Faith Gilmore grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana with music as an integral part of her life. Her mother always played records while doing household chores. She taught Faith and her siblings songs from the gospel and would then tape their childlike voices singing as a keepsake. Faith remembers the blissful feeling of running the perimeter of the room to the raspy voice of early Amy Grant tunes spinning on the record player. She and her mother often sang in harmony to groups like the Bee Gees, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, and Carol King while doing the dishes.
In second grade, Faith sang her first solo, after the school's persistent director of musicals persuaded the shy Faith to sing the song "I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch". At age 11, Faith sang another solo for her peer group at church. When her parents wanted Faith to learn piano, the instructor said "not until she joins my choir". Faith was admitted into the choir a year earlier than the others: in 6th grade. The instructor taught them all how to read, count, and hear music, and to sing music classically. There, she was given several solos and entered several regional and statewide vocal competitions in which she ranked superiors, 2nd, and 3rd on various occasions. In the alto section, she sat near a black woman who sang with such fluidity in her melismata. Faith would go home and try to imitate this, by plunking out each note on the piano that she'd heard the woman sing so rapidly and with so much soul. Soon, this way of singing became a part of Faith's vocal makeup. During this time, she'd begun singing more solos in church and at weddings, growing from a very timid performer, to one who was quite comfortable on stage.
She went on to get further training in classical voice and musical theory at a three-year arts school that met each day after classes at one's sending school were held. This facility was the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (an institution that Harry Connick, Jr. and the young Marsalis brothers attended), where she polished her technique. During this time, she was asked to sing the National Anthem at a New Orleans Zepher's baseball game, which aired on radio.
Faith always kept a journal of thoughts, poetry, and song. Lyrics always came naturally to Faith as she wrote on the society around her and the emotional response within her. The first song she wrote was in third grade, when her bike was stolen. In 1991, she began writing songs more frequently, most often in a stream of consciousness way. But, it wasn't until she started learning the guitar that the songs began to really take shape. She would perform these songs for friends at college, at church, and at a local coffee shop. Alongside this, Faith performed in a song and dance group in college adding some dance to the mix. These performances took them to different states, where they'd perform hits from every decade in a 45 minute time slot decked with costumes and makeup.
After getting her degree in social work, Faith moved to Nashville to pursue her artistry in a more deliberate way. There, she began writing, co writing, recording, and performing while working as a full time social worker. Eventually she saved enough money to independently fund the recording and release of her debut album, Trip the Light. She continues to write and perform.
