THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2019 // 9
it’s been in the works for
a while. But I’ve been to
Astoria before and I have
visited the radio station a
couple of times. Glad to
be coming back; it’s a very
beautiful area. To be able
to come back there is a nice
benefit of this kind of work.
I’m very much look-
ing forward to it. I remem-
ber the light. I think I stayed
at a hotel right on the water
there, right by the bridge,
and it was very beautiful
taking walks around there.
CW: Is that the Can-
nery Pier, maybe? It’s out
on the pilings over the
water.
JG: Yeah, that’s it.
“When I started,
there were record
companies and
lots of record
stores. Every
local paper had a
record reviewer.
John Gorka
CW: You’ve been in
the industry for about 40
years?
JG: Let’s see ... My first
record came out in 1987.
I probably started record-
ing with the Fast Folk mag-
azine around 1984. But my
last job was in May of ‘86.
CW: Your last day job?
JG: Yeah.
CW: And what was
that?
JG: I worked with Sing
Out! magazine, the folk
magazine. It had moved
from New York City from
where it had been since the
beginning in the early ’50s
until the very early ’80s. I
guess the New York staff
had kind of burned out
and the only people who
wanted to keep the mag-
azine running were Pete
Seeger and Mark Moss,
who was mainly just a vol-
Joe del Tufo/Moonloop Photography
Folk musician John Gorka.
unteer, but he became the
editor and kept it going
until just recently.
CW: How have you
seen the business change
for better or worse?
JG: It had definitely
changed. When I started,
there were record com-
panies and lots of record
stores. Every local paper
had a record reviewer. So
there were ways to get the
word out to a larger num-
ber of people at one time.
Now, it’s kind of frag-
mented. There’s a lot you
can do on your own. You
can record at home, you
can put stuff online, but the
difficult thing is, how do
you become known? Espe-
cially now with so many
people in the democratized
process.
CW: So moving on to
your new record, True in
Time, one thing I noticed
over a few listens is there
seems to be a sense of
impermanence running
through the record, but
also, at the same time,
a search for home or
someplace or something
permanent.
JG: Yeah, and the fact
of the looming past. The
presence of the past is one
of the themes there. Like
this song, “Cry for Help,”
where the past just sort
of overwhelms the sub-
ject of the song. Time and
the past are probably some
themes that have popped
up here and there. For
me, “Nazarene Guitar” is
kind of my personal ori-
gins mythology. I guess
it’s just acknowledging the
past without being weighed
down by it.
CW: Speaking of “Naz-
arene Guitar” and “Tat-
tooed” I noticed someone
always seems to be going
somewhere. Do you think
your life as a touring
musician influences this?
JG: I guess that’s pos-
sible. “Tattooed” is a song
I wrote just about this time
two years ago this month.
Also, like with the “Arroyo
Seco” song, sometimes I
feel like I’m in a place or
a time that I just want to
mark somehow, like I feel
it’s significant in some
way, and I just try to cap-
ture the feeling of that
moment and the time and
the place. They don’t have
to be songs for all time and
all people, but I want to get
the feeling of the time and
place as best I can.
CW: Again, speak-
ing of “Arroyo Seco” it
feels like many of your
songs are very rooted in
place. What’s your rela-
tionship with the Pacific
Northwest?
JG: Oh, I have always
enjoyed coming up that
way. It’s so beautiful. We
had a family vacation
where we visited Vancou-
ver B.C. and the San Juan
Islands. Some of those
ferry rides were some of
the best parts of those trips.
We had perfect weather. I
guess it was before the for-
est fire smoke.
CW: Where did you
record the new record?
JG: We did it in Min-
neapolis. It was almost all
recorded in three days. We
were able to get some very
good musicians together —
all of whom I had worked
with before, but it had
been a while since we had
recorded this way, where
it’s kind of everybody all
together. There’s only one
guitar part that I added later
and the background vocals
were added afterwards, but
everything else happened
in one place and it was lots
of fun. It felt very organic.
We were able to get a lot
done in a short amount
of time because the play-
ers were only available for
those times.
It worked out well.
Unfortunately, I had cut my
thumb with a saw two days
before we were starting and
I got nine stitches in my
left thumb. Fortunately, the
ER doc was a guitar player.
He kind of put in some
extra stitches, and I said,
“Am I going to be able to
play?” This was on a Satur-
day afternoon and the ses-
sion was Monday morn-
ing. And he said, yeah, he
thought so, but I had to
reconfigure — I couldn’t
wrap my thumb around
the bass strings like I nor-
mally do with my left hand.
I had to just keep it on the
back of the guitar neck so I
wouldn’t pop the stitches.
But it worked out.
CW: So you really suf-
fered for this one?
JG: Right, yeah. There
wasn’t any blood, at least
not at the studio. CW