Gina Forsyth

She’s hilarious commenting on her native, beloved South (Sweet and Sunny South) when she sings.

Attention musicians: For those thinking they need to rush their product out with sub-par material and inferior packaging for that nifty festival gig, take note of Gina Forsyth. The New Orleans singer-songwriter/roots musician never releases anything before it’s damn good and ready—and then some—thanks to Katrina and other life interruptions. Her solo sophomore effort is loaded with thought-provoking content and incisive humor, the song’s real message revealed in layers. Along the way, facets of Forsyth’s personality are unveiled, such as her exemplary Cajun musicianship on “Belle,” a tricky 5/4 ballad from the Lomax Archive that’s richly rendered here on voice and acoustic guitar.

The album’s theme revolves around America, from its supposedly idealistic beginnings to today’s frightening reality where human-to-human communication has become a lost art (“4th of July”). It’s a value paramount to Forsyth, as expressed in “Christmas in China,” where mankind and memories of others, not inconsequential gifts, are the only true gifts. On “What I Did On Mardi Gras Day, “she strums a fiddle as if it were a Middle Eastern instrument and comments about the local music industry: “So now you play until you hit the floor / and when you hit the floor, they don’t miss a beat. / They sweep you to the end of Bourbon Street.” She’s hilarious commenting on her native, beloved South (“Sweet & Sunny South”) when she sings, “We love our musicians and our fascist politicians,” then questions the South’s provincial view on gay rights. It’s hard to say if there will ever be a promised land that fulfills every expectation, but when it comes to Forsyth’s songwriting, there are no promises, just truths. - Offbeat Magazine (New Orleans, LA)

In the tradition of Guthrie, Dylan and Prine she is writing and singing, not just fiddling while America burns.

Gina Forsyth is a tall, striking woman with Rita Coolidge hair and regal bearing. She strums and sings for a crowd of six the same as if it were 6,000.

We are sitting in a little hamburger joint and bar on the shady street called Esplanade, having arrived early by New Orleans standards. Gina speaks to everyone in the place, which does not take long. She's friendly that way.

I thought I knew a little something about Gina Forsyth, having heard her country fiddle at least half a dozen times at the annual Hank Williams tribute show in little Eunice, La. While I had a second home in Louisiana, in Henderson, I never missed the Hank show. Most years the backup band, besides Gina, included Don Helms, Hank's old steel player, and the best accordionist I ever heard, Reggie Mott. Who in their right mind would miss all that?

I knew Gina lived in New Orleans and was a classically trained violinist. I knew she sometimes toured with a Cajun band. I even knew that she could sing. At one Hank show, she put down the fiddle and did an amazing duet in her distinctive deep alto.

But I had no idea how versatile she was, or that her song-writing might rank even above her fiddling and singing. In the little club with the invisible crowd, I am about to find out.

She is pushing her first album in a decade, something with an ironic title and cover called “Promised Land.” In the CD photo, Gina sits with her guitar in front of a slice of vanishing Americana, a big white barn, presumably on a family farm.

And the albums lyrics pretty much deliver on the promise of the photo. “Christmas in China,” for example, is a love story and political commentary all tied up together with biting wit: “Our Christmas was made in China, human-rights issues and all. From my brand-new socks to my old gym shoes, to the decorations on my wall. ... They don't have Christmas in China, not like in the U.S.A. There they work for chicken feed, making things we think we need.”

In a song called “4th of July,” she compares her relationship with this country to a troubled romantic one and wonders aloud if anyone else feels this way. “Will everything be all right in the morning?” she asks.

She gets even more specific in “Sweet and Sunny South.” That's a constantly evolving song, and tonight she works in quips about the recent Chick-fil-A controversy. “In the sweet and sunny South where I was born, moss on the magnolia, it's grits and not granola, where we know it from Shinola, in the sweet and sunny South where I was born. ... Where we love our musicians and our fascist politicians .... I love it and I hate it, every now and then berate it .... Where Washington and Lee can't get married legally....”

She can say those kinds of things because she was born in Florida, grew up Baptist in Alabama, moved to New Orleans in 1983 to study at Loyola. Not only is she blessed with the brains to examine and question things, she knows how to put it all to music.

If you have ever wondered what happened to the gutsy folk singers who used to roam the earth with their instrument and protest, check out Gina Forsyth. In the tradition of Guthrie, Dylan and Prine she is writing and singing, not just fiddling while America burns.

Rheta Grimsley Johnson lives near Iuka. Contact her at Iuka, MS 38852. To find out more about Rheta Grimsley Johnson and her books, visit www.rhetagrimsleyjohnsonbooks.com.

- Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

Promised Land is a beautiful keeper, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Promised Land is the second album by New Orleans born Gina Forsyth, and according to her, is divided into roughly four chapters: America, Pre-Katrina, Post Katrina, and Transformation. This project started out as a phone conversation that went something like, Ten or Fifteen Years from now, America will be something you won't even recognize... It is now ten or fifteen years later...

Here is a little historical perspective on many of the things that have gone into making up our lives and brought us to where we are now from a folk poet who seems to deeply understand the times we live in. In Promised Land Gina Forsyth has put forth a wonderful reason for music, creating an album of songs that tap into the average Americans psyche at a softly elemental level. There are fourteen songs on this CD, and as I listened, I realized that each of them seemed to draw me in a bit further, until by its conclusion, "Promised Land" had not only inspired admiration for Ms. Forsyth's songwriting abilities, but given me a good look at myself in the America that is now my home.

The instrumentation here is simple: guitar and fiddle, Ms. Forsyth's primary instruments, joined by drum kit, upright bass, and button and Cajun accordions, along with some basic percussion bits. Her storytelling and vocals are where this album lives, and it is by turns folksy warm and lonesome moan. I thought a couple of times I heard a hint of Cheryl Wheeler here and there, another singer who can show us ourselves in a meaningful and musical way.

Promised Land is an album no folk music lover should pass up. Well-written tunes, crisp production and instrumentation framing a message of reminiscences from a performer who does it as well as it can be done. In showing us where we have been, this CD tells us where we are in a way that is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking. Promised Land is a beautiful keeper, and I give it my highest recommendation.

John C. McClure
- Victory Review Magazine

Promised Land is a beautiful keeper, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Promised Land is the second album by New Orleans born Gina Forsyth, and according to her, is divided into roughly four chapters: America, Pre-Katrina, Post Katrina, and Transformation. This project started out as a phone conversation that went something like, Ten or Fifteen Years from now, America will be something you won't even recognize... It is now ten or fifteen years later...

Here is a little historical perspective on many of the things that have gone into making up our lives and brought us to where we are now from a folk poet who seems to deeply understand the times we live in. In Promised Land Gina Forsyth has put forth a wonderful reason for music, creating an album of songs that tap into the average Americans psyche at a softly elemental level. There are fourteen songs on this CD, and as I listened, I realized that each of them seemed to draw me in a bit further, until by its conclusion, "Promised Land" had not only inspired admiration for Ms. Forsyth's songwriting abilities, but given me a good look at myself in the America that is now my home.

The instrumentation here is simple: guitar and fiddle, Ms. Forsyth's primary instruments, joined by drum kit, upright bass, and button and Cajun accordions, along with some basic percussion bits. Her storytelling and vocals are where this album lives, and it is by turns folksy warm and lonesome moan. I thought a couple of times I heard a hint of Cheryl Wheeler here and there, another singer who can show us ourselves in a meaningful and musical way.

Promised Land is an album no folk music lover should pass up. Well-written tunes, crisp production and instrumentation framing a message of reminiscences from a performer who does it as well as it can be done. In showing us where we have been, this CD tells us where we are in a way that is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking. Promised Land is a beautiful keeper, and I give it my highest recommendation.

John C. McClure
- Victory Review Magazine

A solid old school folkie with a double shot of Malvina Reynolds in her soul, this well traveled throughout the South singer/songwriter masters the trick of sounding and feeling old school without falling into the fantasy. And she's pretty much singing about what's going on now. Probably the entire New Orleans folk scene by herself, Forsyth isn't afraid to do some genre splicing, keeping it basically folkie, and delivers the kind of set that'll send too many pretenders back to their day jobs at law and accounting firms. Proof that you really have to live it to make it work. Killer stuff and a flat out must hear for real folkies looking for real substance over self indulgent mush mouthing. Check it out.
101 - Midwest Record

Gina Forsyth’s album, Promised Land, released locally in December and nationally in February has been hitting the top of the charts. A notable achievement, the title song from the CD reached #1 on the Folk DJ list for January and the CD ended the month at #3.

The title song is a story of how her ancestors came to this country and began living the American dream. From there she recounts the movement of her family to the South, what it means to be a Southerner, and how so much of what Americans take for granted may actually be the product of a foreign country.

The entire album is very much a family biography for Forsyth. The album was featured on WWOZ December 18 as part of the Cajun and Zydeco show with Charles Laborde and Jim Hobbs.

