Barbara Dane

Barbara Dane (born May 12, 1927) is an American folk, blues, and jazz singer. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber. "Bessie Smith in stereo," wrote jazz critic Leonard Feather 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, Boston Globe music critic James Reed called her "one of the true unsung heroes of American music."