Did You Know...

Since they began playing together in high school, the Atlanta-based duo has worked at making their music a part of a larger theme, celebrating the environment and exhorting their fans to cherish the Earth. The grass-roots nature of their music, combined with their fans' willingness to follow them around and buy tickets to several shows per tour, puts Indigo Girls in the same niche as the Grateful Dead and Phish. Amy and Emily's songs, however, show the greatest dedication to their multiple causes of any national recording act.

What makes this artistic freedom possible is the hands-on approach that Amy and Emily take to the recording industry. They are in charge of the artwork for their albums, and they have fostered enough room to work that they are, essentially, independents who happen to be signed to a major label, Epic Records.

The result of their unique relationship with the label has been a succession of highly praised, hot-selling CDs, beginning with their self-titled Epic debut, which won the 1989 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording. They followed up this success quickly, releasing Strange Fire at the end of 1989, and Nomads Indians Saints in September of 1990.