3 NEWS! items from Bob Gibson Legacy ...
10-31-2011 —
It's been a while since the last update and it's time to re- connect. I'm finally settling in after the move from Mendocino, California to Portland Oregon. Soon, I'll catch up on correspondence! But for now, here's the latest!
First, you’re invited to two shows in Portland, Oregon this coming week.
Second, I'd love for you to check out Antonia Lamb’s music at CD Baby. Read more about Antonia, her music, and how our families connect below.
Third, KPFK featured Gibson & Camp recently. The show is available online at the Bob Gibson Legacy web site http://bobgibsonlegacy.com .
Best wishes,
Meridian
Wednesday, November 2 at 7:30 pm come on out to Vie de Boheme where I’ll be celebrating my second Saturn return. Meridian Green and friends including Rick Grumbecker, Mark, West, Jeanne Walker, Dick Lappe and Charlie Brunner will be playing folk, Paleo-folk, songer/songerwriter and Americana in various configurations.
Vie de Boheme (Vee du Bo-M) is a wine bar on SE 7th and Clay featuring live music including jazz, blues, swing, salsa, Hawaiian and classical. I’m working there a few nights every week serving up fine fruit of the vine and making victuals to the sounds of some amazing music. This coming Wednesday, instead of being behind the bar, I’ll be out front with a beatnik hootenanny of Portland’s crème de la crème at the Vie de Boheme! We hope to see you there!
Saturday, November 5 the Fare-Thee-Wells (with Rick Grumbecker and Mark West) return to Park Place, a family-friendly coffeehouse with crepes and other delectables.
WEDNESDAY, NOV 2, 7:30 PM
Meridian Green & Friends
Vie de Bohème Winery
1530 SE 7th Av, Portland, Oregon
(503) 360-1233
SATURDAY, NOV 5, 7:00 PM
The Fare-Thee-Wells
Park Place Coffee
1288 SE 182nd Av, Gresham, Oregon
(503) 808-1244
Fans of Bob Gibson are already familiar with Antonia Lamb’s song “What You Going Do About Love” sung by Gibson & Camp on Bob Gibson / The Living Legend Years. Her music is now available online.
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/AntoniaLamb
Antonia Lamb’s bracing honesty is tempered by an intuitive grace. It makes her an amazing songwriter as well as an illuminating astrologer. Her songs are brave and startling, tender and full of mercy, humorous, quirky, and utterly unique. Her voice is reminiscent of Dylan, Malvina Reynolds, and Lucinda Williams and her banjo grooves like the Grateful Dead. My dad, Bob Gibson, as famous for introducing new artists like Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Kate Wolf, as for his own musicality, first discovered Antonia Lamb’s talent decades ago.
When I met Antonia in 1971, she was my father’s current flame. My mother Rose and I had driven from New York City, across the scorching Mojave Desert, through the maze of LA freeways, to arrive at the Troubadour in time for my dad’s show. It was a family reunion, of sorts. The Gibson girls hadn’t seen each other in a year. My sisters, Susan and Pati, had been living with Bob even as he went through rehab. Rose had been on spring (as well as summer, fall and winter) break in Key West. I’d spent a year on my own in Greenwich Village, being as grown up as I could be at 15. It was a moment chunky with emotion. Antonia’s presence could easily have been intrusive but it wasn’t. She’s always been family to me.
The connection began when she asked Bob to trade banjo lessons for a horoscope. He was so impressed by her songs he gave her Johnny Horton’s old banjo and encouraged her to keep writing. Then he followed her up to Mendocino. By the time I trailed north in 1973, Bob was back in Chicago, my mother was living with Antonia’s ex, and I moved into Antonia’s house. My first guitar, a gift from Antonia, was a Gibson, of course.
Before long Gibson & Camp recorded “What You Gonna Do About Love”, Judy Mayhan covered “Morning & an Oldsmobile” and Antonia released her first album, EASY TO LOVE HER [1978], on her own label, MY Records. One of the songs, “2,4,D”, was used for the soundtrack of a Peabody Award-winning PBS documentary.
It took 20 years for her to follow up with a second album, AMAZING TRACKS [1996] which was recorded at my house with Antonia’s son, Jim Lamb, and his portable studio. Of note to fans of Bob Gibson and Biff Rose is the song “Quandry on Route 5”, an eerily extraterrestrial tale of a trip from Los Angeles to Mendocino in a VW van equipped with a traveling piano bar. (photo of BB & A)
Then, with Jim’s help, I too made a record at my house (IN THE HEART OF THIS TOWN). Perhaps that’s part of why it took 10 years for Antonia to complete GAMMA [2006]. The album opens with “Collard Greens and Snails”, the unofficial anthem of many novice gardeners and ends with Antonia’s take on “John Riley” learned from Bob.
