Holly Near

Biography

6 June 1949, Ukiah, California, USA. For Near’s first 10 years, her family lived on a farm but her adolescence was spent in urban Ukiah where she matured from a child television actor to a performer with the confidence to accept a role in a Broadway run of Hair. She also participated in Jane Fonda’s controversial Free The Army revue that toured Vietnam with a message demanding US withdrawal. However, Near was to leave the 70s as an artist in direct descent from the early 60s protest singers. Indeed, it was Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers who helped encourage interest in her on the US folk club and campus circuit. As a yardstick of the respect that became hers in this sphere, Gilbert, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie were guests on Lifelines which, like all of her country-tinged body of mostly self-composed material, was issued on her and Jeff Langley’s own Ukiah-based Redwood label. Largely by word of mouth, Near’s first four albums sold a collective...

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