By Melissa Karen Sances
For the Valley Advocate  

Before her first open mic when she was 18, Pamela Means debuted three original songs to her two best friends. They weren’t allowed to look at her as she fingered the guitar and sang to the floor.

“I was really shy — I made them turn their backs,” recalled the now-Easthampton-based performer.

But when she finally climbed on stage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a sense of peace washed over her. Sure, she was relieved that the room was dark and there were only 12 people in the audience. But she felt at home, and she understood that two things could coexist: her reticence and her excellence.

In the decades since, the queer, biracial singer-songwriter and jazz musician has evolved. She knows how to banter with an audience. She’s learned to look people in the eye. Her lyrics are incisive, but she answers questions with a symphony of self-reflection, and her laugh is long and lyrical.

She knows who she is and where she stands, and so does her audience.

Silence! (Please.)

It wasn’t unprecedented when she was asked to censor herself for a March event at the Beekley Library in New Hartford, Connecticut. But it was baffling that the gig, part of a concert series, had been booked by a longtime fan.

“I was there when you played so many years ago [at a separate library gig] as was another member who brought up your name as a possible artist which I quickly seconded,” wrote Jeremy Schaller, the library board president, in an email to Means in September 2025. They agreed she would perform on March 28.

Yet on March 27, he sang a different tune. “I hate to have to bring this up,” he wrote, “but due to some board members who reviewed your discography, I was asked to request you be sensitive to the fact that as liberal as our organization is, our funding comes from a Republican lead [sic] city hall and there will be members of that camp in the audience.”

Means fired back: “I will never say yes to hiding who I am, what I do, what I believe, and what my voice, my music, my life’s work has a responsibility to express … My answer is NO.”

Then she alerted the press.

“This was the first time I saw an experience like that as an opportunity because I intended to go public and not let them hide behind their actions,” she said. “It is heinous and reprehensible that they even asked me, especially at a time like this in our country.”

‘A little cog in the wheel of justice’

Civil rights have been under fire throughout President Donald Trump’s nearly six years in office, and even between terms. In June 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned by a largely Trump-appointed Supreme Court, ending the constitutional right to an abortion. In January 2025, nonbinary and trans people were rendered invisible in an executive order declaring that there were only two genders recognized in the United States. Last fall, the longest government shutdown in history prevented 42 million people from receiving federal food assistance before the holidays. And last month, the White House released its 2026 “United States Counterterrorism Strategy,” which likens “radically pro-transgender” people to terrorists.

After all this, Means’ songs speak for themselves. “I think this is my life’s work, to write these kinds of songs and speak out and be a little cog in the wheel of justice,” she said.

Following her decision not to play the Connecticut-based gig in March, Schaller sent Means an apology on behalf of the library, written on the day of the gig. “It was never our intent to censor anyone,” he wrote. “That is the whole point of an institution like ours … If there is any fallout, we will deal with it … Being a library in 2026 puts us in a sometimes difficult position. We are navigating the best we can while also trying to respect all sides.”

Means didn’t respond. “There is no ‘respect all sides’ when one side supports the silencing of whole segments of our society,” she told The Valley Advocate.

According to current board president Kathleen Worthington, and unbeknownst to Means, Schaller resigned shortly after their interaction. “Jeremy was not representing the board when he was speaking and writing to” Means, she said, so the board had no further comment.

When Schaller was asked for comment, he shared his resignation letter with The Valley Advocate by email. “Due to my poor judgment regarding the interactions I had with an artist [and] her rightful indignation and airing of grievances, I fear I have done more harm than my initial intention had hoped to temper,” he told the board.

When asked what he had learned from the experience, Schaller wrote The Valley Advocate, “I could expound for several paragraphs, but this isn’t about me, nor should it be. This is about the state of our political climate and the difficulty in funding essential services like a library.”

Offered the opportunity to respond, Means said, “Wow. That is remarkable. I respect that. We need more of this. Whether it comes in the moment or after reflection … If in person, I would hug him and say thank you. Onward we go.”

Before and after

Means didn’t always feel empowered to use her voice. While enrolled at a Lutheran school, she learned at an early age that queer people belonged in hell. But as she wrestled with her identity, she discovered music without limits. After listening to Top 40 songs and her mom’s Frank Sinatra records, she found Joni Mitchell.

“I didn’t know you could write a song like that, with lyrics that were so eloquent and intelligent,” she said, and the discovery delineated her life into a “before” and an “after.”

But her awakening had its downsides. “I was actually kind of bummed because I thought, ‘Now I have to do this.’ But I just wanted to write pop songs and be in Rolling Stone magazine,” she said, unleashing her musical laugh.

For more than a decade, Means played 100 shows per year, touring with stars like Pete Seeger, Neil Young and the Violent Femmes until she decided to undergo “an excavation of the soul.”

After moving to Plainfield, Massachusetts, she stayed put and confronted the self-loathing she’d believed she deserved. Now, she strives to be “like Buddha, but also like Angela Davis, pointed and eloquent.”

She’s open to enlightenment.

“Even my harsh political songs are all love songs, too, because protest comes from the greatest kind of human love,” she said. “I want to be on stage with this gesture of wide-open arms.”

Means has a third-Thursday residency at Luthier’s Co-op in Easthampton, and she will perform in One Long Earring on June 28 in Somerville. Learn more at pamelameans.com.

Melissa Karen Sances can be reached at melissaksances@gmail.com.