American Masters

"We Are a Gentle, Angry People" plays

- We are a gentle, angry people And we are singing, singing for our lives -I believe that through the gentleness of song, one can, under that gentleness, say, "I invite you to your best self, but if you're not ready to go there, we're going to move on towards the best of humanity whether you come with us or not." -She lets you experience the need to fight and defend and persevere, but in a way that unlocks your heart. - We are a land of many colors And we are singing, singing for our lives -Holly was my first experience of music as a communal experience, a movement experience. I mean, I was just totally knocked out. -She has a gift for bringing radical, edgy ideas in a very all-American package to an audience, that changes them and inspires them as nobody else ever has. - Singing for our lives -She's had a constant ripple effect for 40 or 50 years. Holly is like an oar in the water. It's hard to know where you'd be without the oar. - Mm, mm, mm, mm mm -I grew up in Northern California, a little farm town called Potter Valley. -This ranch we grew up on, it was like -- it was paradise. It was the most beautiful place I've ever seen.

"Water Come Down" plays

- Children in the pastures Where the water flows - Sunshine turning shirtless backs to brown Oh, my daddy's hat tipped back to see All his kids go running wild It's summertime, and the water's coming down -And that mix of kind of primal, animal life and the primal beauty of growing up, and you see that in her songs, I think, all the time. - And the water's coming Water come down, water come down Water come down -My parents didn't have a television, so we started listening to music that they brought in. And my dad built a special mailbox -- a 12x12 mailbox down at the end of the lane so that it would hold records when they arrived. And somehow or other, they found catalogs, and these extraordinary records that my parents ordered introduced me to the best singers in the world. And I would actually put these records on and stand in front of the mirror and lip-sync to every great singer, feeling what their voice was like coming through my little body. And I learned about the world. I learned about Paris from Edith Piaf. - Pour gagner des picaillons Il fut mchant larron On le saluait bien bas Mais n'oubliez pas -I learned about Africa from Miriam Makeba. -

Singing in Xhosa

-

Singing in Xhosa

-I learned about what was going on across the street from Patsy Cline. - I fall to pieces - Ooh-ooh-ooh - Each time someone speaks your name -And then, along came The Weavers. And first of all, they just sounded spectacular. But in the midst of that spectacular sound was this woman singer, Ronnie Gilbert, and she was so powerful. - Tzena, Tzena Tzena, Tzena, Tzena Tzena, Tzena -There was a hugeness about her presence as a singer and an enthusiasm. -We had this odd background of folk music and musical comedy from Broadway shows in New York and opera. -My mother grew up with privilege, so she went to every musical and every museum and -- that could possibly do. Her mother was an artist. So she was very encouraging in the house when we were growing up, of creativity. And when we didn't have television, we became our own form of entertainment. I was asked to sing in our town all the time -- at garden clubs, Soroptimist clubs, the Lions Club -- any club that there possibly was. And I took it very seriously. -From the beginning, she kind of acted like she already was a kind of celebrity. I mean that in a really nice way. Her vocal coach in Ukiah was a woman named Connie Cox. She, back in the early '50s, gave Johnny Mathis pre-lessons.

"Unforgettable" plays

- Unforgettable

Applause

That's what you are -She just taught me a repertoire, and she taught me how to interpret and to think about the lyric and what -- and then performing -- what to do with my hands. And it was a wonderful training ground. Well, from '64, '65, '66, '67, I was in high school, and I was in a rural high school. So we had much less access to political activism than one might have had, say, in New York City. We were dealing with things like, why did girls have to wear dresses to school? And it was my senior year that we actually got it so that girls could wear pants to school on Friday if there was a football game.

Laughing

Those were the limitations. -I mean, wouldn't each of you rather design your own band uniform? It'd be fantastic. It'd be you. And when you're marching along in the rigid line of the band, you'd be what we all want to be -- individuals. Be proud! Be free.

Cheers and applause

-I was in school government. I was a football princess. I went to every prom. -What is it? -Bobby Faser just asked me out.

