Anne Feeney

Anne Feeney (July 1, 1951 – February 3, 2021) was an American folk musician, singer-songwriter, political activist and attorney.

Feeney was born July 1, 1951, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, to Annabelle (née Runner) and Edward J. Feeney.

Her mother was a homemaker and her father a chemical engineer at Westinghouse Electric Co.

She had one sister, Kathleen.

The family moved to the nearby Brookline neighborhood of the city of Pittsburgh in 1954.

Feeney's grandfather, William Patrick Feeney, was a significant early influence on her, as mineworkers' organizer and violinist who also used his music in the service of political and labor causes.

Feeney graduated from Fontbonne Academy, a Catholic girls' high school in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, in 1968.

As a high school student, Feeney purchased a Martin D-28 guitar in 1968 and gave her first performance at an anti-war protest in 1969, playing a song by Phil Ochs.

She played the same guitar for 40 years.

She enrolled in college at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and joined Thinking Students for Peace, a group that protested the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.

She began her career in 1969 as a student activist playing a Phil Ochs song at a Vietnam War protest, one of many causes she embraced.

In 1972, while an undergrad, she was arrested in Miami at the Republican National Convention where she was protesting Richard Nixon's re-nomination for President of the United States.

That same year, Feeney attended the annual Conference on Women and the Law.

Inspired by the group that founded "Women Organized Against Rape" in Philadelphia, Feeney began a campaign for a rape crisis center in Pittsburgh.

This effort became Pittsburgh Action Against Rape (PAAR), which still provides services to rape survivors in the Pittsburgh area as of 2021.

Feeney graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

She enrolled in law school, also at Pitt, and in 1976, she joined a bluegrass band, Cucumber Rapids.

The group disbanded in 1977, but Feeney carried on performing locally.

As an undergraduate she cofounded Pittsburgh's first rape crisis center and went on to earn a Juris Doctor degree in 1978, seeking to effect social change through the legal system.

She worked as a lawyer for 12 years while also pursuing music and activism, and ultimately decided engaging through music was her calling.

Feeney graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1978.

She worked for 12 years as a trial attorney, something she said had interested her as way to effect social change, although later she found her music to be a better route for that goal.

While a lawyer, Feeney's clients were mainly refugees and domestic violence survivors.

She was a member of the Gender Bias Committee of the Allegheny County Bar Association.

From the early 1980s through the 2010s, Feeney served on the board of Pittsburgh's Thomas Merton Center, devoted to advocating for peace and justice causes.

She was also chapter president of NOW and served on the organization's state executive board in Pennsylvania.

In 1989, Feeney's music career became an increasing focus after she won a national song writing contest, the Kerrville New Folk contest.

Blending Irish music with American folk and bluegrass, as well as her political message, she recorded twelve albums and toured most of the period from 1991 to 2015, attending protest rallies and joining the concerts of groups like Peter, Paul and Mary.

The latter also recorded a version of Feeney's anthem for civil disobedience, "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?"

Beginning in 1991, Feeney toured North America and the world to perform and participate in political and labor rallies and events.

Her first recording, Look to the Left, was released in 1992.

Feeney served as president of the Pittsburgh Musicians' Union from 1997 to 1998, the first and only woman ever elected to this position, as of 2021.

She was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World as well as the American Federation of Musicians.

In 2005, she was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Labor Heritage Foundation.

Her business cards described her as "Performer, Producer, Hellraiser."

In 2008, she said in an interview, "I think music is a fantastic way of empowering people and giving them strength and energy. I've spent a good part of my life trying to find and write music that will empower people to resist and stand up for what's right."

Feeney's music is frequently featured on the broadcast radio program Democracy Now! and her anthem "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?"

is featured in the documentaries This is What Democracy Looks Like, Isn't This a Time: A Tribute to Harold Leventhal and Get Up/Stand Up: The History of Pop and Protest.

The song is an ode to civil disobedience, beginning, "Was it Cesar Chavez? Maybe it was Dorothy Day / Some will say Dr. King or Gandhi set them on their way / No matter who your mentors are it's pretty plain to see / That, if you've been to jail for justice, you're in good company."

She put out 12 albums in all, including Union Maid, If I Can't Dance, Have you Been to Jail for Justice?, and Dump the Bosses Off Your Back. Fenney's last album was Enchanted Way in 2010.