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“Listening to Gayle is like entering a dream you don’t want to get out of,” remarks Jens Kruger of The Kruger Brothers as he joins Gayle Skidmore on stage at Eagle Music Shop’s Banjo 2020 event with Deering Banjos. If there is one thing that Gayle’s fans express over and over, it is that her music encompasses you fully in an enchanting, other-worldly fantasy.

There is certainly a variety of styles within this realm, as you can experience on any of Skidmore’s over 30 independent releases, on which she plays over 20 instruments. She experiments with a range of influences from her classical piano background, as well as her many other musical ventures, such as her time filling in on lead guitar for the all-Asian “Chinatown Dance Rock” band The Slants. On her latest full-length album, The Golden West, she discusses “moving on from the troubles of the past and forging a promising new tomorrow” with “her wood nymph voice.” From banjo grooving “Moving On” with its catchy slide guitar and whistling combo, to the haunting “Pale Ghosts,” it has been described as “a kind of surreal, groovy portal of escape, where I am blasting her music on my magic radio as I drive down some forgotten coast in the middle of an Indian Summer with my best friends from childhood.” (-Carole Banks Weber, Medium.com)

“My music is very personal and raw, and it has been an enormous blessing to me to be able to share it,” Skidmore shares in an interview with AXS. “It means the world to me when anyone connects with it, and I have been fortunate to receive amazing letters from fans about what my music has meant. It's so humbling to have that kind of an effect with my music, and it encourages me to keep going.”

This spirit of connection is one that runs deep in Gayle Skidmore’s writing, and the root of that comes from a background of loss and trauma. Her early childhood was marked by the tragic loss of several young friends, as well as her uncle. In her very first journal, at the age of 8, she began by writing a song about death and loss in order to process these events. “It just came naturally to me,” Skidmore reflects, “like breathing, as they say. Without ever deciding, ‘I’m going to be a songwriter,’ I just began writing songs to process my life.” It was as cathartic as it was intrinsic, and a few years later, she began recording these songs with a close friend on her dad’s old tape deck. When her friend shared Lisa Loeb’s “Tails” album with her, she realized that she could share these songs with more people, and set up her first gig at a café at age 14.

Gayle’s dedication to her craft has paved the way to opening for the likes of Jason Mraz, Lisa Loeb, The Jamestown Revival, Sean and Sara Watkins, Sam Phillips, and Coeur d’Pirate. She has recorded with such artists as The Softlightes, Bushwalla, Jason Mraz and Tyrone Wells, and continues to explore new styles. Her song “Only Ever You” features Dave Catching of Eagles of Death Metal on guitar. Recently transplanted to The Netherlands, she continues to enchant with her singular, transportive style, and her heartfelt performances. A crowning moment was opening for her hero, Lisa Loeb, at San Diego’s beloved venue The Casbah in 2013.

In 2007, Gayle recorded two songs with Jason Mraz in his home studio, a studio she returned to in 2019 to record with Jeff Berkley, who also recorded Jason’s upcoming single. She returned to this studio in 2009 to record backup vocals for Bushwalla’s acoustic hip-hop album. Marking how far she has come, for Gayle’s last folk single “All My Life” (2020), she returned to Ohmgrown Studio once again, this time for a bigger production. This single features strings composed by Olivier Manchon of Clare & The Reasons, backup vocals by Clare herself, drums by Nucci of The English Beat, Rick Nash on bass, Jeff Berkley on guitar, and a vocal chorus of some of San Diego’s best and brightest singer-songwriters, including Billy Galewood of Bushwalla.

Having overcome many challenges- a mountain of loss and a relationship that ended tragically, Gayle Skidmore has a depth to her writing and performing that is as poignant as it is hard-won. Though she has lost count, she knows that she has written over 2500 songs. Currently, Gayle Skidmore is living with her husband and child in San Diego, California, after 8 years abroad in Hilversum, The Netherlands. She released a song every week in 2019 and 2020 for her fans on Patreon. Throughout her dark moments, Skidmore has always felt that music is a gift, one that she has worked tirelessly to develop and share, to give others a taste of the connection, healing, and hope that she found through transforming her pain into beautiful music.

Gayle Skidmore finds endless inspiration in the whirlwind of life, has never experienced writer’s block, and is always experimenting with new formats. Her love of whimsy is evidenced by the visual elements she adds to music, which includes three self-illustrated colouring books. Germany’s prominent newspaper, the Seuddeutsche Zeitung, named her “Die Schutzpatronin der Gartenzwerge,” the Patron Saint of Garden Dwarves, which she proudly vaunts. When she isn’t busy learning a new instrument, singing, painting, or writing lyrics and melodies, she composes parts for her cellist and violinist. Gayle enjoys baking cookies and making origami for her fans.