Laughter

-I worked so hard to be pretty all the time. I was so caught up in all of that stuff. -Lo and behold, her senior year, she became homecoming queen. And sometimes, she dated guys -- I can't remember all the details, but they'd be guys who had gone to private schools outside the area. I can't remember why she knew them, but she'd date guys who were maybe a couple years older and... -Being asked out and all. I may even be a sex symbol.

Laughter

-Just, uh...a little bit -- a little bit more sophisticated, maybe, than your average Ukiah kid at the time. -I went to UCLA my first year in college, and I only lasted for a year because I got work right away. -Mostly B kinds of movies that were coming out. Some of them C movies or worse. -I've been finished. That's finishing school. And untouched by human hand. -But none of them were great films. They were all kind of grade-B films. But I was quite fortunate to have many reviews that said, although they didn't like the film, "There's this young woman in there," you know? So I was kind of encouraged to keep going. -Holly was being cast a lot as a character actress. She was slightly -- She was plump. She would say that herself -- she was a little overweight. -I don't think I was really fat, but I wasn't thin enough for Hollywood. So when I was acting in Hollywood, I was getting character parts. -That's just great. How come you're keeping it such a secret?

Laughter

Hi! Congratulations, Papa! -Oho! -But it definitely defined my sexuality and my dating habits and my behavior all through high school and into the early part of my 20s. - Let the sun shine - Whoa, let it shine - Let the sunshine in - Come on - The sunshine in -I did "Hair" on Broadway. It had been running for two years, and I just went in for a short period of time. But while I was there, the students were killed at Kent State. -Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!

Gunshots

-I met Dean Kahler, who was one of the survivors of the Kent State shooting, and he asked me if I would write a song. And then "It Could Have Been Me" is what became the song. - Students in Ohio 200 yards away Shot down by a nameless fire One early day in May Some people cried out angry You should've shot more of them down But you can't bury youth, my friend Youth grows the whole world 'round It could've been me But instead it was you So I'll keep doing the work you were doing As if I were, too -Kent State was the incident that catalyzed, you know, mass walkouts in the student movement and the anti-war movement. -We felt connected to the people who had perished, and I think and hope we all remember Holly's putting emotion and sound and music to that feeling of, "It could've been me. I could've been her. We all could've been the people who perished there." - Freedom, freedom, freedom If you can die for freedom, I can, too -And there were all kinds of actors and actresses and musicians trying to figure out how to have an entertainment industry response to the war. And that's where I first heard Jane Fonda speak about the Free the Army work that she was doing with soldiers -- soldiers who were opposing the war from within the military. -And the holidays are so emotional here. I saw one big tough Marine kiss another Marine.

Laughter and applause

No, he said -- he said, "I can't help it -- he's my replacement."

Laughter

-It was routine for entertainers to entertain the troops. The foremost entertainer was a comedian named Bob Hope, who was very conservative, very Republican. It was well-known as the -- that's the Army tour is the Bob Hope Tour. '68, '69, '70, Jane Fonda comes out as a revolutionary anti-war activist. And it occurred to her that she would do the opposite, the un-Bob Hope tour. - But their problems I can't solve 'Cause my sanity's involved And I'm tired of bastards...over me

Laughter

-We were rehearsing, and in walked this angel with this long kind of rose-colored hair. And then she sang, and it was like, "Wow." That voice was so pure. - What is on his mind? I'm a pretty piece, and he's just trying to score - They whistle for me like a dog -The single-most forgotten thing about the anti-war movement was that Free the Army show. If it was ever shown now on CNN, people would not believe what they're seeing. - Never felt diviner than to be in Indochina making money -5,000, 10,000, 18,000 troops are all cheering.

