.Linda Allen

Linda sings the songs that tell of the lives and the work, the hopes and the dreams of people everywhere. Her interest in songwriting has grown out of her love for traditional music as well as her interest in our collective history. She has a talent for reaching into the ordinary to find the profound, setting it to music and singing it home.

Her songs have been sung and/or recorded by many artists including Rebel Voices, Seattle Women's Ensemble, Wisconsin Women's Chorus, Cindy Mangsen, Frankie Armstrong, Judy Small and Faith Petric. They have appeared in publications such as Sing Out! and Broadside, in books and song collections, and have been used for numerous educational radio and television programs.

Her albums and CD's have featured outstanding artists including Margie Adam, Betsy Rose, Frankie Armstrong, Alison Brown, Geof Morgan, Cary Black, Julian Smedley, Philip Boulding, Nina Gerber, Tracy Spring and Erin Corday.

A prolific writer, Linda is also a song collector. In 1988/89 she was Resident Songwriter for the State of Washington's Centennial Project; she also worked extensively with the Washington Women's Heritage Project and the Washington Grange Music Heritage Project.

Linda has organized two community folk centers and in 1991 was awarded an Artist Trust Fellowship. She teaches classes, retreats and workshops throughout the year, serves as an artist-in-residence and enjoys going into schools, communities and conferences to give customized workshops on history, spirituality, singing, songwriting, and creativity

Linda Allen is a passionate and engaging performer whose songs are rooted in tradition and honed by years of commitment to an art that both informs and transforms. Her songs are bold, poignant, funny, informative, insightful and best described in a review from Folknik which called her music "…good holistic medicine for the spirit."

Photography: Irene Young Foto

. The Long Way Home
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1. The Long Way Home
2. There Will Be An Answer
3. Shadow of the Wolf
4. Love Is A Stone
5. A Small Vase of Flowers
6. The Old Moon Rocks in the New Moon's Arms
7. The Drought
8. The Healing of the Night
9. It Never Seemed Right
10. The Fall
11. Echo Song
12. The Way the Wind Blew
13. Eve
14. The Bargain

Catalog #or1012 CD $14.99

Lay It Down... Songs that celebrate the sacred in all its forms...through alternative images drawn from Christian tradition, earth-centered spirituality, and the everyday sacred. It is a spirituality which is grounded in a passion for justice and equality. Featuring Linda and her daughters Jen and Kristin, Cary Black, Janis Carper, Tracy Spring, Karen Reitz, Rebel Voices, David Lange, Julian Smedley, Jami Sieber, Linda Severt, Philip Boulding and many others. 1997 - Produced by Linda Allen with David Lange.

1. Lay It Down - re-imagining the sacred.
2. Sometimes I'm Cedar - celebrating an earth-centered spirituality.
3. Sarajevo - based on the true story of Vidran Smailovic, a cellist with the Sarajevo symphony.
4. Nothing's More Important Than Love - a love song inspired by a dying friend.
5. Love Song For the Hard Times - a new kind of love song, born of struggle.
6. Mary, Mary - "God's great promise in a young girl's body".
7. God, I Cannot Call You Father - "how many father's daughters feel like strangers in this land?"
8. They're Comin' After You - on anti-gay petitions.
9. Hard Work To Do - Linda's daughters Jen and Kristin sing lead on this one...easy answers vs. what we really have to do
10. Waiting for the Morning - on Mary Magdalene --a new story.
11. Womanspirit - a Genesis-based creation story.
12. Lady River - "when your back is breaking, and your heart is sore, take it down to the Lady River."

Catalog# or106 CD $14.99

. October Roses
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October Roses..."October Roses first appeared in 1984, and like all of my children, the songs have traveled their own path. Through the years, some of the songs have been sung and recorded by others and have become part of their story as well.May these songs open as many doors for you in the listening as they have for me in the writing."

Guest appearances by Margie Adam, Geof Morgan, Cary Black, the Righteous Mothers, and more. 1984 - Nexus Records. Produced by Julian Smedley.

1. October Roses
2. If Hope Is A Flower
3. Overland 1852 -
4. I'm A Mother / I'm A Writer
5. Working It Out
6. Just Friends
7. Spirit Keeper
8. Together Again
9. Sally's Quiche
10. Why Don't You Sing In The Chorus?

Catalog #n-103 Cassette $9.99
Catalog #n-103 CD $14.99

Women's Work...Songs about women's real work-building ships, soothing the sick, caring for children in and out of our homes, and working as labor leaders, teachers and builders of peace. Our work encompasses relationships with partners, children, grandparents and community. No less important is the work we do as spiritual seekers, keeping the vision alive.

Musicians include Betsy Rose, Frankie Armstrong, Cary Black, Alison Brow

1. After School
2. Libba's Gone
3. The Journey
4. Spirit Song
5. Peace Is A Feeling
6. Rosie, The Riveter - Revisited
7. Ballad of Laura Law
8. Night Charge Nurse
9. Erath County
10. I've Got Better Things To Do

Catalog #ff90458 Cassette $9.99
Catalog #ff90458 CD $14.99

Washington Notebook...Nineteen songs of the Northwest written by Linda during Washington's Centennial year...songs which create a rich tapestry of Washington's people: suffragists and miners, basket-weavers and quiltmakers, interned Japanese-Americans and a visionary Navajo prophet. Learn how the dandelions arrived in Washington, meet Clyde Pangborn, barnstormer, learn of the life of a Yakima farmworker and much more.

1. Weaving and Quilting
2. Executive Order 9066
3. The Hutterite Way
4. The Great Turning
5. Eureka Camp
6. The Dandelion Song
7. Olympia - a tribute to Linda's "other" hometown
8. Termination Winds
9. Upside Down
10. Canaries In The Mine
11. Emma and May
12. On Bellingham Bay
13. Winter of '89
14. Mary Don't You Weep
15. Si Se Puede
16. Holden
17. Columbia
18. The North Coast
19. Centralia, 1989

Catalog #vvmrcd-505 CD $14.99

. Mama Wanted To Be A Rainbow Dancer
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Mama Wanted to be a Rainbow Dancer... Linda's first recording, exploring women's history, struggles and celebrations. Contains "Circle Me Sisters", "Here's To The Women!", and "Wouldn't It Be Nice" (if the next Jesus Christ came down as a woman?). Guest appearances by Linda Waterfall, Julian Smedley, and many others. 1982 - Nexus Records. Produced by Julian Smedley. Here's To The Women! - a salute to women's efforts and celebration of women's history - unifying and strong

1. Mama Wanted To Be a Rainbow Dancer
2. The Way of Men
3. The Ballad of Lizzie Williams
4. I Like Small Men
5. Circle Me Sisters
6. On Hunger
7. Wouldn't It Be Nice
8. Jennifer's Lullaby
9. Ballad of A Welfare Mother