If there's a regrettable side to Steve Gillette's trajectory, it stems from arriving on the scene a shade too late to ride the early-'60s folk revival to stardom. Blessed with an openly romantic delivery and a suitable ballad, he could have slipped comfortably into the Top Ten during the same period when “Michael” and “Green Green” dominated the pop listings; conceivably he might even have eclipsed his younger southern California peer Jackson Browne as both performer and composer while the latter moved through the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and navigated his on-again, off-again relationship with Nico. Had that occurred, however, a label would likely have pushed Gillette toward overly polished arrangements in pursuit of folk-pop success, leaving him, after 1960s-era costs, overhead, and restrictive contracts, with scant returns on the artistic concessions required.
Gillette therefore kept his artistic independence and garnered deep regard among serious listeners, which proved sufficient to sustain a steady livelihood across folk, singer-songwriter, and country circles. Raised in Southern California amid a musical family, his earliest recollections center on his father, an avid pianist and vocalist, performing numbers by Hoagy Carmichael, Fats Waller, and Johnny Mercer. Both parents and their circle also sang at gatherings, drawing from the Hit Parade repertoire that introduced him to pieces such as “Down in the Valley” and “Frankie & Johnnie,” the sort of material accepted as folk music in middle-class California homes; when his father later embraced Erroll Garner’s style, that influence reached the younger Gillette as well. An early urge to perform surfaced by age eight, when household instruments were plentiful and he took a plastic ukulele to school for an impromptu appearance. Traditional folk music entered his awareness in high school, coinciding with his acquisition of a banjo and Pete Seeger’s instructional manual; by then, peers were discovering folk sounds, and his wish for social popularity with girls sharpened his progress until, at graduation, he had achieved genuine facility on the instrument. While at UCLA he played bluegrass on campus, absorbing Flatt & Scruggs and the Carter Family, before shifting his focus to guitar.
Throughout the folk boom Gillette held an assortment of day jobs, including journalist, encyclopedia salesman, riveter, and doughnut maker. Residing in Whittier, California—known as the birthplace of President Richard Nixon—he traveled to Laguna Beach in the evenings for folk performances, where he encountered Linda Albertano and Tom Campbell, both then employed at Disneyland and possessing additional talents. Campbell began supplying material for Gillette and Albertano, and before long the three were composing collaboratively in shifting combinations. Their initial major achievement came with “Darcy Farrow,” written by Gillette and Campbell in California and cut in 1966 by Ian & Sylvia; although the duo had passed its commercial peak, the recording still sold respectably and established both writers. Gillette toured as an opener for the folk/bluegrass pair Bud & Travis and for Judy Henske, while Glenn Yarbrough, Carolyn Hester, and others began covering his compositions. Eventually he headed east, where favorable notices and the expanding catalog of recorded songs attracted Vanguard Records.
His debut solo album, cut in 1967 with Bruce Langhorne, Dick Rosmini, Bill Lee, and Russ Savakus and issued the same year, never achieved broad commercial success. Gillette’s appealing, openly romantic singing arrived slightly after the folk and folk-rock currents had shifted post-1964, and the teen-girl audience for folk had dwindled by 1967; nevertheless the album’s songwriting strength earned it lasting cult status among devotees and ensured it remained available, later appearing on CD. The 1970s proved far more active for Gillette on record, beginning with the country-tinged Back on the Street Again for Outpost Records, supported by Emmylou Harris’s band and featuring Elaine “Spanky” McFarlane. His third effort, Alone...Direct on Sierra Records, spotlighted voice and guitar alone, as the title indicated. In 1979 he released A Little Warmth on Flying Fish, produced by Graham Nash during a period when Nash still commanded major-artist status; Nash contributed performances alongside Jennifer Warnes. In later decades Gillette has worked and recorded in tandem with his wife, Cindy Mangsen, who handles guitar, banjo, concertina, and dulcimer; their output includes a well-regarded live album from 1991 plus the studio sets The Light of Day (1996) and A Sense of Place (2001). Amid that partnership, he issued the Nashville-recorded The Ways of the World in 1992, twelve of his own songs produced by Jim Rooney, and followed with the solo Texas & Tennessee in 1998. Gillette also wrote the book Songwriting and the Creative Process and contributed material to various Walt Disney films and characters. Over time the roster of artists covering his songs has expanded to encompass Garth Brooks, John Denver, Waylon Jennings, and Kenny Rogers.
