As singer-songwriter Essence Goldman takes the stage at Sweetwater Music Hall on Wednesday, Oct. 22, she won’t just be performing songs from her new album, Father’s Daughter—she’ll be performing acts of devotion.
“I didn’t know how to process my grief any other way than to write about it and to honor my dad in song,” she said. “That felt like the best way to create a monument, to create an altar to him in song.”
A sixth-generation San Franciscan, Goldman was raised by her father, a single parent and artist whose creative life shaped her own. “He was an incredible artist and an incredible father who made me who I am,” she said. “He taught me a lot of things and gave me an expansive view of the world and creativity.”
His passing, she explained, left a void she filled the only way she knew how—through music. That process led to Father’s Daughter, a deeply personal album steeped in Americana and country influences, recorded close to home in Marin.
“This record is about grief, healing, resilience and rebirth,” Goldman said. “I’ve never felt more connected to the music or to myself.”
Through writing and performing these songs, Goldman discovered something profound: “I think making this record was a journey in honoring my dad but also recognizing the inner strength in myself that I didn’t know I had,” she said. “He actually had given me the tools—and I was using them.”
That inheritance of creativity and compassion extends to her nonprofit, Believe Music Heals, through which Goldman works with people who are terminally ill, incarcerated or otherwise struggling. “I help them turn their focus toward creativity and self-expression,” she explained. “My dad did that. I watched him use art and creativity as a way to transform his own life through hardship. He modeled that for me.”
Goldman’s insight into the healing power of art is as articulate as her music is emotional. “When you write or sing, it allows you a moment of stillness to listen to your inner voice and honor what is true for you,” she said. “By putting something in a song, you give it a place to live. You don’t have to carry it on your shoulders every single day.”
That idea—of transforming pain into prayer—is the thread running through Father’s Daughter. “Every time I sing those songs, I go to that place,” she revealed. “You have to feel it to sing it. But then it has its place—you don’t have to sing it every single second. It’s like a prayer. You give it a place. You’ve created an altar.”
Goldman’s path has been shaped by collaboration as much as introspection. Her project with the late Bernie Dalton, Bernie & the Believers, gained national attention through NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert and is now being developed into a feature film by Paramount and John Legend’s Get Lifted Film Co. “It couldn’t have been planned,” she said. “It was a turn in the road for me that surprised everyone involved. It just has a life of its own.”
At the Sweetwater show, Essence & Gold Country will be joined by an impressive lineup of friends and fellow travelers, including the Jenny Kerr Band, The Dogweeds, Jacob Aranda and Josiah Flores.
For Goldman, performance isn’t work—it’s lifeblood. “I love music and I love singing, and I live for it,” she said. “Doing what you love isn’t a labor—it’s a passion.”
Essence & Gold Country performs at Sweetwater Music Hall, 7:30pm, Wednesday, Oct. 22. Tickets and info at sweetwatermusichall.com.
