Gilkyson and Gerber Get New Fan

When I heard that KZFR was sponsoring a concert at the Chico Women’s Club last Friday night, featuring Eliza Gilkyson along with Nina Gerber, I’d never heard Eliza Gilkyson’s music before. But I got interested when I learned that she played acoustic folk music and was nominated for a Grammy Award. And when a friend told me that Nina Gerber was going to accompany Eliza on guitar and that she had played with Kate Wolf’s band I thought, “I’m going!”

Being a photographer, I took photos of the two women, Eliza Gilkyson in color, thereby capturing something of the warmth of her voice and lyrics, and Nina Gerber in black and white because I thought the neutral colors would better show the intensity of her concentration on the guitar – the combination resulting in a sound that can never be adequately duplicated.

The song I liked best was Fast Freight by Eliza’s father, singer and songwriter, Terry Gilkyson. Perhaps I gravitate toward train sounds because I grew up adjacent to a San Fernando Valley railroad track or because of the long railroad journeys to Denver for summer vacations. Now, in Chico, I hear the distant sound of a late-night train as it passes through town telling me, “If you go you can’t come back.”