Eliza Gilkyson
Lost and Found
Red House Records RHR CD 162

by Bonny Holder

Eliza Gilkyson, currently an Austinite, has been around awhile. A native of L.A., her papa, Terry Gilkyson, wrote folk hits of the 60's, including "Take off your old coat and roll up your sleeves, life is a hard road to follow, I believe," AND, "Once there were green fields, kissed by the sun...once there were valleys where rivers used to run..."

Her brother, Tony, was in the legendary band X. And now her handsome son, Cisco Ryder, is becoming a popular percussionist. There probably was no way that Eliza was not going to become a musician.

Her songwriting on this new one, Lost and Found, has ripened and matured. Her sparkling sense of humor comes front and center in her lyrics. Her melodies are memorable, and she has some terrific players on this disk ­ keyboard god David Webb, for one, along with Gurf Morlix, Rich Brotherton, Mike Hardwick, Michael Ramos and, on backing vocals, Patty Griffin and Slaid Cleaves.

Red House Records is a good home for Eliza. Her music encompasses her southwestern outlook but is much more homogenous than that. Vocally, she is a bit gravelly and she does not have much range. This is more than made up for in her sincerity of presentation, and the fact that she writes and sings actually interesting songs.

For example, in "Richmond Boy", she sings:

He don't emotionally swing
He notices the little things
He don't mind my defects
He don't scare me when we fight
He's quiet when he sleeps
And puts the seat down in the night.

In "Easy Rider," a tribute to her wild father who died a couple of years ago, she sings:

You paid your money and you took your ride
Somewhere along the way you let the whole thing slide
Left you standing empty-handed at the riverside

Now I miss the talking sweet and sad
Miss the kind of love we almost had
I know the devil drove my father
but the lord got Daddy...

Lost and Found is her most well-produced effort to date (self-produced, along with Mark Hallman). It's worth a serious listen. The time of the mature female singer-songwriter has come, and Eliza Gilkyson is right up there in front with the best.

We sleep so easily
Burn the oil like it's free
Watch the war on tv with god on our side
We're stronger than them
Bomb, rebuild and defend
Lose it all in the end down by the riverside

*Eliza Gilkyson can be found at www.elizagilkyson.com . Red House Records is at www.redhouserecords.com


You can contact Bonny Holder at bonny-at-rockzilla.net

 
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