For The Mancos Times<\/p>\n
Listening to Grammy-nominated Eliza Gilkyson\u2019s Beautiful World, a reverence for life fills the heart. The song is a spellbinding lullaby \u2013 a sonnet to Mother Earth and an apology for our leaden footsteps upon her.<\/p>\n
Respected in Folk, Roots and Americana music circles and having received numerous Folk Alliance Music Awards and an induction into the Austin Music Hall of Fame \u2013 alongside legends Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt and Nanci Griffith \u2013 the singer\/songwriter and activist narrates the peaks and valleys of our experience with the deep resonance of her honey-tinged voice.<\/p>\n
Gilkyson grew up with music. Her father was songwriter Terry Gilkyson, who wrote and recorded music for Frankie Laine, Pete Seeger, Dean Martin and many other musicians throughout the 1950s along with his own band, The Easy Riders. In 1968, he was nominated for an Academy Award for The Bare Necessities, from Disney\u2019s, The Jungle Book.<\/p>\n
She knew that she wanted to follow in her father\u2019s footsteps. \u201cI wanted to get out into the world to sing and write about it and by 13 I was already playing guitar and recording.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raised in Hollywood in the \u201960s, Eliza was influenced by Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joanie Mitchell and her father. \u201cMy dad was a good lefty, so there\u2019s a strong political and sociological component to my musi,\u201d she says. \u201cHe was complicated, but he gave me a real love of nature, harmony, music and an appreciation for human issues that I\u2019ve carried with me throughout my entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having the freedom to experiment in her father\u2019s Hollywood studio, Gilkyson found her voice in her late teens, writing and recording with various bands. When her father prompted a family move to Santa Fe, she turned her back on the industry to become a \u201cback-to-the-land-hippie\u201d and to \u201csimply play music.\u201d Married young with two children, Gilkyson continued to write songs, allowing the West to influence her work.<\/p>\n
After reaching the extent of what she could achieve in New Mexico, Gilkyson alternated between Austin and Los Angeles in an attempt to reinstate herself within the Folk music world. \u201cAustin became my base to operate from in the West, and I fell in love with the music scene there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her album Hard Times in Babylon was picked up by Red House Records in 2000. She later received a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album for Land of Milk and Honey. Her song Requiem, written as a prayer for those who died in the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, was recorded by the internationally recognized choral group Conspirare, whose version was nominated for a Grammy and won the prestigious Edison Award in Europe. Two of her songs appeared on Baez\u2019 Grammy-nominated album Day After Tomorrow, and with 20 recordings of her own, Gilkyson\u2019s songs have also been covered by Bob Geldorf, Tom Rush and Rosanne Cash.<\/p>\n
She continues to remain actively involved with Austin\u2019s music and political communities, including the environmental organization, Save Our Springs, and she is a co-founder of www.5604manor.org, an Austin-based resource center that promotes activism around issues of race, patriarchy and global justice.<\/p>\n
Gilkyson comes to the Historic Mancos Opera House on Thursday, Aug. 7 as part of her current with the Eliza Gilkyson Trio. Promoting a new album, The Nocturne Diaries, she performs with son and producer Cisco Ryder on drums and Austin guitar player Mike Hardwick. \u201cI wrote the songs on The Nocturne Diaries at night. They\u2019re reflective, late-night, wake-up thoughts. The album gives a real sense of that time period where you\u2019re processing some of your greatest hopes and fears, such as \u2018What kind of future is in store for my grandchildren? Economically, psychologically, environmentally . what are they going to inherit?\u2019 The songs from this album are very much processing those questions, and if we deny them we cut ourselves off from the full panorama of what it means to be human.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having been touring with the trio for 12 years, she and son Cisco have been performing together since he was a kid. \u201cCisco understands my music in a way that no one else ever will. I\u2019ve given over a lot of projects to him in terms of production and he\u2019s really proven himself. He\u2019s now the one calling the shots, which has not been an easy transition, but we\u2019re handling it well and the experience has been extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tami Graham presents the Eliza Gilkyson Trio at the Mancos Opera House alongside Taos singer\/songwriter Melissa Crabtree on Thursday, Aug. 7, at 7:30 p.m.,
\n Tickets are $20 in advance and $22 at the door. Available at Southwest Sound in Durango and Zuma Natural Foods in Mancos.
\n Partial proceeds benefit Mancos Valley Resources, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving and enhancing cultural assets of the Mancos Valley.
\n More information: www.tamigraham.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mancos Times Listening to Grammy-nominated Eliza Gilkyson\u2019s Beautiful World, a reverence for life fills the heart. The song is a spellbinding lullaby \u2013 a sonnet to Mother Earth and an apology for our leaden footsteps upon her. Respected in Folk, Roots and Americana music circles and having received numerous Folk Alliance Music Awards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-118799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118799"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=118799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}