Cheers and applause

-I was the baby in the bunch. As it turned out, most of the sketches, the part that I was playing was the feminist or the one that was making fun of the woman who wasn't the feminist. I mean, it was kind of -- Those were the parts I got. So, in saying the lines, I was reading the script of a feminist, and that's how I became one. And talking to the women in the military and talking to the women in the Philippines -- the Filipinas, the Hawaiian women, the Japanese women, the Okinawan women -- they made me a feminist. So I came into feminism through a global door, and when I got home from that, I just had to rethink everything in my life. -It was the late summer of 1972, and Nixon had convinced most Americans that he was ending the war. -And Jane and I were really certain that this was a plan to keep the war going in secret, and that only some kind of performance, some outcry from activists and intellectuals and artists and musicians could bring public attention to the secret escalation of the war. So we called it the Indochina Peace Campaign. -"Okay. So, who should go on this? Well, obviously, it'll be me. I'll attract people. Tom, because he has the people who know him across the country as the organizer that he is, who would be interested in this. We need songs. We need music." And Tom had seen the movie we did of the FTA show, and we wanted Holly. So it was me and Tom and Holly. -I think what was interesting or unique about Holly is that she would tap into the everyday stories she would hear on the road, and she was always writing lyrics. She was always writing songs that tried to express the occasion that we were in. -I eventually learned that what he was really trying to teach us was the catastrophic effects of the military industrial complex. And from that moment on, once I got that, I never did anything after that where I didn't think about what I was doing through that lens. -The "sexual revolution" of the '60s, you know, really meant men were on top.

Laughs

You know, for the most part, it was very male-dominated, and that kind of bled into the anti-war movement. It was a pretty macho crowd. -The women's movement came out of the civil rights and the peace movement, because if, even in those movements we loved with all of our hearts, still we were mimeographing -- there's a word from the past --

chuckling

or not recognized or not allowed to lead, then we realized there had to be an autonomous women's movement. -We started to have a sort of economic freedom so that we didn't have to get married in order to stay alive. It was okay to be in the workplace in the '60s, so when you have economic freedom, you don't have to get married, you're not tied to men, and having that freedom allowed a freedom of a lot of different things to take place. -I started meeting women who were singing feminist songs, singing songs from -- that came specifically from a woman's perspective. - She was propped up on a pillow Rockin' in a rockin' chair Never had such good talking I knew that she really cared I wanted to make her young again But all I could do was cry I love that old time woman Till I d-i-i-i-ie -I met Meg Christian and Cris Williamson and Margie Adam. -Some of us felt very strongly that this particular tool, this women's music tool, was a way to communicate feminist values far out into the world, way beyond the speeches, way beyond any intellectualizing. - Why don't you sing this song? Why don't you sing along? And we can sing for a long, long time - What do you do for your living? Are you forgiving? Giving shelter? -Women on Wheels -- the fact that it was the four big women's music stars, that it was a concert tour across California, reached -- what? -- 120,000 people or something. -The word went out. People who had seen me alone, Cris alone, Holly and Meg alone, or just the two of us or maybe the three of us, said, "The four of them." They called us the Fab Four. "The Fab Four are performing together. They're doing this concert." Women flew in from all over the country to see the four of us play. -And we did one concert every night that was for the general public, and we did one concert for women only, which was very controversial. "Women" was also a code word. I mean, it was a lesbian concert.

