Born in San Mateo, California in 1931 to first generation American Henry Lieberknecht and his Austrian born second wife Roberta Lieberknecht, Gilbert Lieberknecht was destined to be a musician and composer. His parents played the zither and were performing artists in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1930s. Gil's father, a printer by trade, performed and composed under the professional name of "Don Henry." He had a son, George W. Lieberknecht, from a previous marriage to Ada M. Lieberknecht, but George does not appear to have lived in the same household as his half brother. Henry met Roberta in 1925 in Berkeley, with the zither as their main common interest. At the end of the year she had to return to her current home of Switzerland as her visa was expiring. Henry was about to take on another job in Reno, Nevada, but instead sold his car so he could get to New York and intercept Roberta before she sailed. Once he found her there, Henry surprised her with a proposal and she accepted. She still had to go back to Europe, but three months later came to the United States for good as Henry's wife. After five years they had their only child.
The family moved several times in Gil's first two years, staying mostly around the San Francisco Bay area. Roberta decided to take on piano teaching to supplement the family income during the Great Depression, and had a piano shipped from Switzerland for that purpose. Given the mix of musical interests between his parents Gilbert spent his childhood immersed in traditional Austrian folk music and American jazz, and studied classical piano for a number of years, initially with his mother. He was born with gift of perfect pitch, which could sometimes be a curse as well, but also suffered from bronchitis. After a move north to San Anselmo in Marin County, California to improve his health, Gil took lessons with Leslie Covey. Since he felt he worked better on Mr. Covey's grand piano, his parents somehow found a way to bring a McPhail grand into their house in 1940. During the next several years he took lessons from Mr. Covey, as well as a Mr. Siefort and Mr. Bauer. Even though there was much in the way of popular music available, Roberta and Henry insisted he remain embedded in classical works, of which Frederic Chopin was one of his favorites.
In June 1946, Roberta died at 54 after a long battle with cancer. After the tragic and untimely death of his mother, Gil and his father took an extended vacation, which included a visit to relatives in Henry's native Omaha. When they returned to California, they moved first to Los Angeles where Henry married the private nurse that had cared for Roberta to the end. The marriage lasted only a short time, and father and son then moved briefly to San Antonio, Texas. In late 1947, they finally settled in Omaha, Nebraska where Henry had been born in 1879, a city rich in Bohemian culture and tradition. Henry settled back in to the printing business. While Gil's lessons had ceased before Roberta's death, he continued to play, particularly at special programs at school, but was not a part of standard musical activities like orchestra, band or choir. After high school he held a couple of jobs until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952 during the Korean conflict. It was over before he was out of basic training, so Gil ended up staying in the U.S. until he was discharged in 1954 after his standard two years of service. At that time he became part of the door to door Fuller Brush work force in Omaha, and within two years had become the top company salesman in the city. But another force had already started to creep in to his life.
While still playing the piano, the classics were getting less attention. Henry referred to his late wife in chastising Gil on this point - "What would your mother say?" But he persisted on following this direction. According to Gil, at the age of 23, "...in 1955, I got caught up in the Crazy Otto craze." [Whether this refers to American Johnny Maddox or German Fritz Schulz-Reichel is unclear.] He also listened to Del Wood and Lou Busch a.k.a. Joe "Fingers" Carr. "I started playing ragtime in 1959, after hearing [the late] Bob Darch [who was performing nightly at the classic Fontanelle Hotel opened in 1915]. By 1960, I was composing my own ragtime". The first rag he presented to Bob, Deer Park Rag, was reportedly based on Wood's hit recording of Down Yonder. It fell with a thud to Bob's ears, who said it wasn't terrible, "It's Horrible." Darch still encouraged him to continue to try, even giving him a copy of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag to learn, the final blow that hooked him on the genre. Gil's following composition was South Omaha Rag in 1960.
From that point on, Lieby ultimately composed more than 60 ragtime, novelty and stride piano pieces. One of his first moves towards a more musically structured life in 1960 was to obtain a job in a music store selling pianos and organs. Through the advice of his employer, Roger Critchett, Gil learned more about the art of composition and was able to correct many of his shortcomings in short order. His dedication to ragtime performance and writing increased. When Darch returned to Omaha in 1964 he heard Gil's Spring Lake Rag and Trophy Rag, which prompted Bob, who thought they were good works, to instill in Gil the need to copyright his works, which he did so from that point on. Most of his compositions document an important event or location in his life. Katrina Rag, composed in 1965 and copyrighted a few years later, had its origins at an early rendition of the St. Louis Ragtime Festival. It is a commemoration of his meeting life-long friend and sometimes co-composer, Kathi Backus of Santa Barbara, California. Another piece from the following year was the Goldenrod Rag, which referred to the Goldenrod Showboat, built in 1909 and restored in the early 1960s through the efforts of Dave Jasen and Trebor Tichenor, and which plied the waters of the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area for three decades. This was the very boat that inspired Edna Furber to write Showboat. Many ragtime festivals were also hosted on this celebrated ship, a registered National Historic Landmark, which in spite of another restoration sadly became a relic and was partially dismantled by 2006. By the late 1960s, Gil was making his living as a truck driver, but still delighting many with his ragtime renditions, particularly of his own compositions.
