Deidre McCalla
"Though I'm single,
I've always wanted a child. I also know how much our children
need love and support. When I heard Nia's birth mother's story,
with her struggling already to parent one child and trying to do
the right thing, I felt so grateful. Nia is the son I've always
dreamed of." --Deidre McCalla
Deidre McCalla has three critically acclaimed
CDs out on the Olivia label, has won several awards, and has
played on over 100 college campuses in the last three years and
at numerous folk festivals and concert halls including Carnegie
Hall. Her music revels in love, grapples with loss, and moves on
to ask deeper questions about life in a troubled world. Her
shows are a melodic workout of tender ballads, politically
progressive thought, and heart-warming humor, a celebration of
the power and diversity of the human spirit that is both
captivating and inspiring. Her brand of urban acoustic pop/folk
is delivered with an honest open heart. Click here for the
lyrics of the title song of her album
Deidre
McCalla boldly admits what every rocker knows: Life begins with
an acoustic guitar. A compelling songwriter and singer,
McCalla's performances are a melodic workout of tender ballads,
politically progressive thought, and heartwarming humor. Deidre
McCalla's special brand of urban acoustic pop/folk is delivered
with an honest, open heart a celebration of the power and
diversity of the human spirit.
Deidre came of age during New York City's folk heyday - a time
when the clubs of Greenwich Village were filled with the likes
of Dylan, Baez, and Ochs; a time when Motown ruled the top of
the charts and the streets of America screamed with anger and
civil unrest. A contemporary troubadour who has spent the more
than a decade crisscrossing the country, Deidre McCalla is a
black woman in a white world viewing America's strength's and
weaknesses from an African American lesbian perspective.
With three critically acclaimed albums under her belt, almost
300,000 miles on her present car, and concert credits that range
from obscure coffeehouses to Carnegie Hall, Deidre has shared
stages with a long list of notables that includes Suzanne Vega,
Tracy Chapman, Odetta, Cris Williamson, The Flirtations, and
Pete Seeger.
A single mom who homeschools her son, Deidre McCalla currently
resides near Atlanta, Georgia.
McCalla, an Olivia Records artist, recorded her
third album, "Everyday Heroes & Heroines." Her first two
albums were "Don't Doubt It" and "With A Little Luck."
She has performed concerts on more than 100 college campuses in
the last three years and at numerous folk festivals and concert
halls, including Carnegie Hall.
An ex-New Yorker, Deidre now lives near Atlanta. She came of age
in the 60s and has shared the stage with Suzanne Vega, Tracy
Chapman, Odetta, the Flirtations and Pete Seeger. She has
received four New York Music Award nominations, a San Francisco
Cable Car Award for Outstanding Recording, and was a Kerrville
Folk Festival New Folk Songwriters Competitions finalist.
On Home Schooling
The media portrayal of
Americans who choose to school their children at home usually
doesn’t get much past white, religious fundamentalist, and
political conservative. But then there is Deidre McCalla, who is
none of the above.
Ms.
McCalla is a talented songwriter and singer whose performances
blend tender ballads, humor, and politically progressive
thought. Deidre has three critically acclaimed albums to her
credit, and has done concerts in venues ranging from
coffeehouses to Carnegie Hall. Her professional profile
proclaims that she is “a black woman in a white world viewing
America’s strengths and weaknesses from an African-American
lesbian perspective.”
What attracted her to home
schooling? Her mother, a waitress, and father, a warehouse
worker, had sacrificed to send her to private Catholic boarding
school, after she’d started in New York City public schools, and
“perhaps as a result of private-school bias, I was never
impressed with the behavior of kids I occasionally met from
public schools.”
After moving to Georgia,
she was all the more determined not to rely on government
schools, given their segregationist past. She assumed she’d
figure a way to send her son to a private school, but then she
picked up a book entitled, The Home Schooling Handbook by Mary
Griffith. Inspired by the work, “I then read everything I could
get my hands on about home-schooling and realized how eminently
do-able it was.”
One of the advantages she
sees in home-schooling is the flexibility to deal with
individual differences: “I’ve had to learn that he is a very
different kind of learner than I am; he needs lots of
hands-on-type materials, frequent breaks, and can be most
attentive when he is allowed to move. I do not use a boxed
curriculum because one size does not fit all. I spend a lot of
time seeking out the best materials for him - and if it doesn’t
work for him, I’ve learned to dump it and try something else.”
Her progressive world-view
also informs her approach. She takes care to keep her son’s
outlook as free as possible of sex-role stereotyping, and his
studies include “the contributions of women, people of color,
and the impact of colonialism on the indigenous peoples of the
world. . . .”
As Deidre McCall put it,
one thing unites otherwise diverse home schoolers: a belief that
“conventional schooling is not serving the educational and
social needs of our children.”
"McCalla's latest
is a buoyant disc of beautifully sung, socially conscious love
songs, tapping African American, alternative folk, and country
roots."
SAN FRANCISCO BAY
GUARDIAN
"Deidre
McCalla is a voice of hope...willing to be human and sing about
love and relationships...a singer so poignant and telling."
PATRIOT STAR-LEDGER
"Everyday
Heroes and Heroines speaks of life's trials and tribulations.
Though it doesn't flinch in its depiction of urban turmoil, it
retains an energizing optimism, celebrating the renewing power
of love."
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Source:
http://deidremc.home.mindspring.com/Profile.html
http://www.uah.edu/News/archivedNews/Recent/110698-04.html
Interview with Deidre McCalla, September 11, 2001.
EducationNews.org
http://www.educationnews.org/rise_of_home_schooling_among_afr.htm
Website:
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