Toshi Reagon | |
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 Reagon at the Holland Festival, 2018 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | January 27, 1964 Atlanta, Georgia |
| Origin | Washington, D.C. |
| Genres | Folk, blues, gospel, rock, funk, women's music |
| Instrument | Guitar |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Website | http://www.toshireagon.com |
Toshi Reagon (born January 27, 1964) is an American musician of folk, blues, gospel, rock and funk, [1] [2] as well as a composer, curator, and producer.
Born January 27, 1964 in Atlanta, Georgia, [3] Reagon grew up in Washington, D.C. [4] She was raised by musician parents active in the civil rights movement. [1] [5] [6] Her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon, founded the all-woman a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973, which had a profound influence on her. [7] Her father, Cordell Hull Reagon, was a leader of the civil rights movement in Albany (Georgia) and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). [8] Her parents were also part of the civil rights musical group The Freedom Singers. [2] [9]
Reagon lists 1970's rock and roll bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kiss, as well as classic Blues musicians such as Big Mama Thornton, Howlin' Wolf, and Big Bill Broonzy as additional musical influences. [10]
Reagon began performing at age 17. [1] In 1990, Lenny Kravitz invited her to open for him on his first world tour. [1] She has since shared the stage with performers including Ani DiFranco, Elvis Costello [1] and Meshell Ndegeocello. [11]
Reagon's first album, Justice, was released in 1990 through Flying Fish Records. [10] Since then, she has released many solo albums, including her most recent SpiritLand in December 2018. [10]
Her band, BIGLovely, has been performing since September 1996. [1] [12] The name BIGLovely comes from a term Reagon's girlfriend used to address her in a letter. [1] The band includes Judith Casselberry on acoustic guitar and vocals, Robert "Chicken" Burke on drums, Fred Cass, Jr. on bass, Adam Widoff on electric guitar, and Catherine Russell on mandolin and vocals. The line-up also includes Jen Leigh, Ann Klein, Debbie Robinson, Allison Miller, Kismet Lyles and Stephanie McKay as substitutes. [12]
Reagon's Parable of the Sower rock-opera, based on the novel by Octavia Butler, had its world premiere at NYU Abu Dhabi Arts Center in fall 2017. Shortly after, the US premiere was performed at Carolina Performing Arts at UNC-Chapel Hill, where Reagon was also an artist in residence. On April 26, 2019, it was performed at the O'Shaughnessy Auditorium in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The performance, created and written by Toshi Reagon and Bernice Reagon, and directed by Eric Ting, included over 20 singers, actors, and musicians. [13] Reagon has been a big fan of Octavia Butler's works and her themes of Afrofuturism and the eerily similar political climates led Reagon to create the opera. [14] In relation to the differences between the novel and the opera, Reagon notes:
We had to make the opera different because the book is enormous. We wanted to focus on the idea of two communities: one that you are born into and that holds you. The second is an unknown community that you find and who finds you. We thought it should start with this known intimate community and then tell the story by bringing the entire theater and audience into that community. That is why the lights are up at the start of the performance. We wanted audiences to experience a comfortable space and then have the experience of watching things get uncomfortable. We decided to show how fragile we become when we hold on to something when it's time to change. [14]
Reagon's "congregational opera" was first performed in 2015 at both the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival and at The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) in 2017. [7]
She also appeared on the TV show The L Word [1] in the last episode of the fourth season, where she sings a song on the beach at Tasha's party.
Reagon is the goddaughter of folk singer Pete Seeger and is named after his wife, Toshi Seeger. [1]
Reagon, a lesbian, [2] lives in Brooklyn, New York with her partner and their adopted daughter. [1] [18] [19]
Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
Sweet Honey in the Rock are an all-woman, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are a three-time Grammy Award–nominated troupe who express their history as black women through song, dance, and sign language. Originally a four-person ensemble, the group has expanded to five-part harmonies, with a sixth member acting as a sign-language interpreter. Although the members have changed over five decades, the group continues to sing and perform worldwide.
Bernice Johnson Reagon was an American song leader, composer, professor of American history, curator at the Smithsonian, and social activist. In the early 1960s, she was a founding member of the Freedom Singers, organized by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the Albany Movement for civil rights in Georgia. In 1973, she founded the all-black female a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock, based in Washington, D.C. Reagon, along with other members of the SNCC Freedom Singers, realized the power of collective singing to unify the disparate groups who began to work together in the 1964 Freedom Summer protests in the South.
"After a song", Reagon recalled, "the differences between us were not so great. Somehow, making a song required an expression of that which was common to us all.... This music was like an instrument, like holding a tool in your hand."
Carol Lynn Maillard is an American actress, singer, and composer. She is one of the founding members of the Grammy Award-winning a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Carl Hancock Rux is an American poet, playwright, singer-songwriter, novelist, essayist, as well as multidisciplinary performing and installation artist. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta, a novel, Asphalt and the play Talk, Rux has been published as a contributing writer in numerous journals, catalogs, anthologies, and magazines including Interview magazine, Essence magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Iké Udé's aRude Magazine, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and American Theatre (magazine), among others. Rux's writings and monographs on visual art include essays on the work of conceptual artist Glenn Ligon ; the introduction for Nick Cave’s Until; and the Guggenheim Museum’s Carrie Mae Weems retrospective.
