{"id":6850,"date":"2017-11-18T12:18:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T20:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=6850"},"modified":"2017-11-18T12:18:49","modified_gmt":"2017-11-18T20:18:49","slug":"katie-lee-folk-singer-fought-protect-canyon-dies-98","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/11\/18\/katie-lee-folk-singer-fought-protect-canyon-dies-98\/","title":{"rendered":"Katie Lee, Folk Singer Who Fought to Protect a Canyon, Dies at 98"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0RICHARD SANDOMIR<\/span><\/a>\u00a0

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Photo<\/span><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The folk singer Katie Lee, a passionate defender of Glen Canyon in Northern Arizona, in an undated photo.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Credit<\/span>Cline Library\/Northern Arizona University<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Katie Lee, a free-spirited folk singer who found her mission as a performer and writer protesting the loss of Glen Canyon\u2019s spectacular beauty to a dam on the Colorado River, died on Nov. 1 at her home in Jerome, Ariz. She was 98.<\/p>\n

Her death was confirmed by Kathleen Williamson, the executor of her will.<\/p>\n

\u201cRivers are the lifeblood of our planet and they need to flow,\u201d Ms. Lee said in\u00a0\u201cKickass Katie Lee\u201d (2016)<\/a>, a short biographical film by Beth and George Gage. \u201cThey don\u2019t need to be dammed every 15 feet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eloquent and blissfully profane, Ms. Lee joined conservationists like\u00a0David Brower<\/a>, executive director of the Sierra Club, and the writer Edward Abbey to try to stop construction of the 710-foot-high\u00a0Glen Canyon Dam<\/a>\u00a0in Northern Arizona, which opened in 1963. She became part of the chorus of environmentalists that ever since has demanded that the canyon be restored.<\/p>\n

The only impediment to her blowing up the dam, she would say, was that she did not know how.<\/p>\n

Her enchantment with Glen Canyon began in 1953 during a visit with friends and continued when she became a river runner. She adored its rapids, and the breezes that she said sounded like voices speaking to her. She swam nude in its potholes and waterfalls. She explored its 125 contoured side canyons, each of them named (some by her), and each one a different aesthetic experience.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen they drowned that place, they drowned my whole guts,\u201d she said in an interview in 2010 at Telluride MountainFilm, a documentary festival. \u201cAnd I will never forgive the bastards. May they rot in hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her anger at the federal government, in particular the Bureau of Reclamation, which built the Glen Canyon Dam, fueled her music and made her a magnet for filmmakers. In her ballads, she sang about rivers and boatmen. In her protest songs, she rebuked dam builders.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0\u201cColorado River Songs,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0an album she released in 1964, she pilloried the Bureau of Reclamation.<\/p>\n

Photo<\/span><\/p>\n
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Ms. Lee in 2010.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Michael Brown\/Glen Canyon Institute<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Three jeers for the Wreck-the-Nation Bureau
\nFreeloaders with souls so pure-o
\nWiped out the good Lord\u2019s work in six short years.<\/p>\n

Eric Balken, executive director of\u00a0the nonprofit Glen Canyon Institute<\/a>, said that Ms. Lee was an important part of the environmental movement to the end of her life.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe converted her passion for the canyon into fiery opposition to the Glen Canyon Dam,\u201d Mr. Balken said in a telephone interview. \u201cShe conveyed the canyon\u2019s beauty and essence to so many people nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was often referred to as \u201cthe Desert Goddess of Glen Canyon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the dam was built, she did not return to Glen Canyon. The loss was too great.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s left of my rivers, what\u2019s left of me,\u201d she said when she was 96. \u201cWe\u2019re probably going to go together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathryn Louise Lee was born on Oct. 23, 1919, in Aledo, Ill. Her family moved to Tucson when she was three months old, and she grew up loving the desert. Her father, Zanna, was an architect and homebuilder; her mother, the former Ruth Detwiler, was a decorator. Her mother pushed her to play the piano. Her father taught her to hunt rabbit and quail with a Remington shotgun.<\/p>\n

Photo<\/span><\/p>\n
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Ms. Lee at Glen Canyon in a scene from the 2014 documentary \u201cDamNation.\u201d<\/span>Credit<\/span>Cline Library\/Northern Arizona University<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Earning the lead in a high school play called \u201cThe Patsy\u201d made her feel as if the stage were her living room. \u201cWow! This is where I belong!\u201d she recalled thinking in 2008 in an oral history interview for the Cline Library at Northern Arizona University. \u201cI knew every line of the play, I knew exactly what to do, and I was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

That early acting experience led her to study drama at the University of Arizona. She went on to have a modest career as an actress that included roles on radio shows like \u201cThe Great Gildersleeve\u201d and \u201cThe Railroad Hour,\u201d a music series starring the singer Gordon MacRae.<\/p>\n

