Gerson '92 : Coming to a living room near you

With a dramatically changing music industry, artists are searching for ways to make a living while making music. Ruth Gerson '92, a singer, songwriter and guitarist who plays folk-acoustic rock, has found an answer: living room concerts. Gerson, a religion major, received her first guitar during her senior year at Princeton. Following college, Ruth began searching for work at various clubs. Even as her popularity grew, Gerson soon realized that the club venue was not economically sound because "it [was] hard to get club dates all in a row."

A solution to Gerson's growing dilemma arrived one day, when a friend asked, "Why don't you come play in my living room." Traveling to D.C., Gerson played her first living room concert in front of 60 people and walked away with $1,200. For Gerson, the experience helped her realize what kind of venues she could pursue besides the clubs.

On Feb. 25, I had the chance to experience my first living room concert with Gerson. Mark Taylor, a professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary, hosted a living room concert in his house, located just slightly off campus. While Taylor provided a warm fire, a mixture of beverages and appetizers, Gerson provided the entertainment. When the guests began to settle down, Gerson picked up her guitar and began to play. She played for about two and a half hours without a microphone or any form of amplification in the very personal, up-close and informal setting. During a break, Gerson mingled with the guests, shared her experiences and promoted her newest CD, "Wake to Echo."

Living room concerts are rising in popularity as a convenient new avenue for up-and-coming artists to perform their art independently while still financially supporting themselves. As Gerson put it, it offers a perfect balance of "making a living, making music." Living room concerts "can happen anywhere at any place," and they grow out of a network of family and friends who invite others to attend a given event, Gerson said.

"As you move on and you develop your career, you create more of a demand," Gerson said. Typically, the host's role is to invite the artist to perform, provide a space for the performance, gather a good -sized audience, offer refreshments or organize a potluck style gathering and finally to agree to cover a base fee that includes travel if travel is especially costly. The performer in return keeps all the proceeds from donations that are collected at the door from guests. When asked whether or not the living room concert is a relatively new movement, Gerson responded, "yes and no. They have been around for a while, but primarily in the form of 'parlor concerts.'" She further pointed out that what is new is the independent nature of living room concertsand "the idea that any artist can do it."

Gerson has an extraordinary and inspiring background. As a soloist, Gerson traveled extensively, including tours to Italy, Austria, Germany, Sweden and Israel, with backup roles in concerts in Singapore and South America. Meanwhile, Gerson has also produced a number of albums, including "Ruth Gerson Band Very Live" (1995), "Not Around Town Bootlegs" (1996-98), "Fools and Kings" (1997), "Wish" (1999) and her most recent album. Gerson writes her own material but noted that "a lot of my inspiration comes from writers and from my studies at school." Gerson named artists Van Morrison, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan and Dolly Parton as her greatest sources of inspiration – remarking that Dolly Parton was an especially brilliant writer and that her song "Down from Dover is arguably one of the greatest songs ever written."

Gerson has received stirring reviews of her own from an impressive spectrum of critics writing for Billboard, The New York Times, Star Ledger, Washington Post, New Yorker, New York Post, and Elle Magazine which labeled Gerson as "the New Poet of Rock."

Gerson urges other young artists who are searching for a means to pursue their art to consider the possibility of Living room concerts. While Gerson has chosen to work through her own network of friends and fans, many artists choose to operate or advertise through a network, such as www.HouseConcerts.com where the contacts for venues and performers are listed in order to facilitate contact between potential hosts and performers. Speaking from experience, Gerson advises beginners to "build a fan base, make postcards, construct a website, and pursue it."

According to Gerson, one of the biggest differences of a living room concert is the close proximity of the artist to the audience. "During my first living room concert, it was hard for me to pick up my head because I was so close. I'm very different when I play in a living room concert," Gerson said.

With this in mind, she advises beginners to thoroughly consider whether or not this type of a setting would be suitable for their voice and style. At the same time, Gerson says that in such personal settings, "you become very grateful for the people who are listening [...] because you see them watching you. So what is scary at first is, at the same time, also the most rewarding aspect."

Gerson is excited about the possibility of setting up a workshop at Princeton University to talk to students about her experiences and to offer further professional advice. "Students at Princeton are really well equipped to do this because they think outside the box," and they "make friends from all over the country, and that helps too," Gerson said.