Jumpin' Tracks by Albert and Gage

It's not just that he plays bluegrass or folk or blues, but that he plays it all with so much integrity."

"After being a sideman for several years I was ready to start my own band again", recalls Gage. "I wasn't sure exactly how that would manifest, and then I met Christine. What we brought out in each other was magical."

Onstage, Albert's slender, dark beauty contrasts strikingly with Gage's craggy good looks. How gracefully they complement each other is easily apparent. Although they have functioned as a duo for just six years, both musicians' individual pedigrees are far more extensive.

Gage is a journeyman musician and South Dakota native who literally began touring in a station wagon at age 15. In the mid-Seventies and early Eighties he led the popular midwestern country-swing Red Willow Band, and from there graduated to an eight-year tenure on piano with guitar virtuoso and country star Roy Clark. After moving to Austin in 1991, Gage began commuting to San Antonio to take the reins as musical director for the Fiesta Texas theme park.

But it was during (and following) his next incarnation, as bandleader for West Texas alt.-country singer/songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore, that he began to carve out his own place in the Austin scene as an in-demand session player and accompanist. It was with Gilmore that Christine first heard Chris play and in 1997 Albert & Gage was formed. The duo later toured as an opening act for Gilmore and as members of his ensemble.

Christine Albert's French grandmother lived in Paris and her mother was born in Switzerland, so perhaps it's inevitable that the occasional Edith Piaf song migrates into her sets of original material and carefully chosen covers. Indeed, she recorded an entire album of lovely (albeit improbable) Franco-Lone Star fusion entitled Texafrance in 1992; and a 2003 sequel-Texafrance-Encore!-was released, appropriately enough, on Valentine's Day.

Christine herself cut her musical teeth in northern New Mexico, in the chic environs of Santa Fe and in the rough-and-tumble biker bars out along the Turquoise Trail. Along with fellow New Mexico chanteuse Eliza Gilkyson, Albert re-located to Austin in 1982 and began to distinguish herself as a singer-songwriter in a town where the bar for such artists is set very high indeed.

She has released five solo albums, including Texafrance, The High Road and Underneath the Lone Star Sky. In 1996, she was voted Female Vocalist of the Year in the Kerrville Music Awards poll associated with the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival and has appeared on Austin City Limits, both with Gilkyson and on her own show. A longtime community activist, Albert is also known for her work on behalf of survivors of sexual assault.

The duo's most recent release is "Albert and Gage at Anderson Fair", a live album recorded at the venerable Houston folk club and mixed and edited at their own MoonHouse Studio. When not on the road, Albert and Gage also stay busy producing outside artists. Their artist-owned label MoonHouse Records will be expanding in 2004 with releases by fellow Austinites Cowboy Johnson and Mike Austin.

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