Saffire-The Uppity Blues Women

Band Bios

Gaye Adegbalola (Ah-deg-bah-lo-la)
(guitar, harmonica and vocals)
was raised in a tight-knit Virginia family. She played flute while in high school and was chosen for the All-State band three years straight. She became a biochemical researcher, a bacteriologist and later an eighth-grade science teacher (for which she was honored as "Virginia Teacher of the Year" in 1982). After hours, Gaye and her father ran a theatre-arts group, mixing music, politics and theatre. Gaye began taking guitar lessons from Ann Rabson in 1977 and devoted more of her time to solo performing. In 1984, Gaye and Ann formed a blues duo, and Saffire--The Uppity Blues Women began to take form. In 1990 Gaye received a W.C. Handy Award for "Song Of The Year," for her composition The Middle Age Boogie Blues. She is the mother of industrial/gothic musician Juno Lumumba.

You can see Gaye's own web site at: www.adegbalola.com

Ann Rabson
(piano, guitar, kazoo and vocals)
was born in New York but grew up in Ohio. As a child she fell in love with the blues. She began studying guitar when she was 17; at the age of 18 she began playing professionally, and has continued playing the blues throughout her adult life. In 1971 she moved herself and her daughter to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where she performed professionally full-time. A few years later she met Gaye Adegbalola and began giving Gaye guitar lessons. In 1978 she took a job as a computer analyst by day while continuing to perform at night. In the early 1980s Ann and Gaye began to play gigs together. The day her daughter graduated from college was the day Ann quit her day job and returned to playing music full-time.

Check out Ann's own web site at: www.annrabson.com

Andra Faye
(fiddle, mandolin, acoustic bass, guitar and vocals)
hails from Indianapolis, where she pursued a career as a registered nurse. She's been playing music since the sixth grade, performing in a variety of eclectic local bands on guitar, violin and mandolin. She was influenced early on by Howard Armstrong and fellow Hoosier Yank Rachel. When Ann and Gaye called on Andra to sit in on the BROADCASTING sessions, she was shocked. "I was very nervous," Andra recalls. "I kept suggesting other musicians." Not only did she assist in the recording sessions, she joined the band as a full member in 1992 and in a short amount of time she became a remarkably proficient bass player.