Indigo Girls

Indigo Girls biography

The Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duo consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They 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 the Emory Village.

They released a self-produced, full-length record album in 1987 and contracted with a major record company in 1988. After releasing nine albums with major record labels from 1988 through 2007, they have now resumed self-producing albums with their own IG Recordings company.

Outside of working on Indigo Girls-related projects, Ray has released solo albums and founded a non profit organization that promotes independent musicians, while Saliers is an entrepreneur in the restaurant industry as well as a professional author; she also collaborates with her father, Dr. Don Saliers, in performing for special groups/causes. Both Saliers and Ray self-identify as lesbian and are active in political and environmental causes.

Recording and touring

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 of Decatur, Georgia, but were not friends because Saliers was a grade older than Ray. While attending Shamrock High School (now Shamrock Middle School), they became better acquainted, and started performing together, first as "The B-Band" and then as "Saliers and Ray".

Saliers graduated and began attending Tulane University. A year later, Ray graduated and began attending Vanderbilt University. Homesick, both returned to Georgia and transferred to Emory University.

By 1985 they had begun performing together again, this time as the Indigo Girls. In a March 2007 National Public Radio Talk of the Nation interview, Saliers stated "we needed a name and we went through the dictionary looking for words that struck us and indigo was one.

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)". That same year, the Indigo Girls released a six-track Extended play album named "Indigo Girls", and in 1987 released their first full-length album, Strange Fire, recorded at John Keane Studio in Athens, Georgia, and including "Crazy Game". With this release, they secured the services of Russell Carter, who remains their manager to the present; they had first approached him when the EP album was released, but he told them their songs were "immature" and they were not likely to get a record deal. Strange Fire apparently changed his opinion.

Epic Records (1988-2005)

The success of 10,000 Maniacs, Tracy Chapman, and Suzanne Vega encouraged Epic Records company 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 #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. Also on the self-titled release was their first hit "Closer To Fine" (an unlikely collaboration with Irish band Hothouse Flowers), which scored #52 on the popular music chart and #26 on the modern rock chart. They even managed one week on the mainstream rock album-oriented rock music chart at #48. In 1990, they won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. They were also nominated for Best New Artist (but lost to Milli Vanilli who eventually had that award revoked).

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