They’ve been singing and playing together since high school, and that was over 40 years ago. And their most popular period, with hit records and big tours, was the late ’80s.
But there was no getting around the fact that in 2023, Georgia’s fast folk duo Indigo Girls had themselves a moment.
Their exultant late ’80s hit “Closer to Fine” was given a grand showcase, front and center in the biggest movie of the summer, the hit of the year — “Barbie.”
A musical romance based on their tunes, “Glitter & Doom,” delighted the film festival circuit, as did the Sundance documentary-biography, “It’s Only Life After All.”
Now it’s 2024 and those last two films are coming to theaters, a “moment” of added curtain calls and much love for two activist singer/songwriters with some of the most devoted fans in all of music.
“It’s Only Life” lets them tell their story, in detail, and reminds us of what they endured even after they’d “made it,” being dismissed or ignored by the partriarchal rock and pop hierarchy and opinion-makers.
Amy Ray, the animated brunette of the duo and their unofficial archivist and home video and audio collector, thumbs through press clippings in her house and finds “one of the only times we were ever in Rolling Stone,” with the “boys’ misogynist magazine” insisting on photographing Ray and Emily Saliers in white robes, preachers baptising the audience with their music.
Yes, the sexist and probably racist Jann Wenner, publisher of the mag and myopic overlord of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, had the same problem many journalists did — figuring out where to pigeon-hole a self-described “lesbian Christian folk” duo that played loud and sang “earnest” grad student lyrics.
They became, to some, pop culture punchlines for their sexuality — Ray and Saliers have been “out” since the early ’90s — and being “your basic bleeding heart liberals,” outspoken environmental and social justice activists.
But as they pass age 60, this “moment” invites us to remember all they’ve been, why their fanbase is so devoted and the work that they haven’t stopped doing — playing, leading sing-along concerts and often raising funds for a wide range of charities, even during the COVID lockdown.
Filmmaker Alexandria Bombach (“Frame by Frame,” “On Her Shoulders”) dives into Ray’s extensive archives — early ’80s high school cassette rehearsals, photo albums, performance footage from their early Atlanta days — and interviews the “Girls” extensively, between photo shoots and shows — as they talk about their lives, their long history and their focus these days.
Saliers and Ray poke fun at their images and ridicule some of their early work and “overly ardent” stage performances, and their “earnest” singing and songwriting subject matter.
Bombach even has them read a particularly laughable — in a sexist and patronizing way — review they once got from New York Times critic Jon Pareles.
They met when Connecticut-native Saliers moved to Georgia with her theology professor father and librarian mother. They recognized each other as “the other girl with the guitar” in their high school.
Saliers was voted “most talented” at that school. But in her teens she was “an English major nerd” composing tunes like “Play it Again Sam,” riffs on Tennyson’s “Lady of Shallot” lyrical ballad, she remembers, with a laugh.
Ray was younger, “idolized” Saliers, but was “jealous” she confesses — and utterly taken with the mature performer Saliers was becoming and the harmonies they created together when they sang duets.
Each started college at a different school, but both “came home” and transferred to Emory U., where Saliers’ dad taught. That coincidence was a moment of “grace,” to Emily. They renewed their partnership, became Indigo Girls, started packing an Atlanta bar, Little Five Points Community Pub, and got “discovered.”
Anybody who remembers the pop radio of the late ’80s will pick up on the phenomenon that drove their stardom. Often it’s performers who sound nothing like anything else on the radio who break through. Nobody sounded like Indigo Girls.
No, they were “never a couple.” Saliers calls them “opposites” in so many ways, “like a chemical compound that won’t compound.”But on stage, in song, their singing harmonies are sibling-close in pitch, and spine-tingling in many of their most loved tunes.
Each talks about their sexuality, Emily sneaking into the groundbreaking lesbian romance “Personal Best,” the fears of “coming out,” the degrees of acceptance from their families.
And they discuss, with charming frankness, their clashes, “on the spectrum in a lot of ways” battles with substance abuse and discriminatory backlash, the latter being an issue they deal with to this very day.
They never did get to play for the kids at Irmo High School in South Carolina.
Bombach lets each singer’s personality find its natural footing in their group dynamic in the film — assertive, articulate and sometimes temperamental Ray, who does most of the talking, matched with smart, sensitive and expressive Saliers.
We glimpse lots of TV coverage of the band, that first appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman,” the many interviews they sat for over the decades.
And we hear from fans — the photographer who mentions how they “changed my life in college” because he “fell in love to the Indigo Girls,” the legions of Indigo enthusiasts who, almost to a one, insist “The Indigo Girls saved my life!”
Emily Saliers, for one, gets it. “I know what it’s like to have music save you at a particular time.”
One thing the film lacks, perhaps with some reason, is any voice of outside authority singing their praises and noting what makes them “special.” Yes, pop music criticism is still male-dominated and both Indigo Girls are “old” and “not cool,” as they’ll tell you. But having played with folk legend Joan Baez, with Michael Stipe and R.E.M. (fellow Georgians) hiring them as their opening act, and having the likes of Woody Harrelson introduce their shows back in the day, surely somebody outside the two singer/songwriters could add some perspective.
As Amy says early in the film, “I hope it’s about something besides US.“
But that “something” turns out to be their activism, their battles against homophobia and injustice, their “community building” work that has energized activist fans.
And that’s enough. Because as the film’s title reminds us, it doesn’t have to be wholly serious, “It’s Only Life After all.” Even the shortcomings in this documentary suggest it’s just another part of a long-overdue “moment” for two most-deserving musicans, still not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but “Closer to Fine” than ever.
Rating: unrated, PG-ish
Cast: Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, with Winona LaDuke, others
Credits: Directed by Alexandria Bombach. An Oscilloscope Laboratories release.
Running time: 2:03
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