Page 17 - BiTS_08_AUGUST_2024

A RETURN TO THE INTERVIEW WITH

GAYE ADEGBALOLA

by

Lawrence Lebo

Musician Gaye Adegbalola is an American treasure and
important figure in the American historical landscape. Born
Gaye Todd in 1944, in Fredericksburg, Virginia to a school
board member and jazz musician father and a civil rights
m o v e m e n t
organizer mother, Gaye
came up during a monumental
time and place in African American history.
She graduated in 1961 from a segregated
high school as her class valedictorian
where she participated in numerous sit-in
protests and picket lines as a member of
the civil rights movement. During the mid
60’s to 1970 she was involved in the Black
Power Movement in New York where she
organized the Harlem Committee on Self-
Defense.

In 1977 Gaye began studying the guitar. It
would be her second instrument as she had
mastered the flute while in the high school
band. She and her guitar teacher, the late Ann Rabson (Ann Rabson passed in 2013) would
go on to form the group Saffire –The Uppity Blues Women, notable for such tunes as ‘They Call
Me Miss Thang’, and ‘Middle Age Boogie’. Saffire disbanded in 2009 and Gaye continued on as
a solo performer. We are fortunate to have these works in which she shares the depths and soul
of her experiences.

Gaye Adegbalola’s anthology “Satisfied” on the VizzTone label includes selections from nine of
her solo projects. There are 20 tracks, 15 of which are originals. The work pays homage to the
classic blues women who pioneered the genre. In that “wild women” spirit Gaye channels
her feminist and her African American experience. On track 15, the second-line, ‘Nothing’s
Changed’ Gaye sings, “Washed and ironed all the white folks clothes, Nursed their babies, now
she works in nursing homes, Had to be twice as good to get half a chance, Still fired first and
hired last, They talk about a glass ceiling, but don't you know, She's down on her knees on a
concrete floor”. This album is a wonderful collection of the 79-year-old Adegbalola’s body
of work.

I asked Gaye Adegbalola about her life and her work. This is what she told me ..…

LL: Congratulations are in order on your recent marriage! I’d love to hear all about the

wedding please.