Claudia Gibson is Making a Scene

February 10, 2024

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Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Claudia Gibson

Claudia Gibson’s musical path to her second full-length album The Fields of Chazy has been anything but straight. From her teenage club-playing days to formal college music study to fronting bands in her 20s, Claudia never envisioned doing much else besides playing music. But life – including raising three children – had some other plans, and Claudia stepped away from performing for several years. After seeing her youngest son off to college, Claudia decided she couldn’t ignore her muse any longer, and her adopted home of Austin, Texas helped her resume songwriting and performing with a vengeance.

Claudia’s first solo album Step By Step (2016) and follow-up EP Louisiana Sky (2019) – both produced by Band of Heathens frontman Gordy Quist – contained songs that made folks sit up and take notice. Step By Step cracked the AMA radio charts and made the Roots Music Report’s 2017 Top Americana/Country Album Chart. After winning the Woody Guthrie Songwriting Contest in 2018, Claudia went on to become a finalist in the 2019 Kerrville New Folk Competition, and was chosen as a finalist and participant in several other prestigious songwriting festivals and competitions.

The 2020 COVID shutdown and its aftermath slowed Claudia’s music career momentum, but opening for Walt Wilkins twice in 2022 and making his acquaintance again when performing at the Corpus Christi Songwriters Festival in 2023 was the start of a musical friendship that was timely and organic. Walt produced Claudia’s album The Fields of Chazy in the summer of 2023, with co-producer and engineer Ron Flynt manning the boards at Jumping Dog Studios in Austin. The album features a who’s who of some of Austin’s finest musicians, including Rich Brotherton, Chris Beall and Pat Byrne, and presents songs that weave stories about real people whose lives and narratives have impacted Claudia in profound ways.

Claudia has had numerous jobs over the years – including salesperson, truck loader, waitress, journalist, librarian, educator and mom – but only one true lifelong vocation: as a musician and songwriter. Claudia’s life experiences have helped her create songs that mine our common humanity, and that invite listeners into stories and emotions that feel familiar and relatable.

Claudia’s musical style runs the gamut of her past musical experience – with folk at its basis, but also including elements of rock, classical, bluegrass, Celtic and R&B – weaving a sound that is identifiable solely as her own.

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