MUSIC

John Gorka comes home for Toms River show

RICHARD SKELLY
CORRESPONDENT

John Gorka, raised in the Colonia section of Woodbridge Township, returns to the Garden State Saturday, Jan. 20, for a concert at the Grunin Center for the Arts at Ocean County Community College in Toms River. 

Gorka has made his home in the Minneapolis area when he’s not on the road, since getting married about two decades ago.  He’s had a long and beneficial relationship with an independent record company that has grown with him, Minnesota-based Red House Records/ Compass Records Group. He’s touring in 2018 in support of his new release, “True In Time,” officially released Friday, Jan. 19. 

John Gorka plays Toms River on Saturday.

Gorka said his first attempts at songwriting happened when he was still attending Colonia High School, but he didn’t get serious about his craft until he was attending Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

At Moravian College, he majored in history and philosophy.

“I always ended up emphasizing the philosophy part because it’s funnier,” said Gorka, who’s known on the festival and coffee house circuit for his sense of humor and great stories in between tunes.

“In high school, I think I knew I wanted to be a writer before I knew that music was going to be the way I’d express myself,” he said.

At Moravian College, “I settled on music as the best form of expression for me 'cause it was a combination of what I could articulate with the lyrics and what I couldn’t find words for that I could express with music.”

“Once I started writing my own songs, I felt like that was what I really wanted to focus on,” he related. By 1984, much of the rest of the folk/ singer-songwriter world agreed, as he won the annual New Folk Songwriting Competition at the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival in central Texas that year.

Among Gorka’s classic and more requested songs in concert are “I’m From New Jersey,” “Semper Fi,” written for his ex-Marine father — who died when he was 13 — and all other veterans, and “Part of Your Own,” written in recent years for his late mother.

“While I was in college I began hanging out at Godfrey Daniels (coffee house/ performance space), and people there that I opened for got me in at clubs in other parts of the country,” Gorka explained, noting Texas singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith recommended him for Kerrville Folk Festival.

“After I was hanging around and helping out at Godfrey Daniels for a few years — it was a 10-minute walk from my dormitory — I realized I’d like to be one of the people who plays there, one of the touring musicians.”

Since he became a national presence in the folk music world in the 1980s, Gorka’s songs have been recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Griffith, Mary Black and Maura O’ Connell.  He’s also performed on “Austin City Limits,” and the National Public Radio syndicated programs “Mountain Stage” and “etown.”

At his concert Saturday at Grunin Center, Gorka said he’s always tweaking his song lists.

“I never assume that everybody knows everything about how I came to do what I do now, so I always include some things to welcome new people,” he said. “You don’t have to have prior knowledge of my music. I like to make it as accessible as possible for new people who’ve come out to hear me.”

Amilia K. Spicer is opening for John Gorka Saturday at the Grunin Center for the Arts at Ocean County Community College. Show time is 8 p.m. Tickets are $25, call 732-255-0500 for directions or log on at grunincenter.org.

Light of Day notebook

If, like me, you had limited time to take advantage of last week’s Light of Day Winterfest marathon of shows in Asbury Park, you would not have gone terribly off track if you just chose last Saturday to enjoy the music in dear old Asbury Park.

 I recall attending the first year of Light of Day when it was a one night event at Tradewinds in Sea Bright.

For me, it’s personal. My late mother Ruth Skelly, longtime choir member at Trinity Presbyterian Church in East Brunswick, suffered from what was supposedly mildly progressing Parkinson’s disease and passed 10 weeks after a hip fracture in 2002, at 72.

For Ruth, singing was a way to get through the day even after she returned to work outside the home. She knew verses from literally hundreds of Broadway, Great American songbook, pop and rock tunes, and she sang them, loudly and with great enthusiasm, around the house.

Patrons on Saturday were faced with a dizzying array of good shows by great musicians at great venues all day and into the evening on Saturday, capped off by good sound and a high level of organization at the Paramount Theater Saturday night. There, headliners Richie “LaBamba” Rosenberg and his big band gave the audience of locals and loyal overseas patrons of Light of Day something truly special. After all, it’s not every day we’re treated to a 22-piece ensemble playing classic soul, blues-rock and rock tunes in Asbury Park.

After enjoying sets at the Wonder Bar by Stormin’ Norman Seldin and his band in tribute to Antoine “Fats” Domino, Tony Tedesco and Full Fathom Five, the Billy Walton Band, Strumberry Pie, and a full band version of Dawg Whistle with drummer Vini Lopez and singer-songwriter Paul Whistler, we got to the Paramount in time to enjoy truncated sets by Remember Jones, Luke Elliot, Garland Jeffreys, Willie Nile and Joe Grushecky and their various bands, all capped off by a superb set by LaBamba’s Big Band and Friends.

Highlights at the Paramount included an emotion-filled set by Remember Jones that was filled with dynamics, an energetic set by Willie Nile and his well-rehearsed, choreographed quartet that brought the energy level up a notch inside the theater, and the closing set from LaBamba’s Big Band.

LaBamba welcomed special guests Greg Kihn, who strapped on Billy Walton’s guitar for a spry take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Rendezvous,” and Long Island-based vocalist Gary U.S. Bonds, accompanied as always by his wife and daughter.

LaBamba was in fine voice and animated throughout his show, pacing around the front of the stage while he and his large ensemble delivered terrific takes on Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up,” and joining Bonds and family on Jackie Wilson’s “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher” and Sam Cooke’s “We’re Having A Party.”

Kudos to programming chief Tony Pallagrosi and his crew of volunteers at Light of Day Foundation for capping the night off with something special this year at the Paramount.  To stay posted on other Light of Day fundraising events throughout the year, log on to lightofday.org.

Richard Skelly hosts the eclectic “Low-Budget Blues Program” from 8 to 10 p.m. Thursdays on 88.7, WRSU-FM, New Brunswick. More information is at www.radio.rutgers.edu.