Why We Write with Kim Ruehl, Eps. 32: Amy Ray

Amy Ray has been performing as a songwriter for more than 30 years. As one-half of the Indigo Girls, she has broken boundaries and blazed trails for a generation of LGBTQ+ artists. In addition, across ten albums under her own name, she has explored her punk, country, and songwriter underpinnings with a rotating cast of collaborators she says she’s learned and grown with every time. Her current band has been with her for almost a decade, and her new album, If It All Goes South, has some of the most stirring songwriting of her career.

On this new episode of the Why We Write podcast, Ray talks about the way her relationship with songwriting has evolved since she first sat down to write a song at age 11. She talks about the way that her “solo” career has been steered by the people she’s wanted to collaborate with. She digs into religion, Native and activist wisdom, being a late bloomer, her admiration for prose writers, and how she has come to understand the influence her work has had on other artists.

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