The acoustical singer song writer style of Gabe Wilson is music that makes the listener feel heard. Filled with insightful lyrics and relatable phrases, the understanding voice of experience of this 48 year old musician comes through as each song reflects upon the internal struggles we all face every day, while sending an inspiring message about our ability to grow and overcome.  Gabe’s lyrics emphasizes the connection between us through shared experiences and feelings of loss, fear and loneliness that we’ve all endured, and how even our mistakes and flaws help us to see how much we all have in common.

 

About the Artist

Struggling to make ends meet, writing and performing music was the last thing on Gabe Wilson’s mind.  He only began singing because his wife Penny ran a Kirtan band (Love, Light & Harmony), and three hours before a performance her lead singer quit the band.  Having heard her music enough between performances and as she sang it around the home, Gabe agreed to step in until she could find another lead singer. 

 

In the following weeks Love, Light & Harmony was scheduled to play at several community events, but because many of the songs the group performed belonged to the former lead singer, Gabe began writing singer song style music of his own.  Not knowing what else to write about, Gabe began composing lyrics from his experience from one of his jobs, in the helping profession, taking real life stories of struggles and survival of those he worked with and setting them to music.  And just as he worked to help people through the challenges they were facing at work, his songs were aimed to inspire and find hope. He also found that he could find answers to his own inner struggles through the writing process. Gabe found relatable themes around the difficulties we all face and as a result, audience members at his live events often remark that they feel he was singing about their life.

 

Gabe's first musical experience was in his high school years.   Though he studied every night, he struggled in school. (He later learned he suffered from dyslexia which went undiagnosed throughout his childhood.)  Seeing Gabe struggling in school and showing signs of giving up, the high school band director suggested he learn to play an instrument  so he would have something positive to be involved in.  When he learned that Gabe’s parents were too poor to pay for lessons or an instrument, the band director offered to teach him to play trumpet for free.  

 

The more Gabe played the trumpet, the better his grades got.  Gabe later learned that his learning disability caused him to have difficulty reading letters in the correct order; But because music only had notes on the page, reading music taught his eyes to focus correctly. By the time Gabe was a senior in high school, he was on the honor role.  Gabe credits his high school band director not only for being able to graduate from high school but for being able to go on to college, where he would earn his degree in social work.   His experiences with music and working to help people going though crisis, would eventually inspire the concept of writing music that makes the listener feel heard.