Dana Kletter
| Dana Kletter | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 21, 1959 Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Origin | New York, North Carolina |
| Genres | Alternative rock, hardcore punk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, writer |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Associated acts | blackgirls, Dish, Joe Boyd, Hole, Mike Johnson, The Hold Steady, Flare Acoustic Arts League, LD & the New Criticism |
Dana Kletter (born October 21, 1959) is an American musician and writer.
Kletter and her twin sister Karen were born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in New York. Dana began playing piano at age four. She attended American University in Washington, D.C. where she studied piano with Alan Mandel. She left music school and submerged herself in the DC Hardcore punk rock scene at its apex, in the early 1980s. There she met the friends who would become part of her professional musical life.
Dana moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1985 and formed blackgirls, described by the Chicago Reader as a "dark art-folk trio," with Eugenia Lee Johnson and Hollis Brown.
The band performed for several years and released a single as part of the Evil I Do Not To Nod I Live boxset with four other North Carolina bands (including the early bands of Superchunk guitarist and Merge Records mastermind Mac McCaughan), and a five song EP, Speechless. In his Spin magazine review of Speechless, Tony Fletcher noted, "…hints of absolute greatness within, most noticeably on "Queen Anne," a ballad in which Dana Kletter's vocals lean towards the sultry peaks of Nico and Marianne Faithfull…"
The band came to the attention of American auteur producer Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Fairport Convention, Pink Floyd, REM). Boyd signed blackgirls to his European-based Hannibal Records label and Mammoth Records of Chapel Hill, North Carolina became their American label.
Boyd produced two full-length blackgirls LPs, Procedure in 1989 and Happy in 1991. The records were a critical success and the band toured regularly and performed on NPR's Mountain Stage, BBC-Radio 4-Woman's Hour. However internal problems caused the group to disband in 1992.
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