In March 2004. For those of you who do not know, Gillian Welch is a Folk singer songwriter. Together with her partner David Rawlings, she writes some fucking kick ass shit. This is how I got to meet her.
When I was in tenth grade I was part of a program started by the Tipitina’s foundation for high school musicians. It was a little unknown so there were only like 15 kids in it each year, which was a good thing. Every week a guest artist would come and teach us about some music stuff and then we’d jam. So I saw in the newspaper that Gillian Welch was going to play a show at Tipitina’s. The next day I asked our director guy if she was going to come to one of our classes. He said’ “no”. I was understandably crushed. But immediately after he said, “do you want to meet her?” “Yes.” So about a week and a half later I am at school about to get on the bus and my friend is all like “stay at school a while so we can go do whatever.” And I’m like, “dude, Gillian Welch is going to be at Tipitina’s at 5!” So I hop on the bus and get off and am walking home calmly because it’s only 4:30. I see my mom down three blocks and she yells, “hurry up, she’s already there!!!” I run three blocks to my house, grab my electric guitar, and jump in the car and we head to Tipitina’s. Luckily for me, Tipitina’s is only like down the street and around the corner. But before we go we have to make a quick stop at Wal-Greens to buy sharpies. My mom’s like, “you don’t wanna get there and not have any sharpies to get stuff signed.” We got a five pack, all black, traditional.
My mother, my sister and I walk in and there she is looking as plain as day, just playing parts of her song for sound check. I see the guy who runs our program and go over to greet him. In about five minutes, Gillian steps off stage and gives me a “and who might this be” look. Bill says, “Gillian this is [Raina], [Raina] this is Gillian.” So she opened her mouth and spoke. She is one of the most down to earth people I have ever met in my entire life, famous or not. I almost could not speak. She asked me what kinds of music I liked to play. I told her I play mostly rock and folk music. I asked if she would sign my guitar, and she said, “Sure, you got a sharpie? “ My mom and I looked at each other with a slight nod. She signed my guitar, my fucking guitar. She singed a poster for me and for my sister. She talked to my mom. The way she approached my mom was kind of funny. After she was introduced to me she just went right up to my mom and stuck out her hand for a shake. I guess she could sense that was my mother. She was just all around chill. *I never use the word chill in my real life but I feel this is a good word to describe Gillian’s demeanor* After signing stuff she asked me if I was going to the show. I said, “no, it’s 18 and over” Then Bill stepped in and said, “oh that’s all taken care of, we got you some seats side stage” Gillian said, “alright, you get to be back here with all the cool people.” More chat then we left.
Later, my mother and I went to the show. My mom stayed on the side, but after a while I wanted to get a front view, so I went over where the general audience was. A little after I did that Gillian actually looked to the side and waved to my mom, and wondered where I was. But later I saw her look at me. This was one of the best performances I’ve seen, and I have A LOT to which to compare. Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are phenomenal. You’d never think she was from New York and raised in California. Her biological parents must have been from Appalachia. David played that tiny little 1930s Epiphone like Hendrix. On a kind of lame/awesome note, at the show there were also people upstairs watching. Gillian joked, don’t look down my shirt” This guy said “there’s nothing to look at.” I know, what an asshole. Gillian didn’t say anything in response. After like twenty seconds, everybody started booing. Then Gillian said, “come on, play nice.” and brought us to a laugh again. After a few more songs, they did some guitar switching. A guy yelled out “Everything is Free”, one of the very best songs in my opinion. Gillian said, “we don’t normally take requests, but you just happened to call out the song we were gonna play next, lucky you.” All in all, meeting her was great, the show was great, everything was great, she's beautiful. Everything is Free.
Right now I’m watching “O’ Brother, Where Art Thou?” Gillian Welch is in that for like a split second.
~RW
Here are Gillian and David performing "Caleb Meyer"
