If you are one of the people who HASN'T heard Gillian Welch's voice, you are mmissing something grand. She has a haunting Mezzo-Soprano range with some rough edges to her voice. She and Rawlings write a lot of their own music but when she covers traditional tunes or even modern classics, she makes them all her own. Her version of Gram Parsons' "Hickory Wind" on the Parsons Tribute CD RETURN OF THE GRIEVOUS ANGEL is stark and mysterious - one of the most beautiful versions of that song you'll eve rhear. She makes it sound a hundred years old.

She's one of a small group of new traditionalists who have really had an effect on Country music as a whole, proving that the slick, Hunky Cowboys and light-weight beauty queens no longer have the industry in a strangle-hold. However, she doesn't get much radio play because her music isn't cotton candy. She's done duets with Alison Krause that are wonderful. Check out "I'll Fly Away" on the OH BROTHER... CD, that's her!