Gaye Adegbalola
Encyclopedia
Gaye Adegbalola is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singer and guitarist, teacher, lecturer, activist, and photographer.

Biography

Gaye's father, Clarence R. Todd, was the first Black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 school board member in Fredericksburg and was also a jazz musician. He later founded a performing arts group for black youth called "Souls of Shade", today known as Harambee 360. Her mother, Gladys P. Todd, was one of the first organizers of the local civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

 in Fredericksburg, and also brought old jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 records home from her job at the Youth Canteen to give to the young Gaye. Both parents were major influences on her music and social identity.

Gaye's surname, Adegbalola, was given to her by a Yoruba priest she met in 1968. Meaning "I am reclaiming my royalty," Adegbalola uses the name to signify her pride
Black pride
Black pride is a slogan indicating pride in being black. Related movements include black nationalism and Afrocentrism.The slogan has been used in the United States by African Americans to celebrate heritage and personal pride. The black pride movement is closely linked with the developments of the...

 in her black heritage.

Gaye Todd graduated from high school as valedictorian
Valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title conferred upon the student who delivers the closing or farewell statement at a graduation ceremony. Usually, the valedictorian is the highest ranked student among those graduating from an educational institution...

 in 1961, having already participated in numerous sit-in protests and picket lines as a member of the civil rights movement. She later attended Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

, graduating with a B.A. in Biology. Gaye's occupations after college included those of a technical writer
Technical writer
A technical writer is a professional writer who designs, creates, and maintains technical documentation...

 for TRW Systems
TRW
TRW Inc. was an American corporation involved in a variety of businesses, mainly aerospace, automotive, and credit reporting. It was a pioneer in multiple fields including electronic components, integrated circuits, computers, software and systems engineering. TRW built many spacecraft,...

, a biochemical researcher at Rockefeller University
Rockefeller University
The Rockefeller University is a private university offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It has a strong concentration in the biological sciences. It is also known for producing numerous Nobel laureates...

, and a bacteriologist at Harlem Hospital, where she was also the local union representative. These were all in sharp contrast to her first job as a teenager, working in a laundry for forty-five cents an hour.

From the years 1966 to 1970 she was involved in the Black Power Movement in New York and organized the Harlem Committee on Self-Defense. During this same period she met and married her husband. Her son, Juno Lumumba Kahlil was born in 1969, and would later make his own mark in the goth/industrial music
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...

 world.

In 1970, after divorcing her husband, Gaye Adegbalola returned to Fredericksburg, where she taught science, gifted and talented, and creative thinking courses in the local schools. She helped her father direct the Harambee Theatre, sometimes acting in performances herself, until her father's death in 1977. Having played the flute in her high school band, she began studying guitar in 1977. In 1978 she received her Master of Education in Educational Media from Virginia State University
Virginia State University
Virginia State University is a historically black and land-grant university located north of the Appomattox River in Chesterfield, in the Richmond area. Founded on , Virginia State was the United States's first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for black Americans...

, and in 1982 was honored as Virginia's Teacher of the Year. She spent much of the rest of the eighties conducting teachers' workshops on motivational and teaching techniques.

Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women was first formed as a duo in 1984 by Ms. Adegbalola and her guitar teacher, Ann Rabson, with third member Andra Faye joining later to form a trio. Saffire recorded their first album on their own label in 1987, Middle Age Blues, with songs including "They Call Me Miss Thang," and "Middle Age Blues Boogie." The following year Gaye Adegbalola became a full-time blues performer and in 1990 the band recorded its first album for Alligator Records
Alligator Records
Alligator Records is a Chicago-based independent blues record label founded by Bruce Iglauer in 1971.Iglauer started the label with his own savings to record and produce his favorite band Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, whom his employer, Bob Koester of Delmark Records, declined to record...

, with Gaye winning the "Song of the Year" W.C. Handy Award for "Middle Age Blues Boogie." In 1991, she met her life partner, Suzanne Moe.

During the 1990s Gaye Adegbalola held workshops on various aspects of blues music and worked as a blues music reporter for the World Cafe program on National Public Radio. She also won a battle against cancer. In 1998 she co-founded the Steering Committee of the Blues Music Association. Her first solo album, Bitter Sweet Blues, was recorded in 1999. In addition to her own original compositions ("You Don't Have to Take It (Like I Did)"; "Big Ovaries, Baby"; and "Nothing's Changed") the album featured covers of songs by Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...

, Smokey Robinson
Smokey Robinson
William "Smokey" Robinson, Jr. is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and former record executive. Robinson is one of the primary figures associated with Motown, second only to the company's founder, Berry Gordy...

, Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....

, and Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...

. In 2000, in a short piece on her work and career in The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...

, Adegbalola came out as a lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

.

Adegbalola's song "Middle Aged Blues Boogie" was named Best Song of the Year at the 1990 W. C. Handy Awards (now the Blues Music Awards). Adegbalola was nominated for two Outmusic awards in 2005. Adegbalola's song "Big Ovaries, Baby" is featured in episode 23 of The War On Democracy! podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...

. Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women
Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women
Saffire - The Uppity Blues Women was a three-woman blues musical ensemble in the Washington, D.C. area. It was founded in 1987 by Ann Rabson, Gaye Adegbalola and Earlene Lewis. Lewis separated from the band in 1992 and was replaced by Andra Faye...

 disbanded amicably in 2009, but Adegbalola continues to pursue solo projects.

External links

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