John Gorka

John Gorka was born in Newark, NJ on a Sunday in July, 1958 under Eisenhower skies. He grew up in Colonia, NJ and at age ten got his first guitar as a Christmas present. Before John's fingers were strong enough to press the strings down his older brother claimed the guitar for himself. and carved his name in it. The younger Gorka never recovered from this blow. A few years later he took up the banjo to retaliate. The family was never the same.In high school Gorka started writing songs and singing with a church folk group. When he moved away from home to go to Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA, he started performing in the school coffeehouse programs and the Razzy Dazzy Spasm Band, a non-traditional bluegrass, country, blues and folk band. Future songwriter and recording artist Richard Shindell was asked to join the band as the lead guitar player when the others learned he could play Black Magic Rag. Fellow Spasm member Doug Anderson took Gorka to a coffeehouse that had just opened on the south side of Bethlehem, PA called Godfrey Daniels. It was there Gorka discovered the kind of performer he wanted to become. He went to shows when he could afford them and regularly performed at the open stage nights. He later hosted the open mikes and volunteered as MC, sound man, usher and counter worker.By the early 80's he was the virtual house opening act at Godfrey Daniels and many of the people he met and opened for there went on to open doors for him in other parts of the country, among them, Nanci Griffith, Bill Morrissey, Claudia Schmidt and Jack Hardy. Griffith encouraged him to enter Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Competition, which he won in 1984. Hardy invited him to record for the Fast Folk Musical Magazine and introduced him to the revitalized Greenwich Village folk scene.