Fortunately, Antonia’s on roll now. She’s popping out a new release every two years. LUCKY’S HOUSE [2008] includes an amazing collection of songs recorded mostly live at Peter Temple’s studio in Albion. BANJO GRANDMA’S FAMILY ALBUM [2010] is a fundraiser for the Mendocino Coast Children’s Fund and gathers some old, and includes some new songs from Lamb’s repertoire, that are especially family-friendly. A personal favorite is “Lizard in Your Pants”, a song about attitude featuring pancakes, a mule, and a unpleasant person.
Coming soon, CARRY ME AWAY [scheduled for release in 2012] breaks new musical ground with the help of Jon Fourot.
Antonia Lamb has a new website and all of her recordings are now available for listening, downloading, or buying an old-fashioned compact discs at CD Baby. Check her music out. She’s part of the Gibson Legacy.
Lots of news from Meridian Green on the road ...
03-11-2011 —
There is so much news, it’s hard to make it fit in one email.
I’m in Portland, Oregon playing shows as The Fare-Thee-Wells with Rick Grumbecker. Check out our new website http://www.fare-thee-wells.com/ to hear tunes and see videos. We’ve recently added bassist Mark West to the show and are doing songs from the catalogs of Gibson and Silverstein as well as my original songs and a variety of folk classics. Hopefully this summer will see us reuniting with John Heller and Larry Basil for more Bob Gibson Legacy shows on the East Coast and in the Midwest. For now, we hope you’ll come out to a show in the Portland area –
Saturday March 12th, 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Crossroads Coffee Café
Gladstone. OR
http://crossroadscoffeecafe.com/
Saturday March 19th, 9:00 to Midnight
Sellwood Public House
8132 SE 13th Avenue
Portland, OR
http://www.sellwoodpublichouse.com/
I’ll be in touch with those of you who’ve invited us to come do a show in your local venue or a house concert soon. As ever, I love to hear from you and appreciate your suggestions and offers!
For those of you in other places who’d like to hear the Fare-Thee-Wells, tune in to Tom May’s nationally syndicated radio show River City Folk. We’ll be in the studio with Tom next week and will post more specific broadcast information shortly. For now, tune in to hear any of the River City shows that Tom has produced. Highly recommended!
http://www.tommayfolk.com/rivercityfolk/wfmt.html
A limited number of CDR copies of Bob Gibson (1970 Capitol) and Bob Gibson / Makin’ A Mess (1994) are now available from http://bobgibsonlegacy.com.
The CDR of Bob Gibson, the self-titled album, includes four tracks from a live radio show featuring Bob Gibson and the Flying Burrito Brothers and special guest Byron Berline. The Capitol album, despite the scratchy quality of this “needle-drop” recording, is a must-have for Gibson collectors. Hopefully, a high quality, official re-issue will be available someday, but now, this CDR version keeps the songs alive.
The Makin’ A Mess CDR is another stop-gap release but as it was originally released as a CD the recording is clean. This collection of Shel Silverstein songs sung by Bob Gibson features a cast of thousands (almost) including John Hartford, Emmy Lou, and Dennis Locoriere. The songs are still very funny. Got laughs?
Last but not least, an interesting article about folk music in Mendocino features interviews with Ronnie Gilbert of the Weavers, Antonia Lamb, and Meridian Green, as well as never-before-seen photos of Pete Seeger.
http://www.realestatemendocino.com/images/REM%20615.pdf
Thanks for reading this far! Please stay in touch.
Best wishes,
Meridian Green
The Bob Gibson Legacy Store <-- Visit the store
bobgibsonlegacy.com, meridiangreen.com and fare-thee-wells.com
Bob Gibson Segment on Radio & the Internet
01-21-2011 — I just heard about an upcoming radio segment related to Bob Gibson, to be aired on KPFK-FM, in Los Angeles, tomorrow, Saturday morning 1/22, from 6am to 8am PST and streaming live on the web (9am EST, 8am CST, 7am MST, 6am PST).
The weekly show is called "Alive and Picking," celebrating folk, bluegrass, and other acoustic music. Its regular host, Mary Katherine Aldin is having as guest hosts for the third time Joe Frazier of the Chad Mitchell Trio, Art Podell of Art and Paul and The New Christy Minstrels, George Grove of the Kingston Trio, and musician and folklorist, Jim Moran.
The theme of the show is "Forgotten Legends of Folk". In addition to Bob Gibson, other artists to be saluted are Miriam Makeba, the Almanac Singers, Bud and Travis, Tom Paxton, Odetta, Josh White and Josh White Jr. Jim Moran is in charge of the Gibson segment and has selected five representative Gibson cuts and one cover, and Art and Joe have some personal anecdotes about meeting Bob and performing some of his material.
