Indigo Girls

Early years 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)". Epic Records (1988–2006) 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. Independent work (2007–present) in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2018 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. In 2025, Indigo Girls appeared in the feature documentary Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery – The Untold Story, which reflects on the legacy of the all-female music festival. == Songwriting and influences ==

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 of 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. For their 2002 release, 'Become You,' Ray reported that they handed instruments back and forth to compose leads collaboratively, something they had never done before. In September 2020, the Indigo Girls released "Long Ride", the first song Ray and Saliers had written together in 30 years. == Touring band ==

The Indigo Girls have toured as a duo and with a band. In 1990, they toured with Atlanta band the Ellen James Society backing them; they have also toured with side players, with one distinct group from 1991 to 1998, a second from 1999 to 2009, members of which appeared on all of the Girls' subsequent albums and which re-formed as a live band in 2023, and a third from 2012 to 2016. Names in bold are of mainstays of the touring band. ;First touring band • Sara Lee – bass guitar (1991–98) • Jerry Marotta – drums, percussion (1992–98) • Budgie – drums (1992) • Gail Ann Dorsey – bass guitar, support vocals (1994) • Scarlet Rivera – violin (1992-3) • Jane Scarpantoni – cello (1992-3, 1995) • Joshua Segal – guitar, violin, mandolin, vocals (1997) ;Second touring band • Brady Blade – drums (2002–04, 2023) • Matt Chamberlain – drums (2006–2009, 2024) • Lyris Hung – violin (2012–) • Carol Isaacs – keyboards, accordion (1999–2007, 2015–16, 2023-) • Clare Kenny – bass guitar (1999–2007, 2023-) • Matt Brubeck - cello, percussion, vocals (2000) • Blair Cunningham – drums (2000, 2024) • Caroline Dale – cello (1999) • Jeff Fielder – guitar (2023-) • TK Johnson – drums (2025) • Caroline Lavelle – cello (2000) • John Reynolds – drums (1999) • Julie Wolf – keyboards, accordion (2007–11) ;2012–16 touring band • Jaron Pearlman – drums (2012–2016) • Benjamin Ryan Williams – bass (2012–2016) • Lyris Hung – violin (2012–present) • Carol Isaacs – keyboards, accordion (1999–2007, 2015-6, 2023-4) == Solo projects ==

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. Saliers 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 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. == Appearances in other media ==

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. Indigo Girls are featured in "Foreword: A Conversation with the Indigo Girls, Kathy Mattea, and Lyle Lovett" in Brian T. Atkinson's Love at the Five and Dime: The Songwriting Legacy of Nanci Griffith (Texas A&M University Press, 2024). == Personal lives ==

Both Ray and Saliers use she/her pronouns. They long identified themselves as lesbians, but more recently, Ray and Saliers have publicly commented that they are or previously have been sexually attracted to men in their lives, and that they identify as queer. More specifically, Ray has openly talked about her gender dysphoria and identifying as gender fluid, and the challenges she has felt in her own body. “I definitely still feel like a guy a lot of the time, but I guess I’ve just gotten to a place where like, ‘Well, I have fought really hard to be in this body and I’m just gonna stay here,’ and also felt somewhat evenly split between male and female to the point where I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can choose, like I think I’m gonna have to just live in the center,’” Ray said. Both Saliers and Ray have spoken openly about having internalized homophobia. Because of their engagements for LGBT rights, they are regarded as icons of the movement. Amy Ray has long lived in the foothills of the North Georgia Mountains with her longtime partner, filmmaker Carrie Schrader from Seattle, whom she’s been with since 2001. In November 2013, Schrader gave birth to the couple’s child, Ozilline “Ozie” Graydon. Ozie is named after Ray’s grandmother, who was also the inspiration for the 1999 Indigo Girls song “Ozilline,” penned by Ray. 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. In 2006 the Indigo Girls were featured in artist Pink's album ''I'm Not Dead'' in the song "Dear Mr. President", which Pink says 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. == Discography ==

Studio albums Live albums • Perfect World was released as a promo CD maxi single on March 1, 2004 together with 3 live tracks. Compilations Singles Other contributions • Deadicated (1991), covering "Uncle John's Band" • Put On Your Green Shoes (1993) – "Wild Wild Party In The Loquat Tree" • Joan Baez – Ring Them Bells (1995) – "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" • Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation (1996) – "Free of Hope" • Burning London: The Clash Tribute (1999)  – "Clampdown" • 107.1 KGSR Radio Austin – Broadcasts Vol. 10 (2002) – "Moment of Forgiveness" • WYEP Live and Direct: Volume 4 – On Air Performances (2002) – "Become You" • Pink – ''I'm Not Dead'' (2006) – "Dear Mr President" • Anne Murray – Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends (2007) – "A Little Good News" • Brandi Carlile – The Story (2007) – "Cannonball" • Metro: The Official Bootleg Series, Volume 1 (2010) • Where Have All the Flowers Gone: A Tribute to Pete Seeger, covering "Letter to Eve" • Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne (2014) covering "Fountain Of Sorrow" • Joan Baez "75th Birthday Celebration" (2016) "The Water is Wide", "Don't Think Twice" Live recording circulation Indigo Girls allow fans to tape their shows, and appropriately gathered recordings can be traded, obtained for free from a number of sources. ==Awards and nominations==

Americana Music Honors & Awards Women Songwriters Hall of Fame Pell Awards GLAAD Media Awards Grammy Awards Pollstar Concert Industry Awards == References ==