Book John Gorka

John Gorka is an American singer-songwriter and one of the defining voices of the folk revival that took hold in the late 1980s, a movement Rolling Stone once said he led among male writers. He came up playing solo sets at the Godfrey Daniels coffee house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, opening for artists such as Nanci Griffith and Bill Morrissey, and in 1984 he was one of six artists to win the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk contest. His debut, I Know (1987), launched a long partnership with the Red House label, followed by Land of the Bottom Line (1990), Jack's Crows (1991), After Yesterday (1998), Writing in the Margins (2006), Bright Side of Down (2014), True In Time (2018) and unentitled (2025), fifteen studio albums in all. Gorka has shared stages with Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dave Van Ronk and Lucy Kaplansky, and in 2010 he teamed with Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson in the folk trio Red Horse. He tours across North America and Europe, bringing a warm baritone, wry humor and finely crafted story songs to listening rooms and festival stages.