Biography

She was a founding member of the Weavers, the seminal quartet that helped propel folk music to wider popularity and establish its influence as an agent of social change.

After the Weavers broke up in 1964, she became active in the theater. She earned an M.A. in psychology in the 1970s and worked as therapist. Beginning in the 1980s, she recorded and performed often with the folk singer and activist Holly Near.

At 16, she moved to Washington, D.C., and lived in the home of a friend of her mother, where she met other musicians and sang in a folk group called the Priority Ramblers. Later, she and Fred Hellerman met as counselors at a New Jersey summer camp. In New York they joined a community of folk singers and musicians.

Survived by a daughter, Lisa, and Donna Korones, her partner of 30 years.

She grew up in and around New York City. Her parents were immigrants who separated when she was 11. Her father was from the Ukraine, and worked as a milliner. Her mother, from Poland, was a garment worker, a union activist and a member of the Communist Party. She took her daughter, about 10 at the time, to a union rally at which Paul Robeson sang, an event Gilbert later recalled as "transformative".