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Photographs by Sofi Seck
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It’s cold outside. It didn’t start out this way, but after playing several songs, Tonya Gilmore finds herself competing with an uninvited wind. Still, it’s no contest. With her trusty acoustic guitar—alternating with a keyboard—she sings above the weather, turning the chilly front patio of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum back into spring.
“Thanks for being troopers,” she says to the remaining audience, some of whom are dressed in short sleeves, with only the warmth of the music to add an extra layer. Those who are lucky—or astute—enough to catch one of Gilmore’s shows are in for a treat. Her recordings are equally brave. Wearing serendipity as a badge of honor, she deputizes everyday objects as musical instruments. Once, for instance, Gilmore grew impatient waiting for her new glockenspiel.
“I had a wind chime that was hanging outside,” she recalls. “I cut off the strings and strung them with upholstery thread.” She tied them to a coat hanger and—voilà!—instant glockenspiel.
Clearly, this is one artist who could build an entire orchestra out of Gilligan’s Island bamboo. Gilmore’s music offers its own kind of emotional rescue. Her moody folk-rock, accessible on her new CD, strings together lyrics that are at once playful, dark, and imagistic. In short, it’s poetry set to music—and set to explode. Unsurprisingly, her influences range from Leonard Cohen to CocoRosie. Oh, and her big brother, too.
“He could play everything immediately,” she says, a sense of awe still raw in her voice. “He started in sixth or seventh grade, and basically he was getting too much attention.” She laughs. Clearly, her brother was her first influence. “But he didn’t have the patience to teach me,” she adds, “so it was a long process of teaching myself.” Gilmore came to St. Louis from Oregon about three years ago. Don’t ask her if she misses the big O. “People are like, ‘You’re from Oregon? I hear it’s beautiful.’ Well,” she clarifies, “I’m from rural northeast Oregon. I lived in a valley with three very small towns, which sort of made a triangle.” According to Gilmore, it wasn’t exactly a musical triangle. “There was nothing to do,” she admits.
In St. Louis, though, she’s found plenty. She performs at coffeehouses, art galleries, and venues like the Way Out Club, where one night a group of people literally stumbled into her performance. Bedazzled by the angelic vocals with a devilish edge, one of the women gave Gilmore a shout-out. “You should be famous,” she told her. “I really mean it.” Gilmore’s voice has a way of cutting through layers of inebriation—and winning new fans at every octave. It’s a far cry from Oregon, where the spectators were literally few and far between. “Basically, I’d have to drive over mountains to do any real shows,” Gilmore says.
Who’d ever imagine St. Louis would be her next stop on the way to the top?
Hear Gilmore’s music and see where she’s playing next at myspace.com/tonyagilmore.
