march L W
J— i — >|37
MUSIC
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n the early to mid-70s, lesbians promi
nently placed their Holly Near and
Chris Williamson albums in the living
rcxnn as an unspoken message to other
women. A well-known code was to ask
another woman you suspected (or hoped)
to he a lesbian, “Do you know Holly V *
Williamson and Near pioneered
“women’s music,” and the very notion
that the term might be outdated is due to
their phenomenal success. The folk heroes
have spent more than 25 years battering
down industry walls that obstruct open
lesbians from controlling, publishing and
playing their own music.
O n March 16, Williamson and Near
will play Aladdin Theater-as a benefit
for the Hambleton Project, a direct ser
vices network for lesbians with cancer
and other life-threatening diseases. O n
March 15, Near will speak at Portland
Community College as part of W om ens
History M onth festivities. Ju st Out
spoke with the busy icons between
performance dates throughout the
United States.
Kim Stephenson: During my first gay
march in 1975, I witnessed the savage
beating of a gay man by a policeman
with a billy club. I know it sounds obvi
ous, but the environment today is so dif
ferent. How was it that the both of you were
so brave back then?
Chris Williamson: 1 didn’t know I was
brave. If someone is under the thumb of some
one oppressive, you step up. You just do. It was
just the right thing to do. 1 didn’t think about
my own safety. I thought about my voice— that
1 could put that to work.
Feminists at the time came right up to me,
pointed their finger and said: “We want you.
We need you. We need your music." Previous
to that, people said, “That’s nice music, but we
don’t know wbat it is.” My music found a
home in the feminist movement, and I found a
home there.
Holly Near: 1 think there was a growing
movement happening that created a cushion.
The culture always serves the movement, and
the movement always serves the culture. We
see that in the civil rights movement. The
music empowers the people doing the social
change work, and the music is informed by
[that] work.
I think it was much braver for someone to
walk into a small-town grocery store with an
“I’m gay!" button on or come out in a work
place than it was for us, because they were
alone. A kind of support network surrounded
us, and it was an unstoppable energy.
for a checkup, 1 think, “What if?"
In fear lie our victories. When you
confront fear you will gain strength.
Now we have the cushion and arms of
community. Think of the women who
didn’t have that— the women before us.
1 have a friend who went through
radical surgery and got so depressed, and
it’s been a struggle for two years to come
back with a good body image, and the
community was there. It think it’s a solo
journey, like heartbreak is. You have to
go through the eye of the needle alone.
It’s a kind of death and rebirth, I think.
H N : There is a lot of cancer in my
family: my aunt, my uncle, my father.
It’s been in our blood.
I have a friend now who lives out
in the woods, and when she comes in
for chemo, she has a key to the house
and she stays here. There are many
ways that our lives are riddled with
disease and dysfunction, and the only
way we can make that work for our
selves is to have community. I think it
is outrageous [President] Bush and
other politicians present themselves
like they are taking care of us. W e are
taking care of us. J H
Chris Williamson and Holly Near
bring women’s music to Portland
We
K S:
fought really
In your 3 0
by _____
K im S t ep h e n s o n
hard to become
years as part of
accessible and visible as les
the lesbian culture, how
bians. In the ’60s you didn’t hear the word “les
have you seen it change, and how do you see
bian” much. It was a word to be said behind a
your contributions?
hand. We became some of the visible signs of
H N : We wanted to lay the groundwork for
lesbian culture.
women to be able to sing the songs they want
ed to sing— songs about their real lives— rather
If you talk about mainstream— and I think
than having to shave off the truth to get their
of it metaphorically as a big mother river—
there are lots of little feeder streams. I am one,
music played. And that happened to such a
as is Holly, but unless the water is a different
degree that the next generation of women
color, you don’t know we are in there.
went sailing by us into the music industry and
found themselves on the cover of Time maga
K S: The concert in
zine and doing big tours, etc. We didn’t realize
Portland is a benefit
we would be that successful....
for the Hambleton
The other side of it is there is still not nxim
Project. Has either
for radical politics in the music industry, and
one of you or any
we continue to carry that position. It dix;sn’t
one you’re close to
matter if you are a lesbian or anti-imperialist;
been touched by
the chances are the mainstream corporate
breast cancer?
music industry will not subsidize or promote
CW : Yes. I have
you. It’s important to remember the cutting
not been touched per
edge never makes it to the middle.
sonally, thankfully, but
CW : Sometimes you become part of the
it could happen.
culture, and you don’t know it. “Song of the
Every time I
Soul,” for example, is huge in churches all over
go get a mam
the world, and it doesn’t matter that a lesbian
mogram or go
wrote it.
C hris W illiamson and H olly N ear
play 8 p.m . March 16 at Aladdin Theatre,
3017 SE Milwaukee Ave. Tickets— $20 or $50 for
reserved seating and postshow reception with the
artists— are available from the box office, It’s My
Pleasure or Ticketmaster.
N ear will speak about music's role in sociopolitical
events at 1:30 p.m. March 15 in Room 122 at
Terrell Hall on Portland Commumty College's
C ascade Cam pus, 705 N . Killingsworth St. For
more information call 503-978-5248.
K im S tephenson is a Portland free-lance writer.
T he celebrated
pair are old
friends
onstage
and off
eJlie S&Ue
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