Gaby Moreno, left, performs "Across The Borderline" with surprise guest Jackson Browne, July 12 at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
David Andrako
Gaby Moreno, the enchanting Latin Grammy-winning Guatemalan singer/songwriter, arrived onstage at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival Friday night (July 12), promising her fans: “You guys are in for a treat tonight.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
A performance featuring solely Moreno — who won the Latin Grammy Award for best new artist in 2013 — would have been emotionally rewarding enough.
But throughout her concert at the bandshell in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, presented as part of the 20th annual Latin Alternative Music Conference, Moreno and her band were joined by — or stepped out of the spotlight for — a succession of great guest stars, culminating with a finale featuring Oscar Isaac and Jackson Browne.
Moreno’s guest artists included charming Mexican singer Caloncho; the exuberant Andrea Echeverri, lead singer of the Colombian rock band Aterciopelados; the Venezuelan composer/producer Jorge Glem accompanying Moreno on the cuatro and the astounding Flor de Toloache, who bill themselves as New York’s “first and only all-women mariachi group,” joined by rapper Velcro MC who shouted out “Viva Brooklyn!”
But there was more. Isaac, the Golden Globe-winning actor who, like Moreno, emigrated from Guatemala and played in a South Florida punk band early in his career, joined Moreno mid-show for a set that included the sweetly comical title song to her 2016 album Illusion.
As the evening drew to a close, Moreno told the crowd that her new album, Spangled, a collaboration with famed Los Angeles songwriter and producer Van Dyke Parks, would arrive Oct. 4 and that she’d just released the album’s first single, “Across the Borderline,” a song written in the early ’80s by Ry Cooder, John Hiatt and Jim Dickinson.
“I sing it as a duet with Jackson Browne,” she said. “And guess what? Jackson Browne is here tonight, you guys! And we’re going to sing it for all of you.”
Browne, bearded but still boyish at 70, walked onstage, gave Moreno a hug and recalled playing at the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival a decade earlier.
“Across the Borderline” may have been written more than three decades ago, but its lyrics are just as relevant today with the latest headlines from the Latin American refugee crisis. Moreno and Browne sang:
And when you reach the broken promised land
And every dream slips though your hand
You’ll know it’s too late to change your mind
‘Cause you pay the price to come this far
Just to wind up where you are
And you’re still just across the borderline
For one more song, Moreno welcomed Isaac back onstage. With Browne, they sang the classic folk song “Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song),” which Isaac performed in the lead role of the 2013 film Inside Llewellyn Davis. Bidding the crowd farewell, their three voices rose beautifully into the Brooklyn night.