Parable of the Sower is a 1993 speculative fiction novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler. It is set in a post-apocalyptic Earth heavily affected by climate change and social inequality. The novel follows Lauren Olamina, a young woman who can feel the pain of others and becomes displaced from her home. Several characters from various walks of life join her on her journey north and learn of a religion she has envisioned and titled Earthseed. The main tenets of Earthseed are that "God is Change" and believers can "shape God" through conscious effort to influence the changes around them. Earthseed also teaches that it is humanity's destiny to inhabit other planets and spread the "seeds" of the Earth.
Reagon is a surname. People with that name include:
Stephanie McKay is an American soul singer-songwriter from the Bronx in New York whose music includes elements of soul, funk, rock, and hip hop. McKay's career has spanned over 20 years, during which she has collaborated with artists such as Anthony Hamilton, DJ Spinna, Toshi Reagon and Big Lovely, Roy Hargrove, Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Katalyst, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Tricky, Carl Hancock Rux, Amp Fiddler and numerous others. She has released two solo albums, McKay (2003) and Tell It Like It Is (2008), the self-titled EP Stephanie McKay (2006), and has toured internationally as a solo artist. She formerly played guitar in Kelis' band and recorded with the Brooklyn Funk Essentials.
The Freedom Singers originated as a quartet formed in 1962 at Albany State College in Albany, Georgia. After folk singer Pete Seeger witnessed the power of their congregational-style of singing, which fused black Baptist a cappella church singing with popular music at the time, as well as protest songs and chants. Churches were considered to be safe spaces, acting as a shelter from the racism of the outside world. As a result, churches paved the way for the creation of the freedom song. After witnessing the influence of freedom songs, Seeger suggested The Freedom Singers as a touring group to the SNCC executive secretary James Forman as a way to fuel future campaigns. Intrinsically connected, their performances drew aid and support to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the emerging civil rights movement. As a result, communal song became essential to empowering and educating audiences about civil rights issues and a powerful social weapon of influence in the fight against Jim Crow segregation. Their most notable song “We Shall Not Be Moved” translated from the original Freedom Singers to the second generation of Freedom Singers, and finally to the Freedom Voices, made up of field secretaries from SNCC. "We Shall Not Be Moved" is considered by many to be the "face" of the Civil Rights movement. Rutha Mae Harris, a former freedom singer, speculated that without the music force of broad communal singing, the civil rights movement may not have resonated beyond the struggles of the Jim Crow South. Since the Freedom Singers were so successful, a second group was created called the Freedom Voices.
Morley Kamen, known professionally as Morley, is an American singer-songwriter, recording artist, music producer, and curator. Her music incorporates a wide variety of world influences, including folk, jazz, soul, and pop. Morley uses music as a tool for dialogue facilitation and trauma release when working with survivors of human trafficking and war.
Every Mother Counts is a charity compilation album and soundtrack for Christy Turlington's 2010 documentary film No Woman, No Cry by various artists, released by Starbucks' record label Hear Music on April 12, 2011. Featuring fifteen tracks about motherhood, some of which are original and previously unreleased, the compilation was sold exclusively at Starbucks locations and benefited the CARE's maternal health initiatives and the Every Mother Counts foundation. The album debuted at number 83 on the Billboard 200.
Monroe Comprehensive High School (MCHS) is a four-year secondary school located in Albany, Georgia, United States. It is one of three high schools in the Dougherty County School System, which also includes Dougherty Comprehensive High School and Westover Comprehensive High School.
Charles "Chuck" Neblett is a civil rights activist best known for helping to found and being a member of The Freedom Singers.
"Go with Me to That Land" or "Come and Go with Me (to That Land)" is a traditional gospel blues song recorded on April 20, 1930 by Blind Willie Johnson with backing vocals by Willis B. Harris, who may have been his first wife. It was released as a single on Columbia 14597-D, backed with "Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right".
Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, charged with expanding Lincoln Center's cultural reach within New York City. Thake launched the organization’s Summer for the City Festival in 2022, which brings live programming across Lincoln Center’s campus to 10 stages. Under her leadership, Lincoln Center has significantly increased the organization's free and Choose-What-You-Pay ticketing for all their programming. Thake's influence has led to regular collaborations with Lincoln Center’s resident organizations, including the first ever cross-campus celebration of a single artist, Terence Blanchard.
Adrienne Maree Brown, often styled adrienne maree brown, is a writer, activist and facilitator. From 2006 to 2010, she was executive director of the Ruckus Society. She also co-founded and directed the United States League of Young Voters.
Radical Harmonies is a 2002 American independent documentary film directed and executive produced by Dee Mosbacher that presents a history of women's music, which has been defined as music by women, for women, and about women. The film was screened primarily at LGBTQ film festivals in 2003 and 2004.
Yasmeen Williams is an American gospel singer and former member of the African American a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.
Helga Davis is a New York-based multidisciplinary artist who works as an actress, singer, writer and composer, as well as a radio and podcast host.
Sacred Ground is an album by the American a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock, released in 1995. The group supported the album with a North American tour.
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