Gillian Welch

A throwback to the lonesome, heartfelt simplicity of old time country, Gillian Welch's rustic storytelling and plaintive, fragile voice are steeped in the roots of Americana and full of haunting, traditional melancholy. Born in New York she was adopted and moved to Los Angeles, where she grew up singing Carter Family and Woody Guthrie songs. After discovering the Stanley Brothers while at the Berklee College of Music, she started to collaborate with class mate David Rawlings. The pair moved to Nashville in the early 1990s, and continued to write and perform under Gillian's name despite being a natural partnership. T-Bone Burnett produced their Grammy-nominated debut album 'Revival' in 1996 and follow-up 'Hell Among the Yearlings' had an air of eerie tragedy that became her trademark and featured the remarkable 'Caleb Mayer', a murder ballad from the perspective of an abused woman. Welch came to wider attention when she sang with Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris on the 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' soundtrack for the hit Cohen Brothers movie, and she went on to feature on records by Ani DiFranco, Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes and Mark Knopfler alongside her own releases 'Time (The Revelator)' in 2001 and 'Soul Journey' in 2003. There was a lengthy period when Welch struggled to come up with new material she was happy with, but in 2011 'The Harrow and the Harvest' became her most successful album reaching number 20 in the US charts and receiving a flood of critical acclaim.

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