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Being different a plus for folk artist

Robin Renée will appear at acoustic Fredericksburg Songwriters' Showcase with Steve Key, Banjerdan and Eliot Bronson.

By MICHAEL ZITZ

Date published: 5/24/2001

WHEN: Friday night at 8

WHERE: Picker's Supply, 902 Caroline St. in downtown Fredericksburg

HOW MUCH: $8, all ages

INFO: Call 898-0611

THE FREE LANCE-STAR

She says she knew even then that she liked other girls.

"I came out at 9," she said.

By the time she was 10, she had her own music group, "The Half Mann Band," which played elementary schools in the Philadelphia area.

At 12, she realized she liked both girls and boys, and she came out as a bisexual.

"I understood myself very early," Renée said.

Now she's trying to help others understand.

The 34-year-old singer-songwriter still lives in her hometown of Atco, N.J. She is a widely published poet.

She's won awards for folk music, but refers to her work as alternative-pop and "bohemian glam."

One of her biggest influences was Elvis Costello. But her biggest inspiration and her first idol was bisexual tennis star Billie Jean King.

Renée admired King's power and conviction.

"She was determined to be all of herself as a feminist and a tennis player," Renée said. "She opened my mind to being anything I wanted to be."

David Bowie had a similar effect. Watching the sexually ambiguous glam rocker sing on TV encouraged Renée to pursue a music career.

But being bisexual doesn't define Renée as a musician.

"It's more accurate to say that being bisexual is one of the things I am," she said. "It forms my music, in the same way as many other things about me.

"My CD ['In Progress'] is accessible to everybody," Renée said. "It's not particularly queer, not particularly targeting toward a queer audience. But I am out and vocal, and I do have some songs that clearly deal with that issue."

It was easy for her to be open about her sexual orientation because her parents were understanding--and because not doing so would have simply been too painful, she said. And the choice between openness and living a lie, she said, was a simple one even for a child.

"I realized I could live according to social mores and be miserable--or choose the other way," Renée said.

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Date published: 5/24/2001