Trios: Blake Babies

Blake Babies: Rain

[Purchase]

The Blake Babies are Juliana Hatfield, John Strohm and Freda Love. They met while all were attending college in Boston in 1986. The story is this: Juliana painfully shy but desperate to play music and find kindred spirits; Freda, outgoing, loved by many follows Juliana to her dorm one day after seeing her walking through campus all the time with her guitar...asks her to come jam with her and a friend some time. At the tme Juliana had never played an electric guitar let alone a bass, but a bass player is what they need, so she borrows John's and learns and becomes their main vocalist and bassist. Shortly there after they go to a talk by poet Allen Ginsberg and in the questions and answer part they ask him to name their band, he suggests "Blake Babies", inspired by William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience". The name seems fitting and sticks, a band is born.

They got a lot of great reviews and garnered a following in that late 80s and early 90s college scene. Soon after Juliana went solo and did even better. In 2001 they got back together for a reunion album, and Juliana and Freda have had a side band (Some Girls) that's been off and on for a while as well. They remain friends but now live in different parts of the country, the rest is history.

Their music is folk-tinged rock, Juliana's innocent sounding voice is even more so in her early days when she was even more shy, but the music is charming.