She found greater acclaim as a folk singer, developing friendships with stars like\u00a0Burl Ives<\/a>,\u00a0Josh White<\/a>\u00a0and Ramblin\u2019 Jack Elliott. Mr. Ives praised her once by saying, \u201cThe best cowboy singer I know is a girl \u2014 Katie Lee.\u201d Her repertoire was traditional for folk singers in the 1950s: songs about outlaws and murder, love and hate, cowboys, labor, poverty, injustice and politics.<\/p>\n

But the planning for the dam on Glen Canyon gave her a particularly strong motivatation to sing.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy river was about to be unjustly dammed \u2026 politically dammed,\u201d she wrote in\u00a0\u201cAll My Rivers Are Gone\u201d (1998), one of several books she wrote about Glen Canyon<\/a>. \u201cSongs about my\u00a0river<\/em>! Songs of\u00a0protest<\/em>!\u00a0Folk<\/em>\u00a0songs. Holy Mother!\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI had a cause! A cause that didn\u2019t center on me-me-me: one that asked nothing of me, really, yet was far from mute. I\u2019d never had a\u00a0cause<\/em>\u00a0before, but now there was a\u00a0place<\/em>, almost a person, that needed my help.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not sing only folk or protest songs. She recorded humorous songs about psychoanalysis on the 1957 album\u00a0\u201cSongs of Couch and Consultation.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0With lyrics by\u00a0the jazz saxophonist Bud Freeman<\/a>\u00a0and music by Leon Prober, the album became a hit in England and the songs became a popular element of her act. She had initially rejected Mr. Freeman\u2019s suggestion that she record the songs but reconsidered after listening to his demo tapes on her way back from a trip to the Colorado River.<\/p>\n

Photo<\/span><\/p>\n
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One of several albums Ms. Lee recorded. The folk singer Burl Ives once called her \u201cthe best cowboy singer I know.\u201d<\/span>Credit<\/span>J.P. Roth Collection<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cThe tunes were catchy,\u201d she told The Arizona Republic in 1960, \u201cso I thought, \u2018Why not?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cStay as Sick as You Are,\u201d she sang:<\/p>\n

I love your streak of cruelty
\nYour psychopathic lies
\nThe homicidal tendencies
\nShining in your eyes.<\/p>\n

She continued to sing about cowboys, rivers and canyons. She recorded the album \u201cLove\u2019s Little Sisters\u201d in 1975 at a studio on the ranch owned by the Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart in Novato, Calif. At the time, Mr. Hart was living and working with Jerilyn Lee Brandelius, Ms. Lee\u2019s stepdaughter.<\/p>\n

Last month, at a party for her 98th birthday, Ms. Lee performed her composition\u00a0\u201cSong of the Boatman.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Holding a birthday card, she sang:<\/p>\n

Today I know your magic call
\nWill lead me back to the canyon wall.
\nAnd the music in your rapids roar
\nMake this boatman\u2019s song from his soul outpour.<\/p>\n

In addition to Ms. Brandelius, Ms. Lee is survived by her son, Ronald Eld; another stepdaughter, Susie Brandelius; and two stepsons, Ken and John Brandelius.<\/p>\n

Her longtime partner, Joey van Leeuwen, whom she met on a trip to Australia in 1979, committed suicide one day after her death, Ms. Williamson said. Mr. van Leeuwen, who filled their house with his wood carvings of birds, worried about what would happen to him if Ms. Lee died first. In \u201cKickass Katie Lee,\u201d he said, \u201cI would have a terrible life on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Lee was married at least twice. She was divorced from Eugene Busch Jr., a businessman, and became a widow after the death of Edwin C. Brandelius Jr., a racecar driver and track announcer.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lee recalled in \u201cAll My Rivers Are Gone\u201d that while on a trip to Glen Canyon in 1957,\u00a0a year after the first dynamite blast that initiated construction<\/a>\u00a0of the dam, she took a break from lunch, stared at the river and talked to the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel betrayed,\u201d she said. \u201cHomo sapiens! Greedy pathetic fools with a genetic mania to destroy all the sanctuaries that feed their souls. Well, hell, I don\u2019t give a damn if we\u2019re blotted out. I don\u2019t want to be a part of the human race when I see the pimps in government and the whores who do their bidding. I\u2019d rather be a coyote.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0RICHARD SANDOMIR\u00a0NOV. 10, 2017 (NYTimes.com) Photo The folk singer Katie Lee, a passionate defender of Glen Canyon in Northern Arizona, in an undated photo.\u00a0CreditCline Library\/Northern Arizona University Katie Lee, a free-spirited folk singer who found her mission as a performer and writer protesting the loss of Glen Canyon\u2019s spectacular beauty… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6851,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850\/revisions\/6851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}