In 1971 Gil was driving a Star Route mail truck when a briefcase containing all of his music manuscripts to that time was stolen from the truck. There were no other copies, so he learned a painful lesson in that loss, reflected in Lost Music Rag. Continuing to compose, he came out with pieces like Lil White Fuzzy Rag, which exemplified his love for cats. His pure devotion to his pets is also found in Little Guys. Lost Fuzzies was written as a memorial to his beloved pets when all were tragically lost in a house fire in January of 1985. He also lost family pictures, ragtime records and two pianos. Surprisingly, his manuscripts survived the fire even though they were in a cardboard suitcase over the center of the blaze. A contrasting work, Good News On Zero Street was a joyous account of the building of a new church he was associated with. Composed in tribute to his dear mother Roberta, Goodbye Mama, lamented her untimely death and the deep and the indescribable sadness felt in the heart of a fourteen year old boy, a pain which remained for decades. One of his more interesting works was Anathema Blues. Gil was staying at a lodge with a piano of questionable integrity that had several non-functioning notes, particularly in the bass, and rose to the challenge by writing an unusual low-bass driven work that utilized the notes that actually did work. Fresno Frolics was based on a theme by Gil's father Henry, which is used as the final section of the piece. The most popular of his compositions was the Carter Laker, recorded and performed by many ragtime artists.
Then came a miracle. In May 1985, four months after he had lost almost everything, Gil received a telephone call. The briefcase with the music stolen in 1971 had been found. A man hired in 1983 to clean out the rental house of a prison-bound criminal had located it in the basement, taken it home, and forgotten about it for two years. In perspective, had the man returned the music any earlier, it potentially could have been lost in the fire. Gil felt that there was some special reason that his music survived several potential catastrophes. As an implementation of a better backup system, from that point on he mailed a copy of each new composition to Kathi Backus. Kathi has preserved copies of everything Gil has composed. Another friend, Burns Davis of Nebraska, also was frequently sent back-up copies of Gil’s compositions.
More than just a ragtime-playing truck-driving cat-loving kind of guy, Gil also enjoyed water skiing, often serving as a boat driver for competitions or exhibitions. He was a member of the board of the Carter Lake Water Ski Club in Iowa for nearly a decade, part of the time as Vice President and one year as President, for which he composed the Carter Laker. Among his supporters were David and Jeannie Wright, co-founders of the Cascade Ragtime Society in Oregon. He met them in 1983 at one of the first annual incarnations of the modern day Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival held in Sedalia, Missouri. David took quickly to Gil's music, playing and promoting it wherever he could. In 1987 Gil played for the Cascade Ragtime Society during which his performances were recorded. Gil composed Umpquight Moments that year in honor of the couple.
In 1995, Iowa native ragtime performer Marty Mincer recorded an album of many of Gil's works at the composer's behest, featuring the Goldenrod Rag as the title cut, the only such complete album that exists to date. Others who have since recorded some of his pieces include Brian Keenan, Keith Taylor, Bill Edwards, the inimitable West Coast ragtimer Tom Brier, and Sister Jean and Paul Huling (a.k.a. Laundry Fat). Within a decade, Gil would be retired from truck driving and still living in Omaha, attending local ragtime events whenever he could. He also managed to travel out to the Sutter Creek Ragtime Festival for many years, and wrote a number of pieces commemorating the festival, including the popular Sutter Creek Strut. His final public performance outside of Omaha was at Sutter Creek in August of 2005. Gil Lieby spent his last year in poor health due to Parkinson's disease, but still had a healthy sense of humor and his passion for ragtime remained. He died peacefully in his father's home town of Omaha. The collection of works he left behind also speak to his passions and his life in a biographical manner, and through artists like Kathi Backus, Marty Mincer and Tom Brier will remain so for many years.
I would like to add a personal note of thanks to my friend and ragtime performer Nan Bostick who provided some of the details found in this biography in addition to my research and conversations with Gil, and to playing partner and performer Marty Mincer who provided some of the dates and a couple of anecdotes.