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  Home Page » A&E » Gilkyson Gerber To Play For Great Old Broads

Gilkyson, Gerber to play for Great Old Broads

Headliners will precede local band Wild Mountain in Thursday benefit

by Ted Holteen
Arts & Entertainment Editor It's not like they needed a reason to bring Eliza Gilkyson and Nina Gerber to town - the ladies' music speaks for itself - but the presence of the two folk superstars likely will ensure the success of the Great Old Broads for Wilderness fundraiser Thursday night.

"Eliza and I go back to the '70s together, and she and I have been trying to put something together since I came to Great Old Broads eight years ago," said Ronni Egan, executive director of the Durango chapter of the national organization.

"This is the first time we've been able to come up with a date, and if ever there was a great broad, Eliza is one," Egan said. "She's one of the few people out there writing topical songs addressing serious environmental and global issues. We're both children of the '60s and '70s, when everyone was writing those protest songs. Well, she's still writing them, and they're much prettier now."

Gilkyson is a traditional folk artist who first played Durango in 1971 at the Diamond Belle Saloon when she was pregnant with her daughter. She has been back many times since. She met Egan in 1979 when both women lived in Santa Fe, but now that she lives in Austin and maintains a regular tour schedule, reconnecting in Durango was proving difficult until this week.

"I knew I'd be running around the Rockies, and we grabbed it," Gilkyson said Monday from her Denver hotel room, where she and Gerber were trapped after a snowstorm forced them to forego a scheduled date in Crested Butte.

It was only the second time in 10 years she's had to cancel a show, but the forecast for this week shouldn't present any problems for Thursday's event.

"We support them in any way we can," she said of the preservation and conservation efforts of the Great Old Broads. "They have a real personality instead of being an amorphous, lawyer-driven group. They're more hands-on, in your face, and I love it that these older women, who are usually so marginalized in our society, have such a strong voice."

Gerber's presence adds virtuoso guitar accompaniment to Gilkyson's polished sound. She is recognized as one of the best acoustic and electric players on the folk scene, regardless of gender, having established herself on the California circuit with the late Kate Wolf from 1976 until the singer's death from leukemia in 1986. Since then, she's played and recorded with a who's who of folk music, including Mollie O'Brien, Nanci Griffith, Greg Brown, Tom Paxton and many others.

"People will be amazed at how fluent she is, and it's very exciting what she adds to my shows," Gilkyson said of Gerber.

"We've been described as a two-woman band, very orchestral, very musical, and we cover a lot of bases between the two of us."

In an odd twist, Gilkyson and Gerber will precede Wild Mountain, a local folk and bluegrass band. Typically, the headliners don't go first, but Gilkyson described her show as more of a listening event, and the two ladies will play immediately after a meet-and-greet reception. Then, Wild Mountain will take the stage for a more dance-driven set, and the headliners will party along with the rest of the crowd.

"It's a little-known secret among performers that it's more fun to go first. Ours is very focused, and we're looking forward to letting our hair down with everyone else after we play," Gilkyson said.

ted@durangoherald.com