Music / Civil rights & activism
Barbara Dane
1927–2024 · folk, blues and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, activist
Detroit-born singer whom critic Leonard Feather called Bessie Smith in stereo; she started out singing at Detroit factory gates and union halls.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Oakland, California
aged 97- Birth name
- Barbara Jean Spillman
- Detroit years
- 1927–late 1940s
- Field
- Music, Civil rights & activism
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Barbara Spillman grew up in Detroit, the daughter of a pharmacist and a professional bridge player. Around the age of nine she watched her father turn a Black customer out of his store, a moment she later said bound her to the struggle for civil rights. She graduated from Redford High School and briefly attended Wayne State University, and while still a teenager she chose to sing at demonstrations for racial equality and at factory gates and union halls rather than tour with Alvino Rey's dance band. In the early 1940s she was Michigan teenage director of American Youth for Democracy. After moving west she became a blues and jazz singer admired by Louis Armstrong, who praised her at the Pasadena jazz festival, and she shared stages with Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. In 1970 she co-founded Paredon Records, which issued about 50 albums of protest music. She died in Oakland in 2024, aged 97.
Highlights
- Graduated from Redford High School in Detroit
- Sang at Detroit factory gates and union halls as a teenager
- Leonard Feather called her Bessie Smith in stereo
- Co-founded Paredon Records in 1970
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1940s
Redford High School
Demolished · 1921–2007
West-side public high school where she graduated; it closed in 2007 and was demolished in 2012 for a Meijer store site.
Studied here · 1940s
Wayne State University
Detroit's public university in Midtown, which she attended briefly.