Cheers and applause

-...sing this song? Why don't you sing along? And you can sing for a long, long time -In terms of new feminism and new gender identity, I had just walked into the beehive. And it was really exciting. I mean, these songs were being sung in the privacy of living rooms in the same way that lesbian novels were being wrapped in brown paper packages so the postal worker wouldn't see what was being delivered. -We were creating an environment for women to express their full humanity in whatever way seemed appropriate to them, as opposed to being defined by the dominant culture that said, "You have to be this way, and you have to love this person." -I always had a heterosexual expectation of myself, and I moved in the world that way. So the press would say, "Well, aren't you heterosexual? Why are you in this?" And I would say, "I'm here for the music. I'm here for these women. I'm here because I'm learning." - I've been waiting so long - So long - For another song -Holly had just done a concert. She was a mess. All of a sudden, she's in tears, and out comes this story, you know, "I'm having a relationship with a woman." And she tells me this story for the first time. She didn't even -- I mean, I was in the next room. It wasn't even a conversation we could sit down and face-to-face talk about. She was too hysterical for that. -Meg was my first lover. Meg was my Valentine. She just knocked my socks off. I was seduced by the idea that I might be lovable not just as somebody who was cute to go out with, but deep down lovable. The music that we made together was so filled with passion, and it was erotic just in the fact that it was happening. - Imagine my surprise - Imagine my surprise - Now that I have found you But I ache all over - Wanting to know your every dream -I wrote a song called "Imagine My Surprise!" which I wouldn't be lying or exaggerating if I said that there weren't thousands of women who came out to that song. -And I just remember playing that thing -- playing that song over and over and over, playing the tape over and -- I probably -- I probably wore it out. -And I know so many women who have told me that they changed their lives, they came out, they quit their jobs -- they did all kinds of things because they went to a Holly Near concert. It was a religious experience. -Dear Holly, I want you to know that you eased my pain for a few short hours Friday night. I felt proud to be gay and proud to be a woman. -"Imagine My Surprise!" will forever remain my favorite song. That was a big song for me because I finally decided to come out at school. -Holly probably, in my life, anyway, was the first person to sing love songs that were obviously to another woman. I don't know of any revolutionary change on Earth that hasn't come from telling the truth about our lives in the beginning. -For the first time, being able to hear songs about intimate connections with other women, about love, affection -- that contribution to the culture was like water in the desert. -I think every social-change movement has a music. So it's not surprising to me that when the feminist and then lesbian movements came along that there wouldn't be an explosion of music. -So you started -- you started seeing all of these collectives spring up. -We had our own Woodstocks -- you know, the Michigan Women's Music Festival. I co-produced the West Coast Women's Music Festival. -People were banging down walls to come and hear this music. They wanted to legitimize themselves. They no longer wanted to be in those private novels where people were killing themselves for being gay. There was also films and literature and coffee houses and record companies and distribution companies. I mean, it was really an amazing time. -Thousands of women all over the United States found their voice through women's music and particularly the contribution that Holly made. - Something about the women in my life -Holly's music and concerts awakened me to not only the value we possess as women, but, also, that music was an agent for social change. -Holly and Meg would come to town, they'd do a 3,000-person concert, and then, the next day, there'd be a workshop, kind of Organizing 101 -- "What can you do?" And 400 women would show up and learn how to organize. So those concerts were always connected to some kind of ongoing political organizing, if you will. -If women can figure out how to use their music in a constructive and political way, it would be one of our greatest tools to work with. Marching bands have sent men off to war, and parents have sung their kids to sleep with lullabies. So if it can send people off to war, it can turn people around and make them revolutionaries. -I think her career suffered because she became involved with the "next potent movement." -Dear Holly, I'm feeling both disappointed and resentful. Resentful because, as a man, I felt nearly totally excluded from what your songs related to the audience. -Please be more gentle to the men. Some of them want like hell to be on our side. -When I first came out, I think they thought, "Oh, my God. This is one of the voices that really speaks to the anti-war movement and the solidarity community, and we just lost her. She's gone bananas and has come out as a lesbian." -You know, men had been having exclusive groups since time immemorial and calling it the Harvard Club or something, but

