Indigo Girls

About Indigo Girls

Indigo Girls are an American folk rock duo, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. They got their start in Atlanta as a regular act at The Little 5 Points Pub and were tangentially part of the Athens, Georgia college rock scene that included The B-52's, Pylon, R.E.M., The Georgia Satellites, and Love Tractor.

The two women 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 Emily was a grade ahead of Amy. While attending Shamrock High School, they grew closer, 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 at Vanderbilt University. Homesick, both returned to Georgia and transferred to Emory University. By 1985, they began performing together again, this time as the Indigo Girls. In a March 2007 NPR Talk of the Nation interview, Emily 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 called "Crazy Game"; the b-side was "Everybody's Waiting (for Someone to Come Home)". That same year, the Indigo Girls put out a six-track self-titled EP 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 day; they had first approached him when the EP was released, but he told them their songs were "immature" and they weren't likely to get a record deal. Strange Fire apparently changed his mind.

The success of 10,000 Maniacs, Tracy Chapman, and Suzanne Vega encouraged Epic Records to look for other female singer-songwriters; Epic signed the duo in 1988. Their first major-label release, also titled Indigo Girls, which charted at #22 on the album chart, included a new version of "Land of Canaan", which was also on their 1985 EP 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 charted at #52 on the pop chart & #26 on the modern rock chart. They even managed one week on the mainstream rock Album-oriented rock chart at #48. In 1990, they won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. They were also nominated for Best New Artist, but lost to Milli Vanilli, who eventually had the award revoked.