Ronnie Gilbert

Ruth Alice "Ronnie" Gilbert (September 7, 1926 – June 6, 2015) was an American folk singer, songwriter and activist. She was one of the original members of the music quartet the Weavers, as a contralto with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.

Spouse: Martin Weg (1950-1959) (1 child - Lisa)

Partner (then spouse): Donna Korones

Associated acts:

The Weavers
Pete Seeger
The Almanac Singers
Arlo Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Holly Near
Lead Belly

Early life

Gilbert was born in Brooklyn, New York City, daughter of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Her mother, Sarah, born in Poland was a dressmaker and trade unionist, and her father, born in the Ukraine Charles Gilbert, was a factory worker and milliner.

Career

Gilbert's singing was characterized as "a crystalline, bold contralto."

The Weavers were an influential folk-singing group that was blacklisted in the early 1950s, during a period of widespread anti-communist feeling, because of the group's left-wing sympathies.

Following the Weavers' dissolution in 1953 due to the blacklist, Gilbert continued her activism on a personal level, traveling to Cuba in 1961 on a trip that brought her back to the United States on the same day that country banned travel to Cuba. She also participated in the Parisian protests of 1968 after traveling to that country to work with British theatrical director Peter Brook. In the 1970s, Gilbert earned an MA in clinical psychology and worked as a therapist for a few years.

Various well-known younger singers honor Ms. Gilbert for the example she set for them, and the influence she had on their careers, particularly Holly Near, with whom Gilbert has released three duet albums: 1983's Lifelines, 1989's Singing With You, and 1997's This Train Still Runs. Near and Gilbert also joined Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger for the 1984 quartet album HARP (an acronym for "Holly, Arlo, Ronnie and Pete"). During that period, Gilbert wrote and appeared in a one-woman show about Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, the American labor organizer, and in a second work based on author Studs Terkel's book Coming of Age. In 1992 she accompanied the Vancouver Men's Chorus on the song Music in My Mother's House from their album Signature.

In 1991, Gilbert recorded "Lincoln and Liberty" and "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" for the compilation album, Songs of the Civil War, joining artists such as Kathy Mattea, Judy Collins, John Hartford, Hoyt Axton, and the United States Military Academy Band of West Point.

Gilbert continued to tour and appear in plays, folk festivals, and Jewish music festivals well into her 80s. She also continued her protest work, participating in groups such as Women in Black to protest "Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories." In 2006, the Weavers received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys. Gilbert and Hellerman accepted the award. Seeger was unable to attend the ceremony, and Hays had died in 1981.

Personal life

Gilbert was married to Martin Weg from 1950 until 1959, and the couple have one daughter, Lisa (born 1952). Their marriage ended in divorce. In 2004, Gilbert married her partner of almost two decades, and her manager Donna Korones, when then-Mayor Gavin Newsom temporarily legalized gay marriage in San Francisco. Gilbert moved to Caspar, California in 2006.

Gilbert died on June 6, 2015 in Mill Valley, California from natural causes, age 88.