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Wednesday, 27 August 2008 18:41
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 Lucky Coyote
By Jacob Anderson-Minshall
Folk singing duo Coyote Grace has big news. Like lightning this summer their luck struck twice. It all started when the Indigo Girls asked trans musician Joe Stevens and his partner in life and music Ingrid Elizabeth (aka Coyote Grace) to open their Seattle concert.
“That was very exciting!” Stevens says. “They’re two of my biggest heroes. It was a super honor!”
Raised by two studio singers and music educators, Stevens grew up surrounded by music. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” he recalls. “I started writing music in girls’ school. I’m so grateful that my transition has been kind to me.” His mother formed the Sacramento Children's Chorus, and while Stevens sang in his share of choirs he was eventually drawn to folk to “the music of the people…a fluid genre.”
“Amy and I started dating about four and a half years ago,” Stevens recalls. The two musicians wanted to play together but he says his transition interfered. “I couldn’t do very much for those two years. We played around a little bit but my pitch kept changing all over the place.”
When his voice settled down, they began collaborating—blending their music and names. “Amy used to do burlesque and some cabaret stuff and her stage name was Amazing Grace and mine was Coyote Joe.”
Columbus, Ohio’s Stonewall Society recently honored Coyote Grace with a Pride In the Arts Award for “Favorite Trans Musician.” They’ve been featured on the nationally syndicated program Queer Heritage Radio, performed live on numerous radio stations, appeared in the award-winning independent film, Mass Romantic, and played on a handful of compilation albums released in 2007.
“It was definitely the biggest venue we’ve ever played in,” Stevens recalls of sharing the stage with the Indigo Girls. “I was a little starry-eyed. But they were very gracious. We got to sing ‘Closer to Fine’ with them…and they said they really enjoyed it. Amy [Ray, of the Indigo Girls] watched almost the entire set from the wings. That was very cool.”
The opportunity was even more remarkable because the two bands had never met before the Seattle concert. Out of the blue, the Indigo Girls had contacted Coyote Grace and invited them to open for the show. Without some well-placed Coyote Grace fans, the meeting might never have taken place.
“We had a couple of friends of friends of people who know them who passed CDs their way and they just heard about us enough. There was a friend of mine who had taken them to an airport and played our CD and told them who I was—he’s trans too, and he gave them the background. I think that just happened right when they needed someone to be on that bill and they asked us.”
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience—until it happened again.
Stevens just returned from song school at the Rocky Mountain Folk Fest, a trip “on a wing and a prayer. I drove all the way up there to do this song school.”
Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Melissa Ferrick was one of the instructors. “I just happened to take one of her classes and as soon as I played like half a song…[she] asked me to go on tour with her. She asked before she knew I was trans, too, which for some reason makes me feel better. It’s super exciting!”
Coyote Grace will join Ferrick on tour this October, hitting Chicago, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Ann Arbor, Michigan and Columbus, Ohio. In the meantime, the duo—who recently settled in the San Francisco Bay Area—will be touring Northern California, from whence Stevens originates, throughout September.
No strangers to the road, Coyote Grace spent last year driving across the country in Harvey, their 1978 Chevy RV, promoting their aptly titled debut, Boxes & Bags. The CD, he says, paid homage to their nomadic lifestyle and the impermanence of identity. The close quarters did cramp their relationship a bit.
“We’re learning to maneuver it as we go along. But it has seemed to work really well. She’s the only person I can spend six months in a car with and not hate at the end of it.” Those experiences informed their 2008 live album, The Harvey Tour, which also features fellow folk rocker Courtney Robbins. A new studio release will be out later this year.
Many of Coyote Grace’s songs address transition topics. Elizabeth penned the lyrics, “I was in the room when my baby died,” about the pain and loss felt when a partner transitions. Still the song—which Stevens promises will be on their next album—shows love prevailing over loss. And Stevens himself admits that his lyrics are usually autobiographical. “Even when you try to write something that’s not about you, it ends up being about you.”
Tune in to Portland, Oregon’s KBOO radio, September 2nd 6-6:30 pm PST when trans writer Jacob Anderson-Minshall (
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) joins Trannywreck Radio’s Rebecca Nay to co-host the pilot episode of their new radio show, Gender Blender, streaming live at KBOO.fm.
© 2008 Jacob Anderson-Minshall
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