Sharon Gilchrist

Sharon Gilchrist
Background information
Origin	Southlake, Texas United States
Genres	Americana Bluegrass Country
Labels	Rounder Records
Notable instruments
1991 Gilchrist F5 mandolin

Sharon Gilchrist is an American musician, singer, composer, mandolin instructor and the sister of Troy Gilchrist, also a bluegrass musician.

Raised in Southlake, Texas- a suburb of Dallas Texas, Sharon Gilchrist started playing the mandolin at the age of eight.Kevin Kirckpatrick was her first teacher.Her family moved to the country and Sharon and her brother Troy started taking lessons from Brad and Greg Davis in Grapevine TX. When she was nine years old, she and her older brother already played in a band called"Blue Night Express". The personnel changed and Martie Erwin joined to play the fiddle,later Martie's sister also joined the band(when Todd VanTrice left). Over the next five to six years, Blue Night Express played as a full-time band while the Erwin sisters were still attending private Greenhill School, in nearby Addison, (Sharon attended Carroll High School in Southlake Texas.). They appeared with such bluegrass performers as Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Del McCoury, and New Grass Revival. Sharon was playing a Kentucky F5 copy by this time.By fourteen,Sharon was playing an R.L.Givens F5 copy.The Blue Night Express band lasted for nearly seven years,Sharon played with the band from age nine to sixteen. Eventually, the Erwin sisters teamed up with Robin Lynn Macy and Laura Lynch, two women they had met over the years forming the first lineup of a new band playing predominantly bluegrass, named the Dixie Chicks. (The Erwin sisters each married many years later, taking the names Martie Seidel (from a short-lived marriage), and then, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison). Sharon and Troy played as a duo for a couple of years called "Acoustic Manor".

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