Singer and songwriter Baby Dee has an interesting history. Born in 1953 in Cleveland, Ohio, Dee was classically schooled in piano and harp. The first decade of her carreer was spent as a music director and organist for a Catholic church in the Bronx. A man at the time, Dee left the church when she decided to live as a woman.

Written by Anneloes Bakker

Dee didn’t start her career writing music, but joined the Coney Island circus as an accordion-playing hermaphrodite, then became the bandleader of the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus and toured with the Kamikaze Freak Show in Europe. Back in New York she became known for her street act in Lower Manhattan: playing harp whilst riding a high-rise trycicle, singing Shirley Temple songs.

In the nineties Baby Dee met Antony Hegarty from Anthony and the Johnsons, also a gender-bending musician and performance artist. Hegarty invited Dee to play the harp on his debut album, which was self-titled Anthony and the Johnsons. Dee also started writing songs herself, which she initially meant to be performed by Hegarty. However, He decided to pass them on to David Tibet of Current 93, who eventually got Dee to record her first album on his label Durtro in 2001.

Dee stayed with Durtro for six years where she released several records. The albums didn’t receive a lot of attention and Dee decided to take a break from music and the city, returning to her hometown to work as a tree surgeon, dressing as a guy again. In an interview with the Telegraph Dee states: “The cool thing was it was totally self-obliterating. I actually dressed up like a guy – and believe me, this is a big deal for a tranny. But no matter what I wore – the big bulky jacket, the hard hat – those lumberjacks were the only bit of male society that’s never had any problem treating me like a woman.”

Dee’s career of climbing trees came to quick halt when a tree fell onto a client’s house due to a sudden change in wind direction. Left jobless and broke after having to pay for the destroyed roof herself, Dee turned back to her musical career. In 2008 she released her first album on the label Drag City, called Safe Inside the Day.  Her third album on Drag City, Regifted Light, was  released this year, followed by live album Baby Dee goes to Amsterdam, which was recorded in the Bimhuis in Amsterdam during the Holland Festival. Although Dee’s music can be dark and moving, it is also uplifting and at times even humourous with songs like “I want that Pie” and “The Song of Self-Acceptance”, the latter of which can be viewed below.

Our Dutch readers are in luck as Baby Dee is playing this weekend in The Hague at the New Forms Festival. She’ll be hitting Germany in January, playing in Leipzig, Berlin and Cologne. Go see her, you won’t regret it!
Visit Baby Dee’s website.