Background
Gilbert was born in Brooklyn, New York City and considered herself a native New Yorker her whole life. Her mother, Sarah, was a dressmaker and trade unionist, and her father, Charles Gilbert, was a factory worker
Gilbert was born in Brooklyn, New York City and considered herself a native New Yorker her whole life. Her mother, Sarah, was a dressmaker and trade unionist, and her father, Charles Gilbert, was a factory worker
Gilbert came to Washington, District of Columbia during World World War World War II She encountered Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax and Woody Guthrie and other folk singers. She went to Anacostia High School. She was almost expelled because of her resistance to participating in a minstrel show.
She performed in the early 1940s with the Priority Ramblers before founding the Weavers with Pete Seeger.
Gilbert"s singing was characterized as "a crystalline, bold contralto."
Her voice is heard, blending with and rising over the others, in Weavers tracks such as “This Land Is Your Land”, “If I Had a Hammer”, “On Top of Old Smoky”, “Goodnight, Irene”, “Kisses Sweeter than Wine”, and “Tzena, Tzena, Tzena”. 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, She 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 Master of Arts in clinical psychology and worked as a therapist for a few years.
Various well-known younger singers have honored Gilbert for the example she set for them, and the influence she had on their careers, particularly Holly Near. Near and Gilbert 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 Irish-American activist and 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. She continued to tour and appear in plays, folk festivals, and music festivals well into her 80s.
She continued her protest work, participating in groups such as Women in Black to protest "Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories" in addition to United States policies in the middle-east. Gilbert and Hellerman accepted the award.
Pete Seeger was unable to attend the ceremony, and Hays had died in 1981.
Seeger died in 2014.
She was one of the original members of the music quartet the Weavers, as a contralto with Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Fred Hellerman.