The Folk DJ list is compiled by Richard Gillman of KBCS FM in Bellevue, Wa., and reviews 162 folk DJ playlists from around the country.

Promised Land was released in December at the Neutral Ground, in New Orleans. Gina Forsyth will be at the Neutral Ground Friday, February 17 at 10 p.m. From there she heads to Memphis, TN, to play at the Folk Alliance Feb. 22-25. And, as always, she plays fiddle on Sunday evenings with Bruce Daigrepont at 5:30 p.m. at Tipitina’s Uptown.
- WWOZ-FM

Gina Forsyth’s album, Promised Land, released locally in December and nationally in February has been hitting the top of the charts. A notable achievement, the title song from the CD reached #1 on the Folk DJ list for January and the CD ended the month at #3.

The title song is a story of how her ancestors came to this country and began living the American dream. From there she recounts the movement of her family to the South, what it means to be a Southerner, and how so much of what Americans take for granted may actually be the product of a foreign country.

The entire album is very much a family biography for Forsyth. The album was featured on WWOZ December 18 as part of the Cajun and Zydeco show with Charles Laborde and Jim Hobbs.

The Folk DJ list is compiled by Richard Gillman of KBCS FM in Bellevue, Wa., and reviews 162 folk DJ playlists from around the country.

Promised Land was released in December at the Neutral Ground, in New Orleans. Gina Forsyth will be at the Neutral Ground Friday, February 17 at 10 p.m. From there she heads to Memphis, TN, to play at the Folk Alliance Feb. 22-25. And, as always, she plays fiddle on Sunday evenings with Bruce Daigrepont at 5:30 p.m. at Tipitina’s Uptown.
- WWOZ-FM

For her sophomore release, this is a melodious and well-written cd. It's a pleasure to listen to a release where the artist actually took time to put out honest, well-written and heartfelt music (eg. “11 Days”, “Just For Tonight”), and not waste the listener's time with fluff or filler. - WYCE Music Journal (Folk 88.1FM, Canada)

“Christmas in China” uses the ubiquity of overseas products as a roundabout entry to a love song. “Copper Rooster” takes a whimsical look at the post-Katrina rash of copper thefts. “Sparrows” alludes to Forsyth’s spiritual side. “Sweet and Sunny South” is recycled from the Malvinas’ 2005 CD “Love, Hope and Transportation.” - New Orleans Times-Picayune

Multi-instrumentalist Gina Forsyth brings passion and panache to her latest release, Promised Land (Waterbug Records), a 14-tune effort brimming with spot-on acoustic musicianship and austere, poetic storytelling that highlight Forsyth’s keen ear for the American folk songbook. The longtime fiddle player for New Orleans-based Cajun accordionist Bruce Daigrepont and a frequent guest on other musicians’ records, Forsyth steps up to the mic in the middle on Promised Land, singing and playing both acoustic guitar and fiddle with masterful command while leading a stable of seasoned musicians — Jim Markway (double bass), Chris Polachek (electric bass), Mike Barras (percussion), Jonno Frishberg (accordion) and Mike West (banjo) — on a rich, rewarding journey from the bayous of Cajun Country to the Baptist churches of Appalachia and back again. The idioms on this very fine record are varied yet nuanced, but they’re united by Forsyth’s passionate, deft delivery. The record is available for $15 at Waterbug.com. Learn more about the artist and her upcoming gigs at her website, GinaForsyth.com. — Walter Pierce - Independent Weekly (Lafayette, LA)

Multi-instrumentalist Gina Forsyth brings passion and panache to her latest release, Promised Land (Waterbug Records), a 14-tune effort brimming with spot-on acoustic musicianship and austere, poetic storytelling that highlight Forsyth’s keen ear for the American folk songbook. The longtime fiddle player for New Orleans-based Cajun accordionist Bruce Daigrepont and a frequent guest on other musicians’ records, Forsyth steps up to the mic in the middle on Promised Land, singing and playing both acoustic guitar and fiddle with masterful command while leading a stable of seasoned musicians — Jim Markway (double bass), Chris Polachek (electric bass), Mike Barras (percussion), Jonno Frishberg (accordion) and Mike West (banjo) — on a rich, rewarding journey from the bayous of Cajun Country to the Baptist churches of Appalachia and back again. The idioms on this very fine record are varied yet nuanced, but they’re united by Forsyth’s passionate, deft delivery. The record is available for $15 at Waterbug.com. Learn more about the artist and her upcoming gigs at her website, GinaForsyth.com. — Walter Pierce - Independent Weekly (Lafayette, LA)