Becoming Gina
GINA CHAVEZ’S LOVE-INSPIRED MUSIC
It’s been a year of change for Gina Chavez, a killer songstress who works her audiences with a mix of rhythm and blues, contemplative singer-songwriter tunes, and colorful, kinetic Latin folk-pop. Some new directions have surfaced in her most recent album, Lightbeam. Others have taken her from acoustic to electric, English songwriting to Spanish. “I can’t figure out what I am, so I’m doing all things,” she said, laughing. Chavez takes the Lensic Performing Arts Center stage with her four-piece band on Thursday, Jan. 31. On the cover is a photo of Chavez by Jacob Weber, 2018.
Followers of the Austin-based singer Gina Chavez have witnessed a colorful evolution in the past year. Once known for her acoustic, percussion-rich Latin folk-pop, she switched to a hollow-body Gibson electric guitar for Lightbeam, the EP she released in the fall.
And it doesn’t take long to hear that most of the songs were obviously inspired by her love for Jodi Granado, whom she married in 2017.
The lyrics to the opening song, “It’s Hard to Love a Woman,” present overt messages about Granado: “just as she deserves. Her heart is like an ocean; I’m lost in the surf.” And the tune “Heaven Knows” (“Heaven knows you’re just my type/From your freckles to your baby toes, you taste just right”) was produced as a music video and included footage from the couple’s wedding ceremony and reception.
Chavez plays the Lensic Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Jan. 31, with her band: Clint Simmons on drums; Daniel Wyman, keyboards; Michael Romero, trumpet; and Zeke Benenate, bass.
Besides her musical evolution, the vocalist and guitarist has confronted a couple of important personal issues. She identifies as a Latina, but she has said that she feels “kind of like a faker” because she was born and raised in Austin rather than in a Latin country. “If only I’d grown up in Argentina, my heart would beat with the rhythms of the chacarera,” which is a type of folk music from that country, she said in the autobiographical video IAmWhoIAm.
The other issue revolves around what it is to be a Catholic Latina and to fall in love with a woman. She and Granado had to conceal the exact nature of their relationship during a significant time spent at a Catholic girls’ school in El Salvador. “We taught English to about 300 middle through high school-age kids,” Chavez said in a recent interview. “We lived with nuns for those eight months in 2009 and 2010 and we were a couple at the time and just had to kind of hide that. We realized we were there for a specific reason. We were not there to push social norms or something. We were there to just serve. We got to experience El Salvador together, side by side, but it was definitely difficult, to be with a person you love and not really be able to show that.”
While at the school, she immersed herself in the activist folk music known as nueva canción, which she first encountered during a study abroad semester in Argentina years earlier. The voices of Mercedes Sosa, as well as Cuba’s Silvio Rodríguez and Violeta Parra of Chile, became strong influences on her own music.
The girls’ school is located in the dangerous Soyapango neighborhood. Chavez said it was a stronghold of Mara Salvatrucha, the MS-13 gang. “We were always very smart because we walked everywhere: We didn’t have a car. We were always very taken care of. We went out and toured the country a lot. But there were days when we would walk out the doors and 20 feet from an all-girls Catholic school, there would be a chalk drawing of someone who had been murdered the night before. That’s the world these young women are living in.
“What we think of El Salvador here in the States is all the ugly stuff, the violence and extortion and gangs. Yes, there is violence and yes, it’s awful, but I’ve traveled a fair amount and the people there are the most amazing — salt of the earth — just beautiful hearts. And the country is gorgeous. It’s like a paradise, and it’s just so hard to see people who are so wonderful who are dealing with some of the worst parts of humanity.”
The Americans’ connection to the girls was powerful and protective, and it’s no surprise that they couldn’t walk away after the eight months was up. They established the Niñas Arriba College Fund to raise money to send some of the girls from the school to university. Chavez said monthly tuition is about $200, which is what San Salvador residents with a decent job earn in a month. She stages some of her concerts as fundraisers for the college fund.
Chavez returned to El Salvador for the production of a music video for “Siete-D,” a song on her bilingual sophomore album, Up. Rooted. The vivacious piece is about the bus ride she and Granado routinely took between Soyapango and San Salvador. The song won the Latin-category grand prize in the 2014 John Lennon Songwriting Contest. Since 2013, Chavez has
“We’ve gone through what it means to be a same-sex couple and still be practicing Catholics, so there’s a lot of journeys that we’ve been through. It is interesting about this record, that I wasn’t intending to write something that was reflective about our relationship, but that’s what kind of happened.” — Gina Chavez
taken home 10 prizes from the annual Austin Music Awards. They include Best Female Vocals in 2014 and Austin Musician of the Year, Austin Album of the Year (Up.Rooted), Austin song of the Year (”Siete-D”), and Best Latin Band, all in 2015.
She recorded the more personal and pop-oriented Lightbeam with studio musicians: keyboardist David Boyle, bassist Steve Terebecki, and drummer Conrad Choucroun from the Austin band White Denim. Chavez wraps her strong, athletic voice around lyrics like, “Babe, you are a miracle. May you never feel invisible.”
Most of the album is grounded in recent reality, but she started writing “It’s Hard to Love a Woman” about eight years ago while dating Granado. “We’ve been together for 12 years,” she said. “We met at the University Catholic Center at the University of Texas, Austin, and we volunteered in El Salvador together and we’ve gone through what it means to be a same-sex couple and still be practicing Catholics, so there’s a lot of journeys that we’ve been through. It is interesting about this record, that I wasn’t intending to write something that was reflective about our relationship, but that’s what kind of what happened.
“I had that one song in my back pocket for a while, but it needed some work. I’d pull it out every now and then and just kind of see what would happen with it — play it again and see if anything came up.” She wrote the four other tracks during a time she took off from touring. Rather than writing Spanish songs (she’s still learning that language, so songwriting requires significant effort), she simply wrote music and English lyrics. For her next recording, she has three Spanish tracks and a pair of English tracks in the works. “I can’t figure out what I am, so I’m doing all things,” she said, laughing.
Chavez is bringing her Gibson to Santa Fe. “I pretty much tour with an electric. Ideally, I would have the acoustic, too, but traveling is difficult with both.” Tracks from Lightbeam will definitely be part of the program. “Yeah, I mean our show is all of it. It’s bilingual. It’s an introspective singer-songwriter, R&B vibe, and Latin dance band.”