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Chanteuse
Country/Folk US née Gillian Howard Welch le 2 Octobre 1967 à New York. Élevée à
Los Angeles par ses parents adoptifs, Gillian Welch étudie la photographie à
l'Université de Californie et découvre la musique bluegrass, notamment
Bill Monroe et The
Stanley Brothers. Elle étudie
ensuite la composition au Berklee College of Music de Boston, où elle rencontre
David Rawlings. Après l'obtention de son diplôme en 1992, Welch part s'installer
avec Rawlings à Nashville. Celui-ci participe à l'élaboration de ses albums,
d'abord en tant que musicien, puis producteur ; au sujet de leur collaboration
elle déclare : «
We're a two-piece band called Gillian Welch ».
(Nous fonctionnons comme un duo dont le nom serait Gillian Welch).
Gillian Welch continue de composer et commence à se faire connaitre à l'échelon
local, en 1993 elle remporte la première édition du
«
Chris Austin Songwriting Contest »,
concours organisé à Nashville dans le cadre du festival bluegrass Merlefest
et ouvert aux jeunes compositeurs. Elle signe un contrat avec la société
d'édition Almo/Irving Music Publishing puis avec le label Almo Sounds, lancé en
1995 par Herb Alpert et distribué par Geffen Records. Welch et Rawlings font la
connaissance du musicien et producteur T-Bone Burnett après avoir joué en
première partie d'un concert de Peter Rowan à Nashville. Burnett produit
Revival, le premier album du duo, auquel participent également le guitariste
James Burton et le batteur Jim Keltner.
Le disque est édité par le label Almo Sounds en 1996, et est nommé aux Grammy
Awards dans la catégorie
«
Best Contemporary Folk Album » (Meilleur
album folk contemporain) en 1997. L'album Time (The Revelator), paru
en 2001, est également nommé dans la même catégorie en 2002.
En 2000, les titres Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby qu'elle interprète
avec Emmylou Harris
et Alison Krauss,
et I'll Fly Away chanté en duo avec Krauss, apparaissent sur la bande
originale du film O'Brother, réalisé par les frères Joel et Ethan Coen.
Welch est également créditée en tant que productrice associée (Associate Music
Producer). La bande originale est nommée
«
Album of the Year » (Meilleur album de
l'année) lors de la 44è édition des Grammy Awards et atteint la première
place du hit parade pop américain en mars 2002.
Le duo a également travaillé avec d'autres artistes, Welch and Rawlings chantent
notamment sur deux morceaux (Speedway at Nazareth et Prairie Wedding)
de l'album Sailing to Philadelphia du guitariste Mark Knopfler, paru en
2000. Ils sont aussi crédités, entre autres, sur l'album Heartbreaker de
Ryan Adams en 2000 ainsi que sur l'album Spooked du chanteur anglais
Robyn Hitchcock, édité en 2004. Les chansons de Gillian Welch ont été
interprétées entre autres par
Emmylou Harris (Orphan
Girl reprise sur l'album Wrecking Ball en 1995) et Joan Baez (Caleb
Meyer et Elvis Presley Blues reprises sur l'album Dark Chords on a
Big Guitar en 2003).
Gillian Welch
first appeared on the folk scene as a young singer/songwriter armed with a voice
and sensibility far beyond her years, earning widespread acclaim for her deft,
evocative resurrection of the musical styles most commonly associated with rural
Appalachia of the early 20th century. Welch was born in 1967 in Manhattan and
grew up in West Los Angeles, where her parents wrote material for the comedy
program The Carol Burnett Show. It was as a child that she became fascinated by
bluegrass and early country music, in particular the work of the
Stanley Brothers, the
Delmore Brothers, and the
Carter Family.
In the early '90s, Welch attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston,
Massachusetts, where she began performing her own material, as well as
traditional country and bluegrass songs, as part of a duo with fellow student
David Rawlings. After honing their skills in local open mike showcases, the duo
began performing regularly throughout the country. While opening for
Peter Rowan in Nashville, they were
spotted by musician and producer T-Bone Burnett, who helped Welch and Rawlings
land a record deal. With Burnett producing, they cut 1996's starkly beautiful
Revival, an album split between bare-bones duo performances -- some even
recorded in mono to capture a bygone sound -- and more full-bodied cuts
featuring legendary sessionmen like guitarist
James Burton, upright bassist Roy Huskey,
Jr., and drummers Buddy Harmon and Jim Keltner.
