Lucy Kaplansky says the main reason she formed the folk supergroup Red Horse with fellow musicians John Gorka and Eliza Gilkyson was to be able to “hang out” with them more.

Must be nice to make career choices based on who your friends are.

Additional Photos

Free concerts at L.L. Bean's Discovery Park in Freeport feature Red Horse on the Fourth of July. Courtesy photo

Red Horse, from left, Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka and Lucy Kaplansky, draws on the singing and songwriting talents of all three. Courtesy photo

Ryan Shaw will perform at L.L. Bean's Discovery Park in Freeport on Saturday. Courtesy photo

“It’s like we’re getting paid to hang out,” said Kaplansky, 51, who’s based in New York City. “It’s kind of like we’re just sitting around in someone’s living room, talking and singing.”

Red Horse will help kick off L.L. Bean’s Summer in the Park series this holiday weekend. The series officially starts Saturday with a show by R&B singer Ryan Shaw, then Red Horse plays on Monday to cap the weekend.

After that, five more shows will be held on Saturday nights throughout the summer, including Court Yard Hounds (featuring two-thirds of the Dixie Chicks) on July 16, Amos Lee on July 30, Rickie Lee Jones on Aug. 13, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes on Aug. 26, and America on Sept. 3 (although Southside Johnny is officially part of Bean’s hunting expo, not a Summer in the Park concert).

Admission is free for all concerts, which are outdoors in L.L. Bean’s Discovery Park on the Freeport campus. Lawn chairs and blankets are permitted, and there is limited bleacher seating.

Red Horse is a good pick for the Fourth of July, because its music, by Kaplansky’s own definition, is “folky, country, rootsy.” All three members are singer-songwriters with a strong American folk influence.

Gilkyson, who’s based in Austin, Texas, has appeared on the TV show “Austin City Limits,” is a member of the Texas Music Hall of Fame, and has toured with Richard Thompson and Mary Chapin Carpenter, among others.

Gorka, based in Minnesota, came up in the Greenwich Village folk scene and has written songs performed by such folk luminaries as Nanci Griffith and Carpenter.

Kaplansky’s music might be similar to her two bandmates’, but she took a more roundabout route to her music career. She was born in Chicago and went to Greenwich Village as a teen to be a singer.

She did pretty well, but instead of pursuing music full on, she also went to school and eventually earned a Ph.D in clinical psychology from Yeshiva University in New York. She ended up working in that field before going back to music.

The Yeshiva University alumni magazine, when citing her musical accomplishments, refers to her as “Dr. Lucille Kaplansky, class of 1992.”

While working at a New York hospital, Kaplansky did some session work, including backing vocals on recordings by Suzanne Vega.

She was lured back into music full-time by Shawn Colvin, whom she had met before pursuing psychology.

She started recording on her own in the mid-1990s, and has been in at least one other “supergroup” of singer-songwriters: In the late 1990s, she formed Cry, Cry, Cry with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell.

Red Horse mostly came about because Gorka, Kaplansky and Gilkyson all record for Red House Records, and the label convinced the trio to record and tour together.

It didn’t take much convincing, Kaplansky said.

“It’s sort of a mutual admiration society,” she said. “And we get to do each other’s songs.”

Kaplansky and Gorka will also be performing Saturday night at Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield as part of a variety show hosted by musician and Stone Mountain founder Carol Noonan. Tickets for that show are $49. For more information, go to stonemountainartscenter.com. 

Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:

rrouthier@pressherald.com

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