chuckles

nobody minded that. But to have an exclusively female concert was viewed as undemocratic, exclusionary, and so on. -At the beginning of any movement, whether it's gay liberation or the women's movement or whatever, people are really angry because they're starting to understand... how bad it is. They're finally confronting what it is that they're fighting against. It closes out -- it locks out a lot of people. -I had to go back to the drawing board and say, "Well, what is it that women do? Who are we? What do we think?" And in some ways, I believe that separatism is a way to help answer that question. Any group of people can separate themselves for a moment from dominant culture and say, "How would I think if nobody had their foot on my neck," you know, "if I was independent of a cultural identification?" And then, when you get that, then you can bring it back into the circle more informed. There were kind of regular music outlets, like Tower Records here in L.A., which started selling women's music right away. You had about 25 record labels that were owned by women, mostly lesbians. So it was really radical -- it was really outside the mainstream. Over a million units were sold with no radio air play. It was pretty amazing. -Well, it meant that we had to press our own records and lug them with us as we went from town to town, and that wasn't fun -- you know? -- all the time. It meant that our parents had to become a distribution house. -Holly was doing all these shows around the country, and people wanted her music. And so, the whole idea of being able to put out her own records and sell them at her performances and, you know, have control of that was essential to Holly. -Pretty soon, producers out there who produced our concerts got the idea, "Well, is there we can help with this?" So, pretty soon, these same producers were opening record stores and were adding records to their bookstores. And pretty soon, there was a whole network all across the country that was willing to carry these records so we didn't have to lug them along with us. -So, Holly hired me and two other women out of this alternative women's network. Anne and Russell, her parents, who had been running the record company out of their house that she grew up in -- they moved to a smaller house in Ukiah, and four lesbians moved in and took over the running of the record company, basically. -And Redwood went on for nearly 20 years and produced some amazing music. Meeting Bernice Reagon and working with Sweet Honey in the Rock was, in part, the inspiration for me to move out of being a single-artist, family-run record company to recording other artists who were articulating diverse cultural experiences. It was a very important moment for me. It influenced my sense of direction. -Sweet Honey was very, very influential for me, as an African-American woman, to see a whole group of sisters seriously throwing down and doing their thing. And it was one of the things that actually drew me to Redwood. I felt that I had -- that I could have a connection. And so Redwood really spoke to my heart in that way, in terms of diversity and all of those kinds of things. -The idea of Redwood Records, of course, was quite new at that point. I mean, there have since been women starting record and distribution companies -- Not many even now, so it was very new then. She just stood for everything we wanted "Ms." to stand for. You know, she was kind of a life-giving force for people that was just under the surface, not well-known enough. And so, by making a major story, we thought we could introduce her to more people. -"Ms." magazine did a take-off on the "Time" magazine that had a Man of the Year, and they decided that they would have Women of the Year. And they chose 12 women every year, instead of one. And it led to becoming really long-term, lifelong friends with Gloria Steinem, which was a great perk, as well. I was the first out lesbian to be in "People" magazine. There were a lot of people in the closet who were famous, and they hadn't come out yet. It was a very safe, entry-level article for "People" magazine, and it was fun to be part of it. -She has an incredible capacity to hold an audience and to bring an audience with her wherever she goes, thematically. - We are gentle, loving people - And we are singing, singing for our lives -I think the song that probably resonates the most as an anthem is "Singing For Our Lives," which she wrote when Harvey Milk was assassinated. -The Mayor of San Francisco was shot and killed in his office in City Hall this morning. So was Harvey Milk, a city supervisor. As a member of the Board of Supervisors, Harvey Milk was a champion of homosexual rights. -We're driving down to San Francisco. It was like we had to be there. We just had to get there. I'm driving, and I suddenly hear this guttural noise. It was a primal sound coming out of Holly. And she starts humming, and she hums it and she hums it and she hums it, and then she starts singing. And by the time we get to San Francisco, she's written two verses. -And that night, we all sang, "We are gay and lesbian people," and for many, it was the first time they'd said those words out loud about themselves. And then, the song flew out, and allies began to sing it. And the words were changed to, "We are gay and straight together," and the song found its way into the Unitarian hymnal.

Cheers and applause

And then we learned a lot more about sexuality. And now I can't fit all the words into the meter of this song.

