The Untold Truth Of The Indigo Girls

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In 1987, music lovers got a pleasing earful from an all-new folk band, the Indigo Girls. Formed by longtime friends Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, the Indigo Girls croon about life-changing epiphanies, gay rights, and politics, both together and separately. After officially forming the Indigo Girls in 1985, according to The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, the duet released their first album, Strange Fire, in 1987. Amazon reviewers give it a solid 4.9 out of five stars even now. And the band's newest album, Look Long, has received equally complimentary reviews, according to the Indigo Girls themselves. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was spot-on when it declared that the twosome "remain one of the most consistent musical treasures in folk-pop."

To date, the Indigo Girls have been nominated for seven Grammy Awards, scoring one win in 1989 for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. Surely there are more to come, seeing as Ray and Saliers have made a serious impression on the gay community lo these past 35 years. NPR notes that the duo have given "many women a way to understand themselves along the lines of what the radical feminist poet Adrienne Rich called 'the lesbian continuum.'" As one might guess, there is plenty more than meets the eye about the Indigo Girls. Read on for the untold truth behind this iconic pair.

According to the American Psychological Association, being gay in the 1980s was no easy feat. Just two decades before, homosexuals were at risk of being jailed, ostracized by friends and family, losing their jobs, and being defined as mentally ill. Although the LGBT movement was underway, the AIDS epidemic cast an unhealthy shadow over the gay lifestyle as marches on Washington pleaded for compassion. Emily Saliers, says NPR, was raised by liberal parents who encouraged "deeper conversation about the social and political issues of the day." And although Amy Ray's family was "more politically conservative," she likely found solace in the fact that two of her siblings were also gay.

Over time, the Saliers and Ray would hope that being labeled a "lesbian duo" was a positive thing. "What we hope for is a day where that distinction doesn't matter and doesn't carry weight," Ray told the Huffington Post in 2016, but she was still waiting for a time when lesbianism would simply be a way to "celebrate diversity." These days, the band's website includes a whole section on activism, with support for everything from human rights to native and environmental causes, women's health, and LGBTQ support. AllMusic submits that the women's difference in personalities and music styles "provided tension and an interesting balance," thereby fueling the popularity of their songs.

There are no hidden meanings as to why Emily Saliers and Amy Ray renamed their band the Indigo Girls. Everything2.com explains that Ray simply found the word "indigo" (defined as "a deep reddish blue") and "thought it sounded 'cool.'" Thus the name of the duo went from the B-Band, to Saliers and Ray, to the Indigo Girls, according to The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Under their new moniker, the pair continued playing local clubs, performing their favorite cover songs by popular artists of the day, says NPR. But they were also writing songs, leading them to create their own record label in 1985, according to Oldies.com. They called it J. Ellis Records, after an English teacher on whom both had a crush.

One gig in particular proved to be a pivotal point for the Indigo Girls. At the Little 5 Points Pub in Atlanta in 1986, the ladies formed their first benefit show, "Songs for Shelter." The performance increased the band's popularity, as well as their support of "social justice causes." In 1987, writes John Malkin in his book Sounds of Freedom: Musicians on Spirituality & Social Change, the band self-produced their first full-length album, Strange Fire. The LP fueled the Indigo Girls' career further, but Encyclopedia.com quotes Ray as saying, "We had so much to do, we were just falling apart." Signing with Epic Records in 1988 would relieve part of the strain.

We know that Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are both prolific songwriters, but who are/were their influences? Turns out, the singers who inspire the duo are as diverse as the color of the women's hair. In 2009, Saliers told American Songwriter that her inspirations include Joni Mitchell (pictured), but she is also motivated by the likes of Beyoncé as well as classic artists Jackson Browne, Public Enemy, and Stevie Wonder. Ray's list was more obscure, citing the band 1945, dance band The Crush, Washington state musician Danielle Howell, and The Clash's Joe Strummer. 

