SATURDAY JUNE 4, 2011
8:00pm
ELIZA GILKYSON
and
JOHN GORKA
With special guest
BEAUCOUP BLUE
$30 ($27 members)

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The Hurdy Gurdy is proud to close our 2010-2011 season with two icons of the contemporary folk scene - performing side by side for what will be an unforgettable evening of music.

Eliza Gilkyson is a politically minded, poetically gifted singer-songwriter, who has become one of the most respected musicians in roots, folk and Americana circles. The Grammy-nominated artist has appeared on NPR, Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage, etown, XM, Air America Radio and has toured with Richard Thompson, Patty Griffin and Mary Chapin Carpenter. In February of 2003, she was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame. The induction placed Eliza alongside an exclusive list of Austin Music Hall of Fame greats, including Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Nanci Griffith, Billy Joe Shaver, Butch Hancock, Joe Ely and others. In 2006, she was recognized with 3 Austin Music Awards and 4 Folk Alliance Music Awards, one of which was for “Song of the Year” for her tune “Man of God.” Eliza’s meditative tune “Requiem,” written as a prayer for those who lost lives in the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia, was recorded by the nationally recognized choral group Conspirare and was nominated for a Grammy. It was also featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Her most recent Red House release Beautiful World was hailed as masterpiece by All Music Guide and was called “one of the best folk albums of 2008” by the Utne Reader.




Eliza is the daughter of legendary songwriter Terry Gilkyson and grew up in Los Angeles knowing that her life would revolve around music. “I got into it for all the wrong reasons, more as a survival tool than anything else, but it proved to serve me more than I dared to imagine.” As a teenager, she recorded demos for her father, an accomplished songwriter whose songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Dean Martin, Johnny Cash (“Memories Are Made of This”) and the White Stripes (“Look Me Over Closely”), and whose credits include such standards as “Green Fields,” “Marianne” and “The Bare Necessities” (from the Disney film Jungle Book).

The concert will also celebrate Eliza's brand new CD - Roses at the End of Time. Once again pushing the boundaries of folk music, Eliza cleverly disguises her sly social commentaries within catchy acoustic ballads, edgy folk rockers and fresh electronic atmospheres that paint a vivid image of life's struggles and triumphs in a world that she feels is "poised on the edge of moral, economic and environmental bankruptcy." The ten songs of Roses at the End of Time run the full spectrum of emotions and issues. Whether it's in socio-political anthems like the soulful, slithering "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" or moody ballads like "Blue Moon Night" and "Belle of the Ball," a collection of fragmented memories of her mother, Eliza intermingles the political with the personal, with stinging edge and heart-aching elegance. Not straying too far from her folk roots, Eliza delivers a down-home banjo-driven Americana cover of her brother Tony Gilkyson's song "Death in Arkansas" which also features vocals by fellow Red House artists John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky. The driving rocker "Looking for a Place" and the reflective "Once I had a Home" proves she is a powerful songwriter whose rich, poetic lyrics reveal her as a songwriter at the height of her storytelling powers.

John Gorka is a world-renowned singer-songwriter who was raised in New Jersey and came out of New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene that produced such songwriters as Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin. His award-winning songs have been recorded and performed by such notable artists as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith and Mary Black. John has recorded eleven solo albums, six on Red House Records.



His latest, So Dark You See, featured the song “Ignorance & Privilege,” which was highlighted as one of the top folk songs of 2009 by NPR Music. The album also includes unique musical takes on some of his favorite songs and poems, including Robert Burns’ “A Fond Kiss” and Utah Phillips’ “I Think of You.” It also includes “Where No Monuments Stand,” his musical version of the poem “At the Un-national Monument by the Canadian Border” by Oregon Poet Laureate William Stafford, which was written for the documentary on Stafford’s life called Every War Has Two Losers.

Opening the evening will be Beaucoup Blue, the Philadelphia based group of David and Adrian Mowry. Father and son have been performing their roots based music nationally and internationally as a duo, quartet and on occasion quintet. Bridging many gaps in American music, their soulful traditional and contemporary styles mesh into an innovative and authentic sound. Although blues is a staple in their repertoire, they base their love in music from Folk, Soul, R&B, Jazz, Country and Bluegrass. All these interests and influences come out in their original song-writing in a unique way.