Barbara Jean Spillman, 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!" 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."Barbara Jean Spillman, 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!" 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."...more
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