Portrait of Gillian Welch

Birthday profile

Gillian Welch

Gillian Welch, American singer-songwriter and guitarist

Born
October 2, 1967
Age in 2026
59
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1967

About Gillian Welch

Gillian Howard Welch (born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter who performs with guitarist David Rawlings. Their spare, often dark sound, which The New Yorker calls "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms", blends Appalachian, bluegrass, country and Americana. Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on nine critically acclaimed albums, five under her name, three under Rawlings', and two jointly. Her debut Revival (1996) was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, as was Time (The Revelator), from 2001. Soul Journey (2003) introduced a fuller, more upbeat sound, with drums and electric guitar. After an eight-year gap, The Harrow & the Harvest (2011) was also nominated for a Best Contemporary Folk Album Grammy. In 2020, Welch and Rawlings released All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone), which won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. In 2024, Welch and Rawlings released Woodland, which would win the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album, currently making Welch and Rawlings the only duo to win the award more than once. Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Gillian Welch timeline

  1. Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002.
  2. In 2020, Welch and Rawlings released All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone), which won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.

The world when Gillian Welch was born

Gillian Welch was born in 1967. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1967

  • #1 song"To Sir with Love" – Lulu
  • Top movieIn the Heat of the Night
  • Top TV showBonanza
  • Best-selling bookOne Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Márquez

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst Super Bowl — Green Bay Packers defeat Kansas City Chiefs
  • Top headlineSummer of Love transforms counterculture
  • Technology milestoneFirst heart transplant performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard
  • Defining fadHippie culture and psychedelia
  • Notable inventionFirst handheld calculator
  • World population3.49 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderLyndon B. Johnson
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • Also wonPhiladelphia 76ers (NBA)
  • U.S. population198.7M

1967 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Gillian Welch's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19672026
Gas$0.33$3.45/gal
Average home$14,800$435,000
Average income$9,800$67,500
Minimum wage$1.40$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$1.22$11.95
Postage stamp$0.05$0.73
Population198.7M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.