Bev Grant and the Dissident Daughters will present radical social commentary in 3-part soprano and alto harmony at the Echo Lake Concert Series in the Town Hall, 9 Montague Rd., Leverett, MA, on Saturday, June 12.  The show starts at 7:30 pm. Admission: $10 - $12.  For info: 413-548-9394.

Bios

Bev Grant is a veteran social activist, feminist, labor singer/songwriter, "cultural worker" from Park Slope Brooklyn, where she has lived for over 30 years. She is the co-creator of a women's labor history multi-media presentation entitled "We Were There!" and has recorded five albums, including a companion cd and songbook for the show, called "We Were There!", a solo cd entitled "IN TUNE", a 7-song ep with her current group, Bev Grant & the Dissident Daughters, called “CHEEKY WOMAN”, and two albums with her former band, "Human Condition".
 

Bev is an award winning songwriter and has used her music as an organizing tool in both community and union organizing, often writing songs for specific issues or campaigns and facilitating the creation and use of music by others. Examples are “Take A Walk In My shoes” written for a domestic violence survivor’s advocacy group called Voices of Women Organizing Project (VOW) and "No Sweat!", performed by Bev and co-writer, Pat Humphries, at the University Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) conference in the summer of '99. Bev's work is described in Sing Out! Magazine as "unhesitatingly fervent, unflinchingly personal and reflecting the diversity of a real person's musings."

In 2006, Bev won the Honorary BAXten Arts and Artists in Progress Award. The BAXten award honors "individuals in the arts who have revealed and transformed our creative world by instigating enduring change deepening the definition of their field and paving the way for others."

Bev's Dissident Daughters offers 3-part soprano and alto harmonies bellowing out like the Andrew Sisters gone Red! This ensemble, swings, rocks, jumps, soothes and kicks ass.  The Dissident Daughters are Angela Lockhart and Carolynn Murphy.

Angela Lockhart is a poet, singer, playwright and Artistic Founding Director of Living Lessons Inc, a not for profit educational theatre company that toured the metropolitan New York-New Jersey area during the 1990s. Angela recently became the Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Women's Chorus where she continues to use her talents to raise social and political consciousness through spoken word, song and theatre. Angela has self published her poetry in a chapbook entitled, "What Is It You think You See" and was recently published in a women's political poetry anthology entitled "From the Web." Currently, Angela sings and tours with the legendary Bev Grant and "The Dissident Daughters."

Carolynn Murphy is a singer, dancer, guitar player and percussionist. Born and raised in Queens, NY, Carolynn grew up watching her mother tap dance and sing popular American songs around the kitchen while getting dinner ready. Her father played jazz piano, and Carolynn was exposed early on to the wild syncopated sounds of Thelonious  Monk. Carolynn studied music and dance at an early age and loved to perform for family, friends and at school productions.
 
While studying at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, Carolynn was the guitar player and song collaborator for the Barefoot Blues Band, a women’s folk trio, a local favorite. With this group she combined her training in environmental education with cultural activism, performing at environmental centers, Earth Day rallies, and other local benefits.

After graduation from college, Carolynn moved back to NYC and began a passionate immersion in American vernacular dance. She studied rhythm tap dance and apprenticed and performed with Manhattan Tap. She was also a solo performer busking on the streets of New York City. She was schooled in the art of swing dance, spending Monday nights at Well’s in Harlem where she danced with the Savoy era greats– Buster Brown, Leroy Griffen, and Frankie Manning. She later took up percussion studies at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and was the drummer for the jazz quartet The Leisure Kings.

Currently, Carolynn is one of the lead singers and percussionists in a cover dance band called The Maladjustments.  She also sings and plays percussion with Bev Grant & the Dissident Daughters. Carolynn appreciates the sense of unity she shares with Angela and Bev.  The individual strength she feels from contributing her creativity to the group and the opportunity to share ideas on all levels helps give voice to our own struggles and ideals.