Margaret Moser Tribute: Eliza Gilkyson

Best advice received from Margaret Moser? Keep your dogs clean, flea-free, and well-groomed so they can be allowed on all your furniture and sleep with you at night.

Margaret is attracted viscerally to authenticity. Unless you were Townes [Van Zandt] or Lucinda [Williams], urban folk music didn't really have much of a place in the Austin music scene in the early Eighties when I got here. Admittedly, I floundered in the Eighties and Nineties trying to find myself musically and as a person, but when I moved away from overproduction and synthesizers and stripped my music back down to the acoustic guitar and me, Margaret's support was a good barometer for me to keep going in that direction.

After the release of Hard Times in Babylon in 2001, Margaret took notice of me and went out of her way to be supportive. I will never forget sitting in my living room years ago with her and confessing everything in my heart as if there was no tape running, and she was my sister. That's how safe she made me feel.

Thank you, Margaret, for the years of dedication to not just a music "scene," but rather a tapestried music community that has sustained so many of us through the best and worst of times. Margaret has lived a rich, fulfilling life, influencing an entire community and beyond. That's something to be proud of. I am always grateful and sending so much love to you.