John Gorka | |
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Background information | |
Born | Colonia, New Jersey, U.S. | July 27, 1958
Genres | Folk |
Occupation(s) | Songwriter, musician |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitars, piano |
Years active | 1980s–present |
Labels | Windham Hill, High Street, Red House |
Website | www |
John Gorka (born July 27, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter. [1] In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine called him "the preeminent male singer-songwriter of what has been dubbed the New Folk Movement." [2]
Gorka was raised in the Colonia section of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, where he attended Colonia High School. [3]
He studied philosophy and history at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and graduated from there in 1980. [4]
As of 2005, he was residing in the St. Croix Valley area near Saint Paul, Minnesota.[ citation needed ]
Gorka formed the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band with Doug Anderson and Russ Rentler, which would also include guitarist Richard Shindell. After graduating from Moravian, he began performing solo at Godfrey Daniels coffee house in South Bethlehem as the opening act for various musicians including Nanci Griffith, Bill Morrissey, Claudia Schmidt and Jack Hardy. In 1984, Gorka was one of six winners chosen from the finalists in the New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Since then he has regularly toured Europe and North America. [5] [6] [7]
In 1987, Gorka recorded his first album, I Know. It was released by Red House —beginning a long association with that label. Although his next five albums were distributed by Windham Hill and High Street, he returned to Red House with 1998's After Yesterday and produced eight albums with them over the next twenty years—most recently True in Time (2018). [8] [9]
He has appeared with artists such as Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Michael Manring, Christine Lavin, Dave Van Ronk, Cliff Eberhardt, David Massengill, Frank Christian, Antje Duvekot, Meg Hutchinson, and Lucy Kaplansky. He joined with Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson to form the folk supergroup Red Horse in 2010, touring together and releasing a self-titled album on which they performed each other's compositions. Red Horse toured through July 2014.
Promotional EPs
Remix albums
DVD
Compilation albums
On various artists compilations
Lucy Kaplansky is an American folk musician based in New York City. Kaplansky has a PhD in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University and plays guitar, mandolin, and piano.
High Street Records was a subsidiary label of Windham Hill Records from about 1990 to 1997. Notable acts who recorded for the label include John Gorka, Pierce Pettis, Patty Larkin, The Subdudes, Downy Mildew, and Dots Will Echo. Several singer-songwriters associated with High Street appeared on the 1989 Windham Hill compilation, Legacy: A Collection of New Folk Music and the 1992 follow-up on High Street, Legacy II: A Collection of Singer-songwriters.
Out of the Valley is a 1994 album by contemporary folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. This is Gorka's fifth album and unlike the previous four recorded in various places in the northeastern United States, Out of the Valley was recorded at Imagine Sound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. This is also the first of several Gorka albums to employ the talents of guitarist/producer John Jennings.
Terry Gilkyson was an American folk singer and songwriter.
Eliza Gilkyson is a Taos, New Mexico–based folk musician. She is the daughter of songwriter and folk musician Terry Gilkyson and his wife, Jane. Her brother is guitarist Tony Gilkyson, who played with the Los Angeles–based bands Lone Justice and X. She is married to scholar and author Robert Jensen. Gilkyson is a two-time Grammy Award nominee, receiving a nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 2004 and Best Folk Album in 2014.
Red House Records is an independent folk and Americana record label in St. Paul, Minnesota. The label was founded in 1983 by Bob Feldman after seeing a performance by Iowa folk singer Greg Brown.
Writing in the Margins is the tenth studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. It was released on July 11, 2006, by Red House Records and debuted at number one on the Folk Music Radio Airplay Chart. One departure from previous recordings is the inclusion of a couple of cover songs that blend nicely with Gorka's own compositions. Gorka received some encouragement from Nanci Griffith to record Townes Van Zandt's "Snow Don't Fall", and pays tribute to a personal hero by covering Stan Rogers' "Lockkeeper". Gorka also shares writing credit with his wife, Laurie Allman, on several tracks.
