Renowned songwriter Eliza Gilkyson has announced the follow-up to her critically acclaimed political masterpiece, 2020, which topped the folk radio charts and won Eliza the “Best Song of the Year” award from the Folk International Alliance. Her new album, Songs From the River Wind, is what she calls her love letter to the Old West. It’s composed of snapshots of the people and places, lives and loves lost and found over her years of wandering the West as a musical minstrel, searching for her heart’s home. The album will be out January 14th, on Howlin’ Dog Records.
Feeling the need to take a little break from the socio-political music that she felt compelled to write for her last six albums, the twice Grammy-nominated artist moved her base from Austin, TX to Taos, NM. Inspired by memories of characters and events that birthed her enduring love affair with the West, the songs span 40 years — from originals to vintage classics — and culminates with her recent decision to relocate permanently to Taos, where she is sinking down deep roots at long last.
With a nod to her dad, folksinger Terry Gilkyson and his 1950s folk group “The Easy Riders,” who recorded original and traditional folk songs with a distinctive western flavor, Eliza joined forces with her old friend Don Richmond to produce the record, enlisting Don’s much loved Southwest band “The Rifters” to sing backup harmonies.
As always, Eliza enlists top-notch musicians for the sessions, with cameos from Warren Hood on fiddle, Kym Warner on mandolin, and Michael Hearne on vocals. Songs from the River Wind finds Eliza performing old and new originals, select cover songs that fit the theme, and a few adaptations of venerable old cowboy tunes adapted to a female perspective.
Don and Eliza went for the kind of western/folk sound that highlights her love of storytelling and true blue characters, her love of the rivers and the mountains, and her joyful return to the high desert plateau “at the foot of the Mountain” she now calls home.
Eliza quotes the Irish poet George Moore, who said, ‘A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.’ “The same can be said for this woman, a wanderer who loved the road and the music life but who was always hoping to find her true home in the world,” she says.
Songs From the River Wind is the story of that quest, the lives and loves, the people and places in her beloved West, and the river of longing that brought her to the place where she could finally rest her bones and feel, with certainty, that she was home.
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Don’t Stop Loving Me,” a love song not only to a partner but a place, embracing the expansive vistas and gorgeous sunsets of the West and celebrating the home you expect to be your last. Indeed, the dreamy pedal steel guitar and warm, easygoing vocals make this a perfect ode to the sweeping beauty of the American West. Gilkyson swoons with plenty of imagery that transports you to this sparse and dramatic landscape. The addition of fiddle and whistling make it feel like you are sitting on her porch with boots kicked up and a cold beer as you take in the fresh air, making this something of a cowboy song that is somewhere beyond folk, Americana, and country.
“This song is the culmination of years of searching for true love and a true home. It seemed like a great way to wrap up this new record, which describes some aspects of that journey, especially my love of the Old West, the memorable faces and places I encountered over the years, and my joyful homecoming to the mountains of Northern New Mexico with this song of love in my heart.” – Eliza Gilkyson
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Photo credit: Robert Jensen
One Response
genius….enough said….