After decades of delivering some of the most stunning harmonies in music history, one half of the Indigo Girls is opening up about health struggles that are affecting her ability to sing.
In a video shared to the band's TikTok over the weekend, Emily Saliers shared the details of her ongoing health issues while seated on a couch alongside musical partner Amy Ray.
"We needed to make y’all aware of something," Saliers, 62, said in the clip. "To those of you in our community who have supported us all these years, we’re so grateful for you."
Saliers went on to say that she wants to be "completely forthcoming" ahead of the Indigo Girls' upcoming tour about how the neurological movement disorder cervical dystonia, along with essential tremor, have impacted her singing voice.
@indigogirlsmusicAn important message from Indigo Girls. We know it’s long, but please listen to it in its entirety if you are able.
♬ original sound - Indigo Girls“Many of you have noticed that my voice — maybe all of you have noticed, it’s pretty noticeable — that my voice is not what it once was,” she said.
“So I wanted to share with you that I’ve been diagnosed with two movement disorders. One is called cervical dystonia with torticollis, which basically is in the part of my brain that controls movement...and in other people with this condition, the brain sends signals to tighten muscles. So because of the cervical dystonia, my head twists to the right and is misaligned. It can cause shaking of the head. It’s impossible for me to hold my head centrally without shaking, things like that. So structurally, obviously, that is problematic for this whole throat area," Saliers explained.
“But the other diagnosis, which is harder in fact for me, is an essential tremor," she added. "And the essential tremor causes involuntary shakes or movement, and it affects all the parts of my singing apparatus, the larynx, the pharyngeal muscles, my jaw and my diaphragm from which I get all the air for singing," she continued. "So I’m unable to make the connections muscularly and structurally because of the essential tremor. What else the essential tremor does is give me this — I am gonna call it horrible, because it’s horrible to me — vibrato that I never used to have. I am completely physically unable to hold a straight tone the way I used to.”
“What you, our community, have come to, I think, appreciate and love about some of our harmonies is the way we can hold long straight tones together. So I want to give you a heads up about that, in full transparency,” Saliers continued, going on to thank Ray for being "super supportive" and assure concert-goers that "as we get ready for these shows, we are doing everything we can to make the songs sound as good as they can possibly sound or ever sound, which includes all the modern digital tools that front-of-house engineers use to help singers sound better.”
View this post on InstagramFans in the comments were quick to express their support and admiration.
"Emily the both of you have been such a huge part of my life growing up. I'm two years younger than you and things are happening with my body that I don't understand either, but that being said keep soldiering on and I hope that you can keep your symptoms at bay with all that you're doing," one person wrote.
"Y'all could come on stage sit in a rocker and play a recording of your songs and we would be ecstatic," a second commenter added. "Love & light to you both!"
The Indigo Girls are hitting the road later this month and are scheduled to tour the U.S. through September.
Related: All-Female '90s Rock Band Announces 2026 Tour Dates 25 Years After Splitting Up
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