Pure John Gorka is a "best of" collection of John Gorka's work selected from the five albums Gorka released on the Windham Hill/High Street label between 1990 and 1996. This collection was released on June 27, 2006, by Windham Hill as part of a series of "Pure" albums by former Windham Hill artists; other titles cover the careers of diverse musicians such as Jim Brickman, Mark Isham, Shadowfax, Tuck & Patti, and Will Ackerman.
After Yesterday is the seventh studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. It was released on October 20, 1998, by Red House Records. The album marked Gorka's return to Red House, after five albums with Windham Hill/High Street Records. This was heralded as a homecoming-of-sorts as Red House had issued Gorka's debut, I Know in 1987. The album also marks several changes in the life of the artist himself. Themes of parenting and family life first heard here on songs such as, "When He Cries" and "Cypress Trees" have now become a regular feature of Gorka's subsequent albums.
The Company You Keep is the eighth studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. It was released on March 13, 2001, by Red House Records.
Between Five and Seven is the sixth studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. It was released in August 1996. It is the last of the five albums Gorka recorded for Windham Hill/High Street Records before returning to the smaller, Red House label. Gorka produced the album with John Jennings who also produced Gorka's previous record, Out of the Valley. Unlike the previous record made in Nashville, Tennessee, the recording was done at Paisley Park Studios, Chanhassen, Minnesota and the instrumentation has been described as "more acoustic, less pop-oriented." Paisley Park is southwest of Minneapolis and is the studio designed and owned by the artist, Prince.
Legacy: A Collection of New Folk Music and Legacy II: A Collection of Singer-songwriters are a pair of compilations that were released by Windham Hill Records in 1989 and 1992 respectively to introduce listeners to a new crop of young singer-songwriters.
Land of the Bottom Line is the second album by contemporary folk singer-songwriter John Gorka. The album was also Gorka's major label debut for High Street Records/Windham Hill Records. The album was highly acclaimed by critics at the time, and continues to be cited by some as Gorka's finest work. The album's fifteen tracks and near hour-long length also provided an unusually large amount of music for a recording of that era. As Sing Out! editor Mark Moss noted in a review, the topics covered run "the gamut of John's favorite subjects: love, hard luck, local characters, and more."
Over the Hills is the sixth solo album by New York singer–songwriter Lucy Kaplansky, released in 2007. The album contains a mix of covers and original songs written with her husband, Rick Litvin.
The Red Thread is the fifth solo album by New York City singer-songwriter Lucy Kaplansky, released in 2004.
Red Horse may refer to:
Windham Hill Records was an independent record label that specialized in instrumental acoustic music. It was founded by guitarist William Ackerman and Anne Robinson in 1976 and was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
Red Horse is a collaboration by independent folk singer-songwriters Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka, and Lucy Kaplansky. It is both the name of the studio album released by the trio on Red House Records in July 2010, and the name under which they have toured and performed in concert together as a supergroup.
So Dark You See is the eleventh studio album by folk singer-songwriter John Gorka, released on October 13, 2009. The album offers eight new examples of Gorka's own lyrical songwriting, two instrumental tracks, poetry of Robert Burns and William Stafford performed and set to music by Gorka, covers of songs by fellow folk musicians, Utah Phillips and Michael Smith, and Gorka's take on the blues standard, "Trouble in Mind".
Cliff Eberhardt is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is a founding member of the Fast Folk Music Cooperative in New York City. Eberhardt joined Red House Records in 1997 and has recorded five albums for the label, the most recent in 2009, 500 Miles: The Blue Rock Sessions. In 2011, he released an acoustic album of Doors songs, All Wood and Doors, with fellow musician James Lee Stanley on Beechwood Recordings. Also that year, he contributed a cover to Nod to Bob II, a Red House compilation honoring Bob Dylan on his 70th birthday.