Laurie Anderson (born 1947)
Laurie Anderson had been known as a New York City performance artist for several years before her 1981 song “O Superman” became a novelty hit and made her famous beyond that world.
She was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and played violin with the Chicago Youth Symphony. She went to Mills College in California, graduated from Barnard with an MA in art history, and from Columbia with an MFA in sculpture.
Laurie Anderson began performing in New York City in the 1970s, often combining monologues with instrumental accompaniment. Two of her early pieces are included in the 1977 album New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media, which is available on Spotify. She experimented with electronics and tape, for example, creating a Tape Bow Violin by attaching a tape recorder playback head to a violin, and a length of prerecorded tape to the violin bow. By bowing the tape across the playback head, she could play it forwards and backwards at various speeds. Here are two songs that use the Tape Bow Violin:
She also experimented with passing her voice through vocorders to alter the timbre and create different personas, such as in the song “O Superman,” which even got its own music video:
The song appeared on the 1982 album Big Science and was part of a large two-evening work The United States Part I to IV, performed live in 1983 and later released as an album. The 1985 theater work Home of the Brave was released as a movie and then on VHS and laserdisc (but not yet on DVD). Following 9/11, Laurie Anderson created a more autobiographical, introspective, and subdued theater work entitled Happiness that received a mixed reception. Her most recent albums include Homeland released in 2010, the soundtrack for her 2015 documentary Heart of a Dog, and a 2018 collaboration with the Kronos Quartet, Landfall.
The following video consists of two pieces from Home of the Brave. The first, “Drum Dance” uses sensors placed beneath her clothing that allow her to play synthesized percussion sounds by tapping various places of her body. This is followed by “Smoke Rings.”