On KGNU, Dan Willging interviews Colorado songwriter Martin Gilmore, who recently won a New Folk award at the 2025 Kerrville Folk Festival. Gilmore talks about teaching, his success at Kerrville, Lyons, and Telluride festivals, and his new album Thea Is a Light Blue, inspired by Boulder artist William Stoehr. He performs two original songs, including a Jimmie Rodgers tribute, and reflects on songwriting, collaboration, and finding a kinder inner voice. (Studio Session: 8/19/25)
Dan Willging: KGNU 1390, Denver. I’m Big Daddy, and with me right now is Martin Gilmore.
Martin Gilmore: Howdy. How are you?
Dan Willging: How are you?
Martin Gilmore: Pretty good. It’s a little early for me, but that’s okay.
Dan Willging: Man, you’re a busy guy. I was looking you up. You teach at—really?
Martin Gilmore: I was teaching the folk and bluegrass program at the University of Northern Colorado, but that’s over now. They sunsetted that program. But I still teach at Swallow Hill, and from time to time at the University of Denver in the enrichment program. I have a class this fall coming up there. Just try to piece it together however I can.
Dan Willging: And you pieced it together and you won the New Folk at the 2025 Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas.
Martin Gilmore: Yeah, that’s right. There are six winners, and I was one of the six—six out of 24. And so I get to go on a big tour down there in November with all the winners. That was fun.
Kerrville is a pretty cool place. I’d never been to that festival before, and a lot of people are really into songwriting, and a lot of amazing songwriters. I was honored just to be there, and especially honored to be amongst the winners.
Dan Willging: [00:01:00] Wow.
Martin Gilmore: Yeah.
Dan Willging: What does it look like down in Kerrville?
‘Cause I think Jimmie Rodgers once lived there.
Martin Gilmore: Yeah. I drove past his house. I’m a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan. The Blue Yodeler’s Paradise—it’s still there, kind of up on the hill. They just had those huge floods there on the Guadalupe River, which was really bad. But Kerrville is in the hill country.
It’s pretty scenic, actually. You know, it’s kind of down in this river valley and has pretty nice hills all around. The folk festival’s kind of out on a ranch—I think it’s like southwest of town. I got turned around when I was there, but it’s nice.
It’s a dry and dusty place there in the Texas hills, and it was really hot.
Dan Willging: Yeah, I think years ago, John Davis was also a New Folk winner.
Martin Gilmore: Sure.
Dan Willging: Yeah. You remember him?
Martin Gilmore: Yeah, I do.
Dan Willging: It’s been a while since I heard.
Martin Gilmore: I don’t know what he’s doing now, but he wrote some nice songs.
Martin Gilmore: You know, the songwriters there in Kerrville, and especially the New Folk contestants, are amazing songwriters. Just like the best of the best. And I met so many cool people. That was one of the coolest things about doing that. I’ve done a bunch of contests recently, and just meeting all the other [00:02:00] songwriters and getting to talk to people who are really into songwriting has been a lot of fun.
Made a lot of good friends recently. That’s the real reward of all of that, is just all the friends I made.
Dan Willging: Did things cross-pollinate in your mind?
Martin Gilmore: Yeah. I can’t think of anything specific off the top of my head that I heard somebody else write about or talk about that has inspired a song yet.
But I have met a lot of other songwriters who are interested in collaborating, which is something that I like to do. So I’m looking forward to doing more of that. Especially after this tour that all the winners go on in November. I’m sure there’ll be more stuff happening.
Dan Willging: Congratulations. And you also played the folk festival here in Lyons?
Martin Gilmore: I did. I won the Folk Festival contest last year, so I got to play the Folk Festival this year, which was really great. We played at 11:00 AM on Saturday morning and had a great time.
I really enjoyed the Folk Festival. I enjoyed seeing everybody and hanging out with folks. I love Planet Bluegrass. The people up there are so great, and their festivals are so great. Yeah, I’ve been really excited. I went to Telluride this year ’cause I also won the [00:03:00] Telluride contest last year.
And just hanging out with everybody, you know. It’s been really cool to hang out with all the Planet Bluegrass folks, and I feel really welcome there. I just love what they do.
Dan Willging: I’m glad we have such representation on a national level with artists like you.
Martin Gilmore: Oh, thanks.
Dan Willging: Well, yeah, not forgetting about Colorado, you know?
Martin Gilmore: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s lots of amazing stuff happening in Colorado and lots of great songwriters here.
Dan Willging: All right. And you have a new record out?
Martin Gilmore: I released a new record in April called Thea Is a Light Blue. It’s just me and my guitar hanging out in the studio, playing. And it’s available wherever you get your music or at martingilmore.com.
Dan Willging: Cool. And you brought your guitar. So, why don’t I just let you take over, and you can tell us about the songs you’re gonna play.
Martin Gilmore: Okay. Let me start with this one. This is a song that I wrote. I teach classes at the University of Denver on music history and culture for the enrichment program, and I was teaching a class about Jimmie Rodgers. Since we just talked about Jimmie Rodgers, his voice was jingling around in my head, and I wrote this song.
[00:04:00] It’s called My Mississippi Mama Won’t Be Missing Me No More.
(Song lyrics – not corrected for creative reasons)
[00:06:00]
Dan Willging: Man, I love it.
Martin Gilmore: Thanks.
Dan Willging: Wow. I tell you what, that is one fun song.
And that’s kind of in his guitar style that he did, huh?
Martin Gilmore: Yeah. You know, sometimes when I sit down to write songs, I write a song that I could sneak into a traditional set and nobody would know the difference. And that’s kind of where that one came from.
Dan Willging: Oh, wow.
Martin Gilmore: I just like, “Oh, well, if I could write a song for Jimmie Rodgers to sing,” that was sort of where that one came from. Just fun, you know?
Dan Willging: I love it.
Martin Gilmore: Let’s see. I’ll do the title track for my record. This was inspired by a painting from a painter who lives here in Boulder.
His name is William Stoehr—S-T-O-E-H-R. He paints amazing canvases, portraits. A lot of the subjects of his art are people who have struggled with addiction. I have always been really inspired by his paintings.
Sometimes I give myself a songwriting assignment where I’m gonna write a song about a painting or whatever. I sat down to write this song and realized halfway through that I was actually writing a song about myself—which happens.
This is kind of a song about finding a kinder inner voice. Sometimes I think we have inner voices that [00:07:00] maybe aren’t that nice to us. This is Thea Is a Light Blue.
(Song lyrics – not corrected for creative reasons)
[00:11:00]
Dan Willging: Nice.
Martin Gilmore: Thanks.
Dan Willging: So I take it that the painting has a lot of light blue in it.
Martin Gilmore: Yeah. You know, that’s kind of the general hue of the painting. I think he’s painted several portraits of Thea, of that same subject. So I think if I remember right, it’s Thea No. 5. There’s a link to it on my website.
It has a general light blue sort of color to it—like the blue sky and hope and all of those.
Dan Willging: Oh, I get it. Okay. So yeah, not like a “blue” with the usual meaning.
Martin Gilmore: Yeah. It’s like trying to find—
Dan Willging: —blue as in optimism. You know, maybe the sky is blue, you feel better, right?
Martin Gilmore: Yeah. It’s like trying to find—I don’t know. Probably everybody has this voice that’s very critical of what you’re doing, and I think as a musician you cultivate that voice, [00:11:00] because that’s the thing that helps you practice and get better at playing.
