EMILY SALIERS Biography - Musicians

 
 

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EMILY SALIERS

Name: Emily Saliers                                                                     
Born: July 22, 1963 Connecticut, United States                                         
                                                                                         
Emily Saliers (born July 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and member         
of the Indigo Girls. Saliers plays lead guitar as well as banjo, piano, mandolin,       
ukelele, bouzouki and many other instruments.                                           
                                                                                         
Saliers was born in New Haven, Connecticut to Don and Jane Saliers and grew up         
in Decatur, Georgia (in metro Atlanta) where her father is a professor at Emory         
University. Saliers is the second eldest of four children — all girls. She began     
her college education at Tulane University but transferred to Emory University,         
graduating in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in English.                                 
                                                                                         
Saliers first met her future Indigo Girls counterpart Amy Ray when they were           
students at Laurel Ridge Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia. As students at         
Shamrock High School, they started performing music together at talent shows and       
local venues under the band names of "Saliers & Ray" and the "B-Band". When             
Saliers — the elder of the duo — left Georgia to attend Tulane University, Ray     
frequently visited her and they would play together for tips in New Orleans'           
famed French Quarter. Saliers and Ray eventually reunited when they transferred         
from their respective colleges to Emory University. It was at Emory that they           
settled upon the band name of "Indigo Girls," when Ray came across the word "indigo"   
in the dictionary and "thought it sounded cool."