Barbara Dane

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Barbara Jean Spillman (May 12, 1927 – October 20, 2024), 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. Jazz critic Leonard Feather described Dane as "Bessie Smith in stereo" 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."

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