Folk duo Emma’s Revolution to perform at Voices Cafe
When Pat Humphries and Sandy O (Opatow) began performing as a folk duo in the early 2000s, they struggled with what to call themselves.
“We went round and round about whether to choose a name or go with both of our names,” explained Pat Humphries, during a recent interview. “My name is already so long, and nobody could pronounce Sandy’s last name. So, we kept being introduced as Sandy and Pat wherever we were. And we thought that it really didn’t say anything about who we are and what we do. Without being purposeful, the name ended up trivializing the music a little bit. So we wanted to think of something that would identify us as women, but also identify us as speaking to issues of justice and human rights right off the bat.”
For that, they chose a firebrand of the feminist revolution and radicalism, Emma Goldman (1869-1940), and named themselves Emma’s Revolution.
“She was very much a woman of her time,” said Humphries. “She was adamant that workers deserve their due in a very, very violent time in the labor movement. She didn’t think that voting was a good thing, because it could have been rigged. So, here we are dealing with the Russian interference of our elections. We may not line up issue for issue on all the things for which she was supportive of, but I think we need to take her in context.”
Emma’s Revolution performs at Voices Café at 8 p.m. Saturday. Voices Café is located at The Unitarian Church in Westport, 10 Lyons Plains Road. For ticket information, visit voicescafe.org or call 203-227-7205, ext. 14.
The award-winning duo’s latest CD, “Revolution Now,” has earned airplay and recognition on folk radio stations nationwide. It climbed to number 24 in the Album category, and the single “Sing People Sing” was number 25. The duo was named Top Artist number 20, just after Joan Baez. Emma’s Revolution also won Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the first Phil Ochs Award.
The message that Emma’s Revolution delivers, therefore, can be filled with some humor. “We tend to do a fair amount of laughing in our sets as well,” said Humphries. “It is good medicine. If we can laugh about the irony of things in the outrageousness, sometimes it does help us get through. We cannot laugh at everything. Not everything is funny. But I think it’s part of the spectrum, part of the whole. People describe our concerts as being life-giving in that we don’t shy away from the hard stuff, but we don’t hesitate to laugh, or cry, or whatever the moment calls for.”