Gabrielle Macrae grew up in a musical family in the Old Time music hotbed of Portland, Oregon. After spending her teenage years learning clawhammer banjo, fiddle and guitar and going to local square dances she moved to North Carolina and immersed herself in the music. There she spent her time learning from and playing with some of the greatest living players of the genre, and visiting some of the last remaining elder musicians such as Clyde Davenport, Charlie Acuff, Benton Flippen, and The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers. She gained notoriety for her banjo playing after she and her sisters (The Macrae Sisters) released the album Old Sledge, which has become one of the iconic modern Old Time albums of its generation. She is now considered one of the leading Old Time fiddlers on the west coast and is known for her powerful and dynamic approach. She names luminaries such as Stephen “Sammy” Lind of Foghorn Stringband and Trevor Stuart of the Stuart Brothers as her mentors. Her fiddling is heavily influenced by the traditions of Western North Carolina where she made her home for some years, and by her contemporaries who she is continually inspired by. On a tour of the UK with her sisters in 2012 she met Liverpudlian Barry Southern and the two formed the band The Horsenecks. They now live in Astoria, Oregon with their daughter and have released three critically acclaimed albums.