Laughter and applause

But whatever door you walk through to your very essence, just know that we see you. We see you. - And we are all in this together And we are singing... -It became the anthem of the LGBT movement. -And it's a song that's been carried all over the world, sung by hundreds of thousands of people. - We are a land of many colors And we are singing, singing for our lives -My response to you singing that song was immediate and so intense, and it would've overwhelmed me, except it felt instead that a calming fire had started in me. - Singing for our lives - We are gay and straight together - We are gay and straight together And we are singing, singing for our lives

Explosion

-The coup had just happened in Chile. Allende was killed, and there was a coup led by the CIA to bring Pinochet back to power. The number of political refugees that came out of Chile at that time had a huge impact on the politics of the Bay Area. -Holly Near was the key for the exchange of musicians between the United States and Latin America.

Cheers and applause

She did a tour with Inti-Illimani, which is a Chilean group. - Home is where we are Oh, let love come into our arms We will go on and on and on and on and on The Gypsy dances on -And what she was able to do with singing with them is introduce a whole audience in the United States to what was going on in Chile, what had been going on in different parts of the world and in Latin America. - O-O-O-On

Cheers and applause

-She was not just, you know, of the women's movement. She was a person who linked together the different social movements. - Hay una mujer desaparecida I had been listening to Holly's records. I didn't know anything of really very much about Holly, but I loved her singing and I loved her songs. And one of them was a song called "Hay Una Mujer Desaparecida." When we were filming, when we were being filmed, the two of us began to sing together. And we sang that song. - Cecilia Castro Salvadores -It's not that, when I sing the names, I don't think of the women. But coming to Villa Grimaldi, and you look at their photos and letters, their handwriting, or a little doll that -- that they had, it starts to fill out a story for each one of them. - Desaparecida -There were prisons and torture centers, interrogation centers all over the country, and Villa Grimaldi was one of them. - And the junta - And the junta - And the junta knows -The rose garden was complicated, even during the time when it was a prison. It's this place for me, when I go there, I see this extraordinary beauty, and yet each of the rose bushes has a stake and a name of someone who just was tortured or disappeared in that place. And so there it is again, the horror and the beauty right next to each other. - En Chile En Chile En Chile -It was incredible. There were friends who said, "When are you two gonna do a concert together?" It was as if people who saw that thought that that's what we were doing, you know? And that's how we got ourselves -- we let ourselves get pushed into that, and, boy, was that ever a good thing.

Laughs

- Out of the night Appeared a lady leading a distant Pilgrim band "First mate," she yelled, pointing her hand "Make room aboard for this young woman" Saying, "Come on up, mm-hmm-hmm, I got a lifeline Come on up to this train of mine" -One of the most highly respected collaborations and the one with the longest relationship is her relationship with Ronnie Gilbert. Her audience started to expand in age as the movement went on. They both together were able to kind of bring these two movements together, the women's movement and the far left, and bring them all together and create kind of a multi-generational experience and situation for their music. - Seeking every lost and found Setting those free that once were bound -In retrospect, I think what moved me so much about seeing Holly and Ronnie together was quite simple-minded. I'd never seen two women performing who were different ages, different experiences, actually liked each other, weren't rivals.

Chuckling

On the contrary. - "Mm-hmm-hmm, I got a lifeline Come on up to this train of mine Come on up" -We sold out the Philharmonic Hall in New York City, two nights. We were selling at Carnegie. We were selling big halls in Boston and Chicago and San Francisco and Seattle. -For me, she was the first, 'cause I was not involved in the women's music movement until I met Holly. So, for me, she was the women's music movement. - Ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh

