As the third generation of a musical family with a lifelong close-up view of the music business, Eliza Gilkyson said she's quite comfortable with being a relative industry outsider.
"I've always lived outside the music industry. The industry has never wanted what I have, even when I was young and pliable," she said. "I've lived outside that system my entire career and done perfectly well without it."
Gilkyson will bring her highly regarded and very personal brand of folk music to Oklahoma City on Saturday, with a 9 p.m. performance at the Blue Door.
DIGITAL MUSIC
Daughter of noted songwriter Terry Gilkyson and a Grammy-nominated folk music artist herself, Gilkyson said she has mixed feelings about the ongoing shift toward digital distribution of music over the Internet.
"I think it will clean up some of the packaging pollution. We need to get rid of the jewel boxes. The downside is that the mom-and-pop stores "¦ are gone," she said. "My best sales have been out of independent retail places."
With a career she acknowledged has been beneath much of the music industry's radar, Gilkyson jokingly said she longs to face a very modern dilemma faced by more famous musicians.
"In terms of the pirating and that kind of thing, I would love to be so famous that people pirated me," she said with a chuckle. "(But) I really don't care, because my audience is one that wants the package, so it hasn't really been a problem." "C.G. Niebank