Her sophomore album, Hell Among the Yearlings, followed in 1998. The years
following her second release found Welch involved in several soundtracks (O
Brother, Where Art Thou?, Songcatcher), tribute albums (Songs of
Dwight Yoakam: Will Sing for Food,
Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to
Gram Parsons), and guest spots on other artists' albums (Ryan Adams'
Heartbreaker, Mark Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia). Following the success of
O Brother, Welch and Rawlings found themselves in the center of a traditional
American folk revival and released their third album, Time (The Revelator), in
mid-2001. Steady touring, guest appearances, and the release of a DVD (The
Revelator Collection) kept the pair busy, but in 2003 they found time to record
Soul Journey, their second release on their own Acony Records label. Rawlings
cut his first solo album, A Friend of Mine, though Welch sang harmony all over
it. It was issued in 2009. Welch didn't release another album under her own name
again until 2011, when she and Rawlings released The Harrow & The Harvest on
Acony. She and Rawlings co-produced, sang, and played everything on the album,
which was engineered by Matt Andrews.
Welch and Rawlings both participated in the recording of 2014's Look Again to
the Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited, a multi-artist album that paid
tribute to
Cash's landmark concept album on Native American history. In 2015, Welch sat
in on the sessions for the second Dave Rawlings Machine album, Nashville
Obsolete. Welch and Rawlings looked back to their first album with the 2016
collection Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg, which featured unreleased
outtakes, alternate versions, and demos from the making of Revival.
Talents : Vocals, Guitar, Banjo, Harmonica, Songwriter
Style musical : Alt-Country, Bluegrass, Neo-Traditional Folk, Americana, Contemporary Folk
Years in activity :
| 1910 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 2000 | 10 | 20 |
DISCOGRAPHY
Singles & EP
| 1996 | CD ALMO SOUNDS PRO-CD-8006 (US) (promo) |
 |
Paper Wings (LP version) |
| 1996 | CD ALMO SOUNDS PRO-CD-4911 (US) (promo) |
 |
SAMPLER - Pass You By / One More Dollar / Paper Wings / Tear My Stillhouse Down |
| 1998 | CD ALMO SOUNDS ALMCD60PR (UK) (promo) |
 |
Gillian Welch - My Morphine / By The Mark / Paper Wings / Caleb Meyer / Whiskey Girl / Acony Bell |
| 2001 | CD ACONY ACNY Pro3 (US) |
Elvis Presley Blues (radio edit) |
|
| 2005 | CD ACONY ACNY PRO5 (US) |
 |
Black Star / Pocahontas |
| 2011 | CD ACONY ? (UK) |
 |
Silver Dagger / Tennessee |
| 2011 | CD ACONY ? (UK) (promo) | . |
The Way It Goes |
Albums
| 04/1996 | CD ALMO SOUNDS 80006 (US) |
 |
REVIVAL - Orphan Girl / Annabelle / Pass You By / Barroom Girls / One More Dollar / By The Mark / Paper Wings / Tear My Stillhouse Down / Acony Bell / Only One And Only | ||
| 07/1998 | CD UNIVERSAL 80552 (US) |
 |
HELL AMONG THE YEARLINGS - Caleb Meyer / Good Til Now / The Devil Had A Hold Of Me / My Morphine / One Morning / Miner's Refrain / Honey Now / I'm Not Afraid To Die / Rock Of Ages / Whiskey Girl / Winter's Come And Gone | ||
| 1998 | 2 CD ACONY ACNY-PR01 (US) (numbered, promo) |
 |
Revival / Hell Among The Yearlings :
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| 07/2001 | CD ACONY ACNY 0103 (US) |
 |
TIME (THE REVELATOR) - Revelator / My First Lover / Dear Someone / Red Clay Halo / April The 14th, Pt. 1 / I Want To Sing That Rock And Roll / Elvis Presley Blues / Ruination Day, Pt. 2 / Everything Is Free / I Dream A Highway | ||
| 06/2003 | CD ACONY ACNY0305 (US) |
 |
SOUL JOURNEY - Look At Miss Ohio / Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor / Wayside - Back In Time / I Had A Real Good Mother And Father / One Monkey / No One Knows My Name / Lowlands / One Little Song / I Made A Lovers Prayer / Wrecking Ball | ||
| 02/2011 | CD ACONY ACNY1109 (US) |
 |
THE HARROW & THE HARVEST - Scarlet Town / Dark Turn Of Mind / The Way It Will Be / The Way It Goes / Tennessee / Down Along The Dixie Line / Six White Horses / Hard Times / Silver Dagger / The Way The Whole Thing Ends | ||
| 11/2016 | 2 CD ACONY CDACNY 1601 (US) |
 |
Boots No 1 - The
Official Revival Bootleg :
|
||
| 07/2017 | LP 12" ACONY ACNY-1109LP (US) |
 |
The Harrow & The Harvest - Scarlet Town / Dark Turn Of Mind / The Way It Will Be / The Way It Goes / Tennessee / Down Along The Dixie Line / Six White Horses / Hard Times / Silver Dagger / The Way The Whole Thing Ends |
© Rocky Productions 29/02/2020