Music ends

Cheers and applause

Fired up Ain't gonna take it no more We're tied up Ain't gonna take it no more -Women's music was a mass cultural phenomenon that helped the women's movement grow. -It just started to pick up and gain speed to where we are today. - Focus on the kids with wealth Can't pick and choose who gets the healthcare Take another look at the great divide It looks dangerously similar to genocide And we're fired up Now everybody's talking about equality of marriage, and there are gay people on television, and Ellen DeGeneres has the best talk show ever. But it wasn't that way. We were the generation of women who laid every brick down before anybody could walk on it. -I think it's important for young people today... to know history and to understand what didn't used to be there. It wasn't so long ago. And there were people who sacrificed a lot to win those battles, and Holly was a part of that. -Some things are not undoable. And that's what I'm most proud of, in terms of feminism. There are things that women did in the '70s and '80s, a consciousness raised that cannot be unraised, the idea that when a man forces a woman to have sex, that's no longer considered sex. That's considered violence. That's feminism. The idea that you could walk into a statehouse or a Congress and expect to see women, that's feminism. -We were the ones that were not seen by the dominant culture and will not be remembered by the dominant culture. But the next generation of women who walked right through the door that had gotten opened will not only be remembered but have changed the face of culture in the world. -Dear friends, we have never written a letter like this before, but we feel strongly about the work of Holly Near and the importance of Redwood Cultural Work. This significant women's institution is in trouble, and we are writing our friends and family to ask you to help save Redwood Cultural Work by giving the most generous contribution you can. The possible closing of Redwood would leave both a personal and political void in all our lives. -Redwood Records went bankrupt after about 18 years. Redwood Records produced over 30-some recordings of out lesbians and people that had some sort of political point of view in their music, who never would've been recorded by the mainstream. It makes me feel very proud. The wealth of seeing social change and hearing new music recorded, bringing people together in coalition, that's really what was my payoff. -She essentially subsidized Redwood Records, first as a business and then as a nonprofit, and then, I guess, it eventually went away, but her labor, her contacts, her Rolodex were drained. And I think there was a lot of pain there. - Please Sit with me Through the night And tell me it's all right to fall apart -Holly and I decided to do a play about -- based on her autobiography. -I wrote a book. It was called "Fire in the Rain, Singer in the Storm." But you know tomorrow I'll be back on my feet It's not in me, my friends, to accept defeat -They responded wildly. It was just a real heart response to her work, to her story. -We started in San Jose, went to Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum, went back to San Francisco, and when it came to New York, we had great previews and standing ovations, and then we had a terrible review, and the producer shut the show down.

Cheers and applause

Leaves rustling

-So, do you remember asking me on our first date? -I do.

Both laugh

I remember getting half the sentence out, "Would you like to..." and you said yes. I said, "Don't you want to know what we're gonna do?" He said, "No, just yes." -I had heard her name name as one of the local luminaries. I was renting a room from a friend in town here, and Holly was staying with her sister, She was living in a tent in her sister's backyard. She was still struggling with Redwood Records, sorting out the social stuff. -I had no job prospects. I had no home. It's almost like the universe said, "Okay, here are two people who are in real need.

Laughing

Let's throw them at one another and see if they can help each other out." And I think we did.

Chuckles

"Change of Heart" plays

- Something changes in me When I witness someone's courage They may not know I'm watching And I may not let them know That something changes in me That will last me for a lifetime To fill me when I'm empty And rock me When I'm low -One of the stories she used to tell between songs was about how, when she first came out as a lesbian, one of her heterosexual friends let her know later -- in later years, that she had had to go to the bathroom and be sick. -"Dear Holly, just got your letter. It made me sick. I went into the bathroom and threw up. Love, Kate." -And then, further down the line, when she said she was dating men, one of her lesbian friends told her later that she had to go to the bathroom and be sick. So she was kind of, like, making this point, again, as she always did, of egalitarianism, of embracing us all.

"Simply Love" plays

- Why does my love make you shift restless in your chair And leave you in despair? It's simply love And when I couldn't keep it a secret anymore, then a wave of anger and mistrust and disappointment and, uh, any other possible things you can think of came towards me, but I was already very well-practiced for this, because when I came out as a lesbian, the left did that to me, as well. Perhaps there's something you know you should fear If my love makes me strong and makes you Disappear Well, I was, at the time, one of the most famous lesbians, I guess, in the world, and so it was understandable that there was sort of a little shock wave. It was still a time where you could name those famous lesbians on one hand. And when that's the case, it makes a lot of sense that people would be afraid to lose one.

