Remembering Barbara Dane
May 12, 1927 – October 20, 2024
The jazz, blues and political folk singer is remembered
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Barbara Dane passed away on Oct. 20, 2024 at the age of 97.
She was born on May 12, 1927 in Detroit as Barbara Jean Spillman.
She briefly attended Wayne State University and then became a professional singer.
Always politically active and a fighter against racism, Barbara Dane started out as a jazz singer and often had African-American sidemen.
Her earliest recordings from 1956 have her performing blues with an integrated group that included clarinetist George Lewis.
Dane performed vintage jazz standards and blues for several years including appearing on the 1959 Timex All-Star Jazz Show with Louis Armstrong, and utilizing such sidemen as clarinetist Darnell Howard, pianist Don Ewell, Benny Carter (on trumpet), pianist Earl Hines, and bassist Wellman Braud.
She also performed at various times with the Firehouse Five Plus Two, Lu Watters’ Yerba Buena Jazz Band, Art Hodes, Jack Teagarden, Wilbur DeParis, and bluesmen Lightnin’ Hopkins, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Roosevelt Sykes.
Dane, who frequently appeared on television variety shows during the early 1960s, became very involved in political activity as the 1960s progressed including becoming the first U.S. musician to tour Cuba after Fidel Castro took over.
She founded the Pardeon Record label with her husband Irwin Silber, recording international protest music and appeared at many fundraisers and political rallies.
Barbara Dane, who revisited early jazz on occasional recordings through the years including albums in 1988, 1992 (with the Hot Club Of San Francisco), 2000, 2011, and as late as 2016, was a vital performer in several musical fields throughout her life.
Here is Barbara Dane in 2010 when she was 83 performing “Brother Can You Spare A Dime” with guitarist John Lumsdaine.
-Scott Yanow
Ella Fitzgerald