Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter/guitarist Eliza Gilkyson has been inducted into the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame and is also adored by New Age music fans–a surprising mix of distinctions she takes them in stride, as she does the demands of both family duties and a long, distinguished music career. At 67 years old, she has released almost two dozen albums of socially-aware, sometimes visionary, eminently singable original songs-most recently, “The Nocturne Diaries”– as well as DVDs and stunning, politically-charged videos, including “The Great Correction” and “Fast Freight”. She lives in Austin, Texas and near Taos , New Mexico. Eliza will perform on the afternoon of Thursday, September 7 at the 2017 15th Annual Michael Hearne’s Big Barn Dance in Kit Carson Park, Taos, New Mexico.
We spoke by phone on August 17, 2017.
BN You are going to be playing at Michael Hearne’s 15th Annual Big Barn Dance Festival in Taos, New Mexico on September 7. Have you been there before?
EG I have but it was years ago. He has moved it around over the years and now it is at this wonderful place in the park right in the center of Taos. I’m really thrilled to be there this year.
BN Last year, I saw Bob Livingston and so many others play there. It was grand.
EG Well, Taos is such a special place. I actually now have a house near Taos in Arroyo Seco where I live in the summer. It’s a 100 year old adobe with an orchard and water rights. It’s funky and beautiful and my whole family can stay there at once. I love it, and it is part of what keeps me sane.
BN Is your son, Cisco Ryder, still playing with your band?
EG He does still play with me on occasion but he has a family now and so I can’t always take him out touring with me, but he also produces my records, and my recent videos, “Fast Freight” and “The Great Correction”, which are both up on YouTube.
BN Speaking of “The Great Correction” and the beautiful cover version you did of Jackson Browne’s “Before the Deluge” on the Jackson Browne tribute album, it seems safe to say these songs are “apocalyptic”.
EG Yes, you could describe them that way.
BN We are now in perhaps the strangest situation we have ever been in as a country. Feelings are very intense. Do you feel hopeful, do you feel scared, do you feel angry. How do you feel?
EG You know, I wrote the song, “The Great Correction” almost ten years ago. So, I’m not surprised, put it that way. I have felt the inevitability of the choices that we have made as a nation and as human beings. We have been at the mercy of unfair systems of power for so long, but there have always been enough resources to escape, or to manage, or to compensate. So now, I think this is an inevitable outcome of systems of power where greed is allowed to go unchecked. So, I’m not surprised but I would say grief-stricken is more the word. In terms of what I would call “hopeful”, I’m pragmatic, I’m what I would call “realistic”. I prefer to do research and find out what is real and true, because I can manage the truth better than I can manage perpetuating a pollyanna hopefulness.
BN Right.
EG And that’s just the kind of person I am. I prefer to know the facts even though in this case the facts are not in our favor. I do think that it’s important to understand that we don’t really know how any of this is going to play out. There are forces at play that we don’t fully understand. We can know that a huge change is occurring, but we don’t know how that is going to pan out. Environmentally, we know it is not good, so that much we have the facts on. So, it’s not a happy picture. But there are degrees of happiness, and some of those degrees hold more hope than others. I’m sorry, that is a very long answer!
BN It’s a good answer.
EG That’s not a good answer for a newspaper article. Let’s just say that I am uncertain. I am not hopeful, but I am still able to tap into my source of joy and love. I hope that the more humane side of us will prevail.
BN That’s beautiful, and it seems that even in the darkness here, the mystery will prevail.
EG I write about that a lot. You know we think that we have answers but we really don’t and we’re actually groping around in the dark. And that is actually hopeful to me. (Laughs.) I don’t know how we’re going to change the balance of power, I really don’t. I’ve been reading today about the mind-set of the “alt.right” and they actually really, they really feel that Trump is like a god to them, despite the health care failure and every thing else, they still really believe in him. So they’re going to follow this guy down, they have pinned so much hope on him and I think it is too devastating for them to realize the level of betrayal and lying that is coming from him. And that frightens me, because that’s a mentality that isn’t going to change in spite of the evidence that is being laid before them
BN He may be a false god, but even if they were to accept his falseness, that is not going to get them out of the darkness that they are in. It’s scary.
EG No, and the violence he is absolutely nurturing at this point, they believe in the righteousness of it, and that is very frightening.
BN My partner and I were just in Ireland and everyone there seems frightened by what is happening in America. But when we came back to Albuquerque, we attended a rally with Reverend Barber of the NAACP and the New Poor Peoples’ Campaign. Something like a thousand people gathered. It was hopeful. And we were so moved. The stress was on nonviolence as a practical tactic, like ML King or Ghandi, as a way to put forth much more strength.
EG I agree. Apparently in Charlottesville, the protestors of the march were definitely defending themselves. They did not start the violence, despite what the right is claiming. I read eye witness accounts. Those guys, those Nazis were really thirsting for blood. So I’m worried about Boston. The left does have an anarchist faction which can really light a flame. We need to be 100% non violent for our protests to work. There are very specific rules in non-violent actions and we need to be studying them and sharing them. I need to post them and the links to them.
It’s coming to a head. The last thing I would say about it is that we all have a task before us to hold to being humane and to realizing what it means to be a decent human being right now, in the face of everything. We need to model the best of human behavior because things can degrade so quickly.
BN I couldn’t agree more. About your own art—what are you working on now?
EG I’m working on a new record of songs. It’s a life work for me. I call them my “secular hymns”. I am writing new ones, and picking up some older ones too. They are all these songs which are hymn-like but they have no mention of god or a deity in them. Hymns about the sacredness of life, the mystery and my journey in trying to find answers to the unanswerable. I finally have realized that I didn’t have to have answers! And I just adopted an attitude of awe and gratitude and at the same time of grief for all that we are losing and are about to lose. I am putting all these songs together into an album which will be titled “Secular Hymns”—at least that is the working title.
BN Sounds fascinating.
EG: It is a challenge for me because some years ago I had a reputation as a “New Age” artist, and I am definitely NOT that at all now. This is about the mystery but also about the practical nature of being a human and about the mystery of what that is.
BN Beautiful.
EG Yes,that is what I am working on now. And it sits in front of me like a giant piece of stone which must be worked on to bring it into some sort of shape.
BN Will you be sharing some of those hymns in Taos?
EG I just might. There is an unspoken rule about not doing your next record out in public, but I actually find it is helpful to perform some new songs in front of people before I record them, so I just may do a few of them in Taos next month at the Big Barn Dance! Some of them are revamped versions of some of my older songs too.
BN Many of your long time fans will surely show up in Taos, but also it seems you are likely to perform before some folks who are new to your music.
EG I never know, and it will be on Thursday afternoon, but I am happy to be there. I will be happy to play no matter what! And I am going to hang for the whole weekend. There is a big Austin-Taos pipeline with lots of musicians and other folks who show up there. It’s like a big family, and great fun! I have a copy of Bob Livingston’s brand new record and it is just wonderful, and he will be performing there, so I am really looking forward to that, too. And Joe Ely, and Terry Allen—it is going to be so much fun!
BN Well, we will be there!
EG That makes me happy. See you soon.
