Gillian Welch - Time (the Revelator)

Embedding of this video was disabled. You can watch/listen by either clicking on the image or on the link below. - fhb

I fell in love with Gillian Welch when I first heard Paper Wings on a compilation album. That drove me to immediately buy her first - and in my opinion, still best - album, "Revival," which I recommend you pick up first if, after listening to this video of Time (The Revelator), you want to hear more Welch.

Although she sounds as if she's channeling a Depression-era Dust Bowl survivor, Gillian Welch is actually a California girl. Born in New York City, Welch's family moved to Los Angeles when she was four. Her parent's were writers from The Carol Burnett sketch comedy/variety show, one of the last of the great, old variety shows. After a stint at U.C. Santa Cruz, Welch studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music, which is where she met her long-time musical partner and collaborator, David Rawlings.

Four things you probably didn't know about Gillian Welch...

1. She collects handmade shoeshine kits.
   
2. In high school, Welch made the all-state team for the mile and was invited to run in the national trials.
   
3. She was accepted to Princeton, but went to U.C. Santa Cruz instead.
   
4. She played in a Goth band called, "Penny Dreadful," as well as in a campy `70s retro band under the stage name, Oprah Van Sofa.
   

All four facts from Alec Wilkinson's profile of Welch and Rawlings, "THE GHOSTLY ONES," in The New Yorker, September 20, 2004, which is well worth reading if you can locate it.