Indigo Girls ‘Look Long’
Indigo Girls ‘Look Long’
Most musicians found their activities curtailed during the pandemic. For the Indigo Girls, the past three-plus years were a particularly busy season.
The duo of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray released a livestream project, Look Long: Together, they’re the subject of a new documentary film It’s Only Life After All and they had their music reinvented for the movie Glitter & Doom. Saliers has been writing music for two stage musicals and Ray has released a new solo album, If It All Goes South. The Indigo Girls perform April 20 at the Bradley Symphony Center and It’s Only Life After All screens May 1 at the Oriental Theatre.
That’s quite a busy schedule, even for an act like the Indigo Girls, who have been consistently active since releasing their first album, Strange Fire, in 1987. Most bands that debuted around that time—if they’re still together—now only sporadically make albums (if at all) and are considered heritage acts. That’s not the Indigo Girls. “We still feel like we are a working band. We tour and we make albums and we work, and that feels good,” Saliers said.
This latest spate of activity came on the heels of the release of the 16th Indigo Girls’ studio album, Look Long, which arrived in May 2020. A stirring effort, Look Long not only features the highly melodic folk-pop (on songs like “When We Were Writers,” “Look Long” and “Sorrow And Joy”) that has always been an Indigo Girls signature, but rhythmically creative songs that touch on hip-hop (“S**t Kickin’”), Caribbean music (“Howl At The Moon”) and catchy upbeat rockers (“Change My Heart” and “K.C. Girl”).
By the time Look Long was released, the pandemic had scuttled plans for a full-band tour to support the album. But post-pandemic, Saliers and Ray returned to the road, first touring in 2022 with long-time violinist Lyris Hung and last year with a full band. Saliers said in either format she and Ray have been including a few songs from the latest album along with a generous selection of back catalog material.
“Some people like the band and some people like us acoustic or just stripped down,” Saliers said. “We just haven’t had the opportunity to tour with the band because of COVID and we really miss that. So it was good to put out the streaming concert and it will be great to get back with the band.”
That streaming concert, Look Long: Together, debuted in May 2022 on the VEEPS platform and is unique concert special that features performances of a career-spanning set of songs (some of which feature appearances from guests Becky Warren, Tomi Martin, Trina Meade and Lucy Wainwright Roche) combined with commentary segments about the songs from Saliers and Ray. Because of the pandemic, Saliers and Ray could not play in person with their band, and instead had to weave together performances from several separate film shoots to create full-band live versions of songs.
After the footage was complete, extensive editing was needed to create the finished product. “Amy and I spent hours and hours watching it come together, making suggestions, ‘Let’s do a split screen here,’ ‘The lighting needs to be fixed (here),’ This camera angle is no good, let’s use this shot,’ all these meticulous choices you have to make,” Saliers said. “In the end, we worked so hard on it, we were actually a little discouraged at the eleventh hour. And then watched it and were really pleased with it.”
Extending Her Range
The year and a half of work that went into the livestream took up some of the pandemic-forced downtime. Saliers also spent considerable time working on two musicals that have expanded her range as a songwriter.
One thing Saliers had not done yet at the time of this interview was write for another Indigo Girls album. Considering that Look Long was completed before the pandemic, there should be plenty of inspiration for lyrics from Saliers and Ray, both of whom have long been involved in a wide variety of social causes, including LBGTQ issues, Native American rights, immigration reform and climate change.
Saliers and Ray might also have to consider how to respond lyrically to what may be a sea change of conservative initiatives, the biggest of which so far is the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion. Like many pro-choice advocates, Saliers didn’t think Roe v. Wade would be overturned and is appalled at its demise. Legal access to abortion had been established law for decades with multiple subsequent Supreme Court rulings that affirmed the Roe decision. Plus, polls have consistently shown a solid majority of Americans didn’t want Roe overturned.
“But the truth is there has been a concerted effort (to overturn Roe),” Saliers said, noting that conservative politicians and activists and certain parts of the evangelical community are among those who have mounted a strategic plan to gain the power in various levels of government and the courts needed to target Roe and other progressive issues. “It’s been going on a long time. So while the thought before was shocking, it’s easy to understand how we’ve come to this place.”
