For example, after they met Native American activist Winona LaDuke, they then came to
10:03support indigenous activism.
10:05As Saliers explained to Mother Jones,
10:08The focus of traditional Indian peoples has always been respect, everything in balance,
10:13and considering future generations.
10:16It's a paradigm of life that will be the only thing to save us in the end.
10:20Today, the Indigo Girls continue to support fundraising and political causes, and that
10:25approach has also been an essential factor in how they go about booking their tours.
10:30As Saliers told NPR,
10:32"...when we realized how easy it was to organize a benefit, we also realized how much more
10:37gratifying organizing benefits were than just playing regular shows."
10:41We're the Indigo Girls, and we're looking out for Anne Therese and thousands of other
10:45children whose lives have been torn apart by war."
10:49As of May 2020, the Indigo Girls have performed 320 live concerts.
10:54It's one thing to sound great on an album, but it's quite another to sound great live.
10:58Truly great bands like the Indigo Girls can do both, and early reviews of their shows
11:03reflect that.
11:04When Colorado writer and photographer Tim Van Schmidt saw them in 1989, he declared,
11:09"...their straight-to-the-heart harmonies and impassioned delivery exhibited rare sincerity."
11:15And when Van Schmidt saw Amy Rae backstage, she kindly chatted with him before he was
11:19ousted by security.
11:21Here's another factoid about the Indigo Girls' live shows that might surprise you.
11:26In 2006, their website stated outright that fans were welcome to tape their shows, although
11:31just the audio only.
11:32Then, in 2020, Rae and Saliers adopted their live playing to the pandemic era when they
11:38performed before a COVID-cautious, sold-out drive-in crowd in Atlanta in October.
11:44Although, as Rae joked to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
11:46"...this is not the way we thought we'd see a Marist Bank amphitheater."
11:51It seems like nothing can stop this dynamic pair, as they're planning more live shows
11:56beginning April 2021.
11:58As 1911 Established described them recently,
12:01"...decades into their career, the Indigo Girls still amaze conventional pundits with
12:05their ability to grow and thrive no matter what the state of the music industry is at
12:10any given point."
12:11Simply put, over the course of 30 years together, Rae and Saliers haven't compromised either
12:17their musical or personal integrity.