Applause

-I mean, if you really love somebody, you want them to be happy. It doesn't matter who they're with. And I think Holly had been alone for a while, so I think people who really cared about her were just happy that she was in a happy relationship. -Timing is

Chuckling

everything, you know? And, um, and I think you handled it very gracefully. And, um... And it was... I look back at it and say, "Well done," you know? -Well, you gave me a tremendous education, too -- feminism and -- and such wonderful people you brought into my life. I mean, just an enriched social life that we had. -Mm-hmm. And I still don't know what I want, and I'm not sure you know how you feel, but... -You wanted us to be friends after we split up. -I've been with men. I've been with women. They've all been lovely relationships. So when people ask me about my sexuality -- am I gay or straight or bisexual? -- I say, "Well, to best of my knowledge, I'm monogamous." That's as good as it gets. I don't know about the rest. I feel as if there are people like me all over the world who have spent the last 40, 60 years of their life looking at race and gender and class. And that puts us, as elders, in an amazing position. I'm very interested in legacy circles, to not let this knowledge fall apart. -We helped organize a workshop with 12 women songwriters from Chile, and we came together. The idea was to generate a space to talk about gender-based violence. -40-some women have been killed by their husbands in this year alone -- what they call "femicide." And one of the most startling murals that I saw when I was out in the barrio was this big mural painted along a wall that said, "You don't have to like her. Leave her, but don't kill her." -How do you change a culture? So, one of the things is having some songs and music the people can sing and can have melodies that, like Holly's, that can be part of people's movement and lives. -

Singing in Spanish

-Holly taught to give us a few tools to be able to write a song. -A few women got together and wrote what we think will be an anthem. - Any day now Any day now I shall be released -My mom and Holly's mom were twin sisters. So a couple years ago, my brother came up with this idea of having a Christmas cousins' concert. It was kind of a cool idea, because there's a lot of musicians across these two families and then extended families. - I see my light come shining - I see my light - From the west down to the east - Shining, shining, shining -Holly is just -- you know, she's a phenomenal singer. So I always feel, like, completely honored to be making any kind of music with her at all. - I shall be released -I was so drawn to the things that I wanted -- the fame and the money and all the shiny things -- that to sacrifice even the idea of that for something that you believe in and something that you -- you know, a really, really deep, deep sense of responsibility to the world and right and wrong, is something that I really admire, because she made that choice, you know? She made that choice. - There is a hurting In my family And there is sorrow In my town -I was trying to say to myself, "Why is it that we don't have a word for what people like me believe?" I was trying to see if I could write about it in song, and it kind of came down to I'm open and I'm willing. - I am open And I am willing For to be hopeless Would seem so strange It dishonors Those who go before us So lift me up To the light of change - May the children May they see more clearly And may the elders Be more wise -I think she managed to say what is the truth, which is the peace movement and the women's movement is the same movement. We share a world view in which human beings are linked rather than ranked. I hope that we can continue to be in her presence while she performs. - And I am willing -For to be hopeless. - For to be hopeless -Would seem so strange. - Would seem so strange -She's what every American should be. She's true blue. She is what you see. She cares about people. She has tremendous empathy, great integrity. You know, she wanted to stick to her roots and speak from her heart through song. - Give me your mighty oak To hold my confusion And give me a desert To hold my fear Give me a sunset To hold my wonder And give me an ocean To hold my tears - I am open And I am willing For to be hopeless Would seem so strange It dishonors Those who go before us So lift me up To the light of Change

Cheers and applause

- Fired up, ain't gonna take it no more Tied up, ain't gonna take it no more You say cool down We say step down You're breaking my mother's heart Freedom land, fired up Ain't gonna take it no more Tied up, ain't gonna take it no more You say cool down We say step down You're breaking my mother's heart Breaking my mother, breaking my mother Breaking my mother's Heart

Cymbal crashes