Eliza Gilkyson with special guest Ellis Paul

Poetically gifted  singer-songwriter from Austin has become one of the most respected musicians in roots, folk, and Americana.

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.” A scathing indictment of the Bush administration’s use of religion to manipulate the public, the song has become a political anthem to many and has received wide airplay around the world. Recently, 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.

The daughter of successful folksinger Terry Gilkyson, Eliza is a third-generation poet/musician who, growing up in Los Angeles, knew that her life would revolve around music. "I got into it for all the wrong reasons, more as a survival tool then anything else, but it proved to serve me more than I dared to imagine it ever could." As a young teenager she recorded demos for her dad (who wrote folk/pop music hits "Greenfields", Marianne", and "Memories are Made of This", among others) and started writing and recording her own material as well.

At the end of the sixties, she moved to New Mexico with likeminded souls, eventually raising a family, all the while developing a loyal fan base in the Southwest and Texas. She cut numerous records including Pilgrims, released on Gold Castle Records in 1987. It was her most successful to date, but it also gave her a reputation as a new age artist due to its atmospheric nature – a brief departure from her folk-driven roots. After a period in Europe working with Swiss composer/harpist Andreas Vollenweider, Eliza returned to the United States and released several albums to critical acclaim before signing with internationally recognized roots label Red House Records.

Eliza’s first album on Red House Hard Times in Babylon came out in 2000, and soon after came another critical success – Lost and Found.  Eliza followed this breakthrough album with her 2004 release Land of Milk and Honey, which was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Contemporary Folk Album.  The CD was decidedly socio-political in nature, from the Iraq War awareness plea, “Hiway 9,” to the call for peace in Woody Guthrie's previously unrecorded and timely peace anthem, “Peace Call,” a track featuring vocals by friends and fellow artists Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Iris DeMent.

2005’s Paradise Hotel was her most personal album to date.  It featured songs that artfully revealed the roots of her progressive patriotism and commented on the direction our world is headed by peeling back the thin layers obscuring the heart of what matters in these complex times.  The album included guest appearances by Shawn Colvin and label-mate Ray Bonneville and included vocal support from an all-star Austin cast including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves, Marcia Ball and others.  Anxiously awaited by fans and critics alike, her live album Your Town Tonight was released summer of 2007 and featured songs that were fan favorites as well as lesser known originals from her pre-Red House days and covers of songs by Bob Dylan and her father Terry Gilkyson.

Eliza’s new album Beautiful World is her first studio album in three years and is an evocative collection of songs that explore optimism and love for the world despite its violence and darkness.  Smart, sensual lyrics combine with upbeat Americana, folk and pop sounds to create her most radio-friendly CD to date.  In support of this record, Eliza will tour in North America and Europe.

Eliza’s special guest for the evening, Ellis Paul, is one of the leading voices in American songwriting. He was a principal leader in the wave of singer-songwriters that emerged from the Boston folk scene, creating a movement that revitalized the national acoustic circuit with an urban, literate, folk pop style that helped renew interest in the genre in the 1990s.  

His charismatic, personally authentic performance style has influenced a generation of artists away from the artifice of pop, and closer towards the realness of folk. Though he remains among the most pop-friendly of today's singer-songwriters - his songs regularly appear in hit movie and TV soundtracks - he has bridged the gulf between the modern folk sound and the populist traditions of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger more successfully than perhaps any of his songwriting peers.