As for what they write about, certainly the Indigo Girls' songs deal with the world of today. "We are always writing about social issues," Saliers told the Shelton Herald in 2015, explaining that the pair likes writing about "topical issues." Their 2020 song, "Muster," addressed the 2018 Parkland school shooting. "I just felt like we really screwed up, the adults right now," Ray told KCRW, "and we need to make it up to these kids." Naturally, the musicians also write about being gay. Saliers' recent song, "Country Radio," contains lyrics that show how being homosexual can be a lonely road to travel when one listens to songs meant for heterosexuals: "I'm just a gay kid in a small town, who loves country radio."

The Indigo Girls don't just spend time away from each other writing songs. They both have plenty of other projects to keep them busy when they aren't working with one another. There's Amy Ray's Daemon record label, which began in 1990, according to Spirituality & Health. And Emily Saliers will likely never forget when she and her father, theologian Don Saliers, co-promoted their book, A Song to Sing, A Life to Live: Reflections on Music as Spiritual Practice, at a United Methodist women's convention. Q-Notes says that certain church members called for cancellation of the event since Emily is gay. No way, she responded, telling the crowd, "I want to hang with the Methodists!" And after she sang an anti-war song, her father sang Psalm 139 to the crowd.

Ray, too, has produced her own projects, including nine solo albums and one single between 2001 and 2020. Saliers also produced her first solo album, Murmuration Nation, in 2017, according to NPR. Ray had nothing but praise for the effort, telling The Daily Progress that the album was "quite an accomplishment. It's kind of alternative folk; it's got beats." Meanwhile, the Indigo Girls were proud to be the only duo to have placed in the Top 40 charts every decade from the 1980s to the 2010s.

Presidential influence is indeed important to the Indigo Girls, along with a lot of other issues. Their website cites their dedication to numerous other causes, including the environment, the importance of independent media, justice and human rights, Native American concerns, voter education, women's health, and, of course, music and being queer. As early as 1990, The Baltimore Sun noted that the ladies "seem to pop up wherever there's a rally or a chance to make a political statement for a cause they support." Amy Ray justified that, commenting that, "There are so many problems that we don't feel like we can do enough." That would include publicly criticizing then-governor George W. Bush, says Mother Jones, for refusing convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker's plea for mercy before she was executed in 1998.

The coolest part about the Indigo Girls' activism is their connections with the places they visit. Upon meeting Native activist and Green Party candidate Winona LaDuke (pictured) for instance, the duo came to support "indigenous activism" and respect how the Natives believe in "everything in balance" with consideration for generations of tomorrow. Today, the group continues to support "community work, fundraising and political organizing," according to NPR, which notes that such support has "been central to their approach to booking any of their tours." Emily Saliers told writer Karen Tongson that she and Amy Ray found playing benefits were "much more gratifying" than any other show.

Check this out: As of May 2020, the Indigo Girls had performed 320 live concerts, says Concert Archives. Yet it's one thing to sound great on an album and quite another to sound great live — but the Indigo Girls can do both, and early reviews of their show reflected that. When Colorado writer and photographer Tim Van Schmidt saw them in 1989, he wrote that their "straight to the heart harmonies and impassioned delivery exhibited rare sincerity." And when he saw Amy Ray backstage, she kindly chatted with him before he was ousted by security.

Here's another surprise, too: In 2006, the Indigo Girls' website stated outright that fans were welcome to tape their shows (audio only, no video). Amy Ray and Emily Saliers also appeared on top of things when they performed before a COVID-cautious yet sold-out drive-in crowd in Atlanta in October 2020, even as Ray noted to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "This is not the way we thought we'd see Ameris (Bank) Amphitheatre." But even a pandemic can't stop this dynamic pair, who are planning more shows beginning in April 2021. Indeed, as concert promoter 1911 noted, the Indigo Girls always have (and probably always will) "amaze conventional pundits with their ability to grow and thrive no matter what the state of the music industry is at any given point."