In the article about Cris Williamsonin Allmusic, William Ruhlmannoffers this concise introduction: “Just as baseball historians can only speculate about how players in the old Negro leagues would have fared in the absence of segregation in the major leagues prior to the arrival of Jackie Robinsonin 1947, so music historians may ponder what status Cris Williamsonmight have assumed if she had emerged at a time when admitted homosexuals were not subject to exclusion from major record labels. By the 1990’s, openly gay women artists Melissa Etheridge, Indigo Girls, and k.d. langwere able to maintain major-label contracts and sell records in the millions (although none of them had proclaimed their sexual orientation when they were signed in the 1980’s).”
