Photography Teya Rose
Gabrielle Louise is a nationally touring troubadour noted for her poignant lyrics and lush voice. The daughter of two vagabond musicians, Gabrielle inherited the predisposition to wanderlust and song. Gabrielle Louise's music is anchored deeply in folk and Americana, but undeniably drawn to rich harmonies and melodic adventurism. Her sound has the earthy feel of early Joni Mitchell while also veering into the spirited and versatile delivery of fellow genre-hopping artist Eva Cassidy. Unafraid to take a musical escapade in the name of inspiration, Gabrielle is at one moment folkie and ethereal, the next a smoky jazz chanteuse. Known for her authenticity and candor on stage, Gabrielle's performances are notably present and sincere, a professional presentation of her private creative world. Her story-telling and banter envelopes and enchants, gently enticing her listener to release their grip on the status quo. Perhaps because of this quality, Louise has been entrusted to share the stage with greats such as Richie Havens, Tom Paxton, Patty Larkin, Eliza Gilkyson, and Guy Clark. AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Gabrielle: The biggest life lesson I've learned is perseverance. This industry really lacks a format in a lot of ways - it's the wild west compared to most lines of work. Nobody says "If you do these five things you'll be promoted in a year." Every path to personal fulfillment is totally unique. Some have more glamorous stories, perhaps, but mine has definitely involved a lot of elbow grease -- from the discipline it takes to practice an instrument regularly to the humility it takes to refine a presentation in front of a room full of humans ready to laugh, cheer, or boo at any given moment. The stage is a dangerous place, you know? But it's a thrilling place, too. I've loved the whole of the journey. And the rewards of being a creative parent keep me going at all junctures. High points are fun to relay but man, low points are the best! I find that they "age" - that is to say, they get more charming the older the memories become. I'm thinking of being broken down in 2009 in one of my original tour vans on a Montana highway in February. The show was over and we'd made it part way to the next stop, but all of a sudden for some reason our "Vita (the Veggie Van)" wouldn't go forward another inch. However she would drive in reverse just fine, so my band and I found ourselves cruising backwards down the midnight interstate! The next day was Sunday and we couldn't find an available mechanic. My tour manager figured out how to rig up a switch on the dashboard that a co-pilot could engage to act as the gas pedal. He'd yell out "Swwwwiiitch!" every forty-five seconds or so and I'd turn it on so it could give gas to the engine. I still don't know how he did it, but we didn't miss the show! And thankfully, because it was at a beautiful Hot Springs Resort. :) AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Gabrielle: I'm kind of cracking myself up thinking of it, my early musical environment growing up. Like anything, it's a long story or a very short one. It's, well... two words: "late night." :) Even the night that I was born my parents were playing a three-set smokey bar gig-- you know the kind where danceable music is imperative and preferably all covers, too. My dad had a drum machine to fill out the sound of their duo, to keep things moving. Mom was a month from her due date, and I can imagine that she was doing her best Stevie Nicks impression, singing the hell out of "Dreams" with a big toothy smile that features her characteristic diastema. She tells it like this: An old woman comes up from the audience in between songs and says to her, real nasally and matter-of-factly, "You're gonna have that baby tonight." Mom tells her "No Way, I got another month!" And this mystery woman just repeats "You're gonna have that baby tonight." and walks off. They finished the set, settled up at for the show, rolled up the cables, packed up the P.A., and mom went into labor! After that she had three more kids, and they just trucked us around with them to the gigs. They kept us up so that we'd sleep in the next morning. I have a lot of early memories of hotels and this great airstream they owned most of my childhood. I remember their garage rehearsals, which were constant-- Jackson 5 ringing out the windows, mom singing "ABC, it's easy as 123, or simple as Do Re Mi." It was infectious! One time they locked me out for some reason and I just laid there with my ear pressed to the door seal to listen. I also remember standing on a chair to reach the CD player and put in ABBA CDs, Eagles CDs, Dire Straits, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor... I remember building stages out of couch cushions, using house slippers for microphones, and organizing my friends and siblings into all kinds of performance ensembles. In retrospect I wasn't doing anything surprising - just emulating my folks - but it certainly set my course in motion. Mom made sure I had voice and piano lessons, and Dad bought be my first guitar - a classical. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Gabrielle: Yes, it's so funny! Aside from ditties that I made up with my siblings, or little songs I sang to myself while doing chores, the first song that I named, harmonized and wrote lyrics for was called "Naive." And it was! I was just a little kid and the chorus went something like "I was so Naive, that I just couldn't see..." reflecting on, I don't know what -- the time that I was a toddler?!? I think I thought the word "Naive" sounded very sophisticated. Because I was the oldest child I always fancied myself an adult. I always sat at the adult table instead of the kids table during meals, and tried to sound mature and interesting when I talked. I took myself too seriously, of course. I probably still do. Anyway, I remember my folks had a little fight about this first song - my dad was helping me put chords to the melody and he kept insisting that it should have an even number of bars, 8 instead of 7 or something, on the chorus. I didn't hear it like that, so mom kept asserting there weren't rules. I think I am still rebelling against this idea! Some of my songs are very odd, with random bars of two beats and whatnot. After that it was a flood, and I started writing all the time. I found a binder of laminated (terrible) song lyrics the other day from when I was about 12. Dad would help me harmonize them and make little demos. Both of my parents always took me very seriously even though all my ideas were absolutely average. Sometimes I would worry to my dad that I didn't have an original lyric or melody and I can still hear his practical (and rather philosophical) response: "Gabrielle, there's nothing new under the sun." AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers etc? Gabrielle: At this point I've had a large number of influences, and the list grows all the time, but I think I have taken the most creative courage from Joni Mitchell and have learned from/deeply admired Eva Cassidy's vocal expression and dynamic. I love the dark, twisted humor and social commentary of Randy Newman, the careful craft of Leonard Cohen, and the wit of writers like Chris Smither, Guy Clark and John Prine. Jackson Browne is at the top of my list of musicians who I'd most like to meet or open for. If all my dreams came true he'd let me sing harmonies with him. Oh, and I like that your question includes other creative art forms! My last record, If the Static Clears, included a song written for and inspired by the story of Frida Kahlo, who really fascinates. A record I put out in 2010, Mirror the Branches, was really influenced by poets like Walt Whitman and Edgar Lee Masters. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Gabrielle: This is a funny thing to say, but songs are as diverse as human personalities are. They each require a totally different treatment, you know? But if I had to generalize, I would say I love contrast in humans as much as I love it in art. My boyfriend is this Woody Guthrie style songwriter who also was a Marine. When I met him, I was so intrigued by his story. What mental gymnastics! Anyway, I think contrast is at the center of great songs because it gives you something to chew on, like a bone. I'm thinking about Randy Newman's approach - these beautiful and very happy sounding melodies with very dark lyrical content. We have to think deeper about it when we listen. We have layers to unfold. Melody is also imperative. I'm starting to feel that if I can't sing the song easily without an instrument then it's probably somewhat unworthy to be recorded in my catalogue. That all has to do with the contour of the music mirroring natural speech patterns. It has to do with prosody and how the words marry the music. I don't think I always felt like that, and there's a lot of people who would say otherwise, but that just applies to my current ideals about my own body of work. If the melody isn't sticky and/or beautiful, I'm usually unable to do a good job interpreting the number, whether it's my own song or a cover. I had a music teacher in middle school tell me that he thought "memorable melodies are built from a series of small intervals, and beautiful melodies include large intervalic leaps." I think that's probably very true. An example I always think of that everyone knows is Für Elise. Think about how your heart soars when the first large intervalic leap comes after a series of tiny movements in the melody. That's contrast, too! AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Gabrielle: Wow. I love that you put it like that. The writing and creating of the song saves me. It absolutely does. I've had a ton of hardship in my life - like anyone, you know. Dad was an alcoholic, my parents never really had enough money. They loved each other passionately, but fought all the time. Dad died not so long ago--at 60. My youngest brother hadn't even gone to college yet. I felt like someone chopped me off at the knees. But songs are the handle I hang onto. Writing them and learning them. And writing short stories, in my journal, my blog. It doesn't seem to matter if what I'm writing is true, or good, or has perfect spelling or grammar. It's all my kind of therapy. I gave a TEDx talk about it last February. It was called "Autobiography and How to Exhale." AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Gabrielle: I love the community aspect of music: playing with my family, jams with other musicians, song-circles with other songwriters. I've told you a lot about my folks, but my siblings all play, too. One brother is an amazing percussionist - he played marimba on my last record on the song "The Graveyard Ballet." My sister sings and is now starting to play the guitar, too, so we have great fun harmonizing. My youngest brother is a punk rocker! He just graduated with a degree in sound engineering, so he has been kind enough to run the board at some of my concerts, which is just too cool. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Gabrielle: I have quite a few songs that are influenced by current events, and social commentary has been a big part of my career. I've written songs for environmental campaigns, scored and co-directed a documentary on water conservation, spoken at colleges about sustainability and alternative fuel use, advocated for the occupy movement (Amy Goodman aired a folk-rap song of mine in tandem with the occupy coverage in 2011) and at one point, I even put together a musical that was based on the idea of a touring Chautauqua. It was really about the need for more connectivity to the natural world. I've always had strong opinions about that, and while I don't expect people to agree with me, I do expect artists to push the boundaries of thinking for our culture. We should always be prompting people to ask questions rather than accept the status quo. I subscribe to the motto attributed to Woodie Guthrie-- that songwriters should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." One of my more recent songs, "Try the Door", was written immediately after Michelle Obama's speech in NH, where she said Trump's degrading comments about women "shook her to the core." AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Gabrielle: Advice is so tough for me! We're all learning as we go. I just think it's really important to wait out the tough spots. That whole "grit" idea. And the idea that "success" is not an identical portrait. It's totally unique to you, yeah? More pragmatically, it really helped me once I started recording in the studio and video-taping my performances. You just can't imagine how something is coming across while you're doing it. You need to be able to look at yourself the way a judging spectator does, or you won't know where you need to improve. It's also good to remember that you don't have to release everything you record. It's just as valuable to do it for the sake of learning from the process. That takes the pressure off and allows you to focus on the art until you've really got something you're really in love with, you know? I released a lot of stuff in the beginning that I wish I could get back, (I've been known to steal old records from radio station libraries when I return for an interview.) But then again, that's also just my story - I released stuff as a teen and my audience just watched me grow, I guess. I feel like I'm just coming into my true identity as a songwriter now. AHC: Do you have any new projects in the works you'd like to tell people about? Gabrielle: Well, I just came off the heels of releasing a record in the fall, If the Static Clears, so now I'm enjoying a little bit of time getting settled in my new place and starting to do some writing. I've been loving cooking at home! It's so hard to eat well on the road, and forget doing things like remembering to take your vitamins! I just got a beautiful custom guitar that my friend Dan Wetzel of True North Bluegrass built for me, as well as an upright piano. So there's a lot of music happening in my home right now! I'll get back in the studio at some point, and I'll definitely be touring this summer, but for the time being, I'm pretty happy hanging out in this gestation period... Comments are closed.
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December 2023
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