Folk singer-songwriter John Gorka plays Ocean Grove on Saturday, December 5, at 8 p.m., as the second show of the third season of Split Level Concerts at the Jersey Shore Arts Center. Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 on the day of the show, and the concert runs in the center's Palaia Theater at 66 South Main Street.

Who John Gorka is

Gorka grew up in New Jersey and came up through the folk coffeehouse circuit. His start came at Godfrey Daniels, a listening room in eastern Pennsylvania, where he lived in the basement and worked as the club's emcee and sound engineer while studying philosophy and history at Moravian College. That job put him on the same small stage as touring folk performers such as Stan Rogers, Tom Paxton, Eric Andersen and Claudia Schmidt. He later spent time in New York City with Jack Hardy's Fast Folk songwriting circle.

In 1984 he won the New Folk Award at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. Rolling Stone later named him the leading singer-songwriter of the New Folk movement, a line his own biography still cites.

His recording career began with I Know on Red House Records in 1987. He then made five albums for High Street Records, a Windham Hill label: Land of the Bottom Line, Jack's Crows, Temporary Road, Out of the Valley and Between Five and Seven. He returned to Red House in 1998 for After Yesterday, followed by The Company You Keep (with guest appearances from Ani DiFranco, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucy Kaplansky and Patty Larkin), Old Futures Gone, Writing in the Margins and So Dark You See. In 2010 he recorded Red Horse with Lucy Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson, an album that reached the Billboard folk charts and was among the most played records on folk radio.

Other artists have carried his songs further. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Mary Black and Maura O'Connell have all recorded or performed his material, and he has toured with Griffith and Carpenter. He has appeared on Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage and etown. His song Where No Monuments Stand appears in Every War Has Two Losers, a documentary about the poet William Stafford. The concert listing for the Ocean Grove show also points to his most recent album, Unentitled. Gorka now lives in Minnesota.

The Split Level Concerts series

Split Level Concerts is a singer-songwriter series held at the Jersey Shore Arts Center, now in its third season. Every show this season starts at 8 p.m. The season opened October 31 with a solo storyteller set by Willie Nile, and Gorka's night is the next date on the calendar. The rest of the season, as posted by the arts center:

  • January 9: Dan Bern, with Redbird
  • February 13: Catie Curtis and Band, with Mike Montrey
  • March 13: Stephen Kellogg, opener to be announced
  • April 10: Abbie Gardner, with Sean Kiely
  • May 8: Heather Maloney and Band, with Tiny Cities
  • June 5: Kim Richey, with Sharon Lasher

Season subscriptions are already sold out, so single tickets are the way in for the Gorka show and the rest of the run.

The venue

The Jersey Shore Arts Center occupies the former Neptune High School building on South Main Street in Ocean Grove. It is run by the Ocean Grove Historic Preservation Society, a nonprofit that is restoring the building and uses it to offer affordable programs, events and work space for artists and arts educators. The Palaia Theater, the building's performance hall, hosts the Split Level shows along with other events on the center's calendar.

Getting there

The arts center is at 66 South Main Street (Route 71), Ocean Grove, in Neptune Township, Monmouth County. On NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line, the Bradley Beach and Asbury Park stations are the closest stops; check the weekend schedule for the last train home. By car, Garden State Parkway Exit 100 connects to Route 33 east toward Neptune and Ocean Grove. Questions about the building or accessibility can go to the arts center at 732-502-0050.

Tickets and details

An Evening with John Gorka, presented by Split Level Concerts: Saturday, December 5, 8 to 10 p.m., Palaia Theater, Jersey Shore Arts Center, 66 South Main Street, Ocean Grove. Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 day of show, sold through the arts center's ticket page, which is linked from its Split Level Concerts listing.

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