The Bob Gibson segment is the lead-off half hour of the show (6am PST tomorrow, Saturday).
For those of you outside the listening area, the show streams live over the web here:
http://www.kpfk.org/listen-live.html
and will be archived at KPFK for two weeks here.
Sorry for the short notice, but I just found out about it myself!
Valerie and all your friends at Bob Gibson Legacy
The Bob Gibson Legacy Store <-- Visit the store
bobgibsonlegacy.com and meridiangreen.com
Gibson collectibles - skyrocketing values!
04-21-2010 — An astounding situation came to our attention this morning. We were asked why three different Amazon and eBay vendors are selling used copies of Bob Gibson in Concert on VHS for asking prices of $36,311.56 to $42,790.53! The answer is we have absolutely no idea.
This is the biggest surge in value ever seen in the world of folk music memorabilia! Financial gurus are not yet predicting that all Bob Gibson Legacy stock will enjoy similar gains in value. At the moment, Bob Gibson recordings, available through our on-line store, are still an extremely good value. However, this could change if any of the Bob Gibson in Concert videos actually sells for their current asking price.
For now, may we suggest that your Gibson collectibles be stored securely in a safe place. Also, if there are any gaps in your collection, we are here to help.
Invest in folk futures before they are a thing of the past!
Cheers,
Meridian, Rick, John, Valerie and all your friends at Bob Gibson Legacy
The Bob Gibson Legacy Store <-- Visit the store
bobgibsonlegacy.com and meridiangreen.com
Greetings from Bob Gibson Legacy & The Fare-Thee-Wells
11-16-2009 — Greetings from the Bob Gibson Legacy and the Fare-Thee-Wells! Here's hoping all is well in your world as we head into the season of giving thanks. A great big thanks to all of you who came out to our shows last year and to those who have played Bob's music on the radio or on their iPod or been strumming on their own 12-string guitar. An amazing body of work has been sung into another year!
If giving the gift of music is on your to-do list we've got a special offer that will make your jingle go a lot further! CDs from Bob Gibson Legacy Records including Funky In The Country, Homemade Music, Perfect High, and Uptown Saturday Night are on sale for $10! Gibson re-issues on other labels are $12, and the biography is reduced to $20. Also, The Courtship of Carl Sandburg is now available. See below!
Merrily yours,
Meridian, Rick, & John
The Bob Gibson Legacy Store <-- Visit the store
08-30-2009 —
Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years Collection is complete! The Perfect High and Uptown Saturday Night are available now and the pre-ordered CDs are in the mail. The compilation CD (Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years BGL-1001) was #13 on the Roots chart last week! Now that the first 5 CDs are out, it's time to hit the road.
Bob Gibson Legacy concerts are on tour through September, October and November in the Midwest and on the East Coast. We are still adding dates. Please let us know if you'd like to host a house concert or have other ideas for shows in your neighborhood. For more information and to hear MP3s, go to:
bobgibsonlegacy.com/presskit.asp
"The Bob Gibson Legacy concerts, featuring Bob's eldest daughter, Meridian Green, along with veteran entertainers Rick Grumbecker and John Heller, take the audience on a musical journey through the heart of American folk music. From Greenwich Village's Washington Square to Chicago's Gate of Horn, from California's Mendocino Coast to Kerrville, Texas, through songs and stories, medleys and sing-alongs, playing banjo, 12-string, 6-string and Nashville high-strung guitars, they bring our shared musical history home."
We hope to see you at the shows. Come early and often! Check back for new dates!
Click here for the latest concert schedule.
Meridian takes the Bob Gibson Legacy show on the road / The Perfect High and Uptown Saturday Night are shipping
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Ski Songs |
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| Yes I See |
04-28-2008 — We are happy to announce that two more Bob Gibson CDs were recently released; this is in addition to our own Bob Gibson Legacy Collection of five CDs, so this is very good news indeed!
The CDs are Ski Songs and Yes, I See.
The first, Ski Songs, was originally released in 1959, and comes from a period when he was living in Aspen, Colorado and doing a lot of skiing. He got together with three women who worked at the Denver Post, and set out to write a musical all about skiing. Though he admitted to thinking it kind of a sophomoric venture, he was proud that two really good songs came out of the project; those songs - In This White World and What'll We Do - are included on this album. Although the music is not really folk, his roots are most evident.
The other CD is Yes, I See, released two years later, in 1961. Bob considered this one of his best albums. Here he continues revamping traditional music in a most untraditional way. Plus, more of his original compositions are coming to the forefront and he introduces the first collaborative writing efforts with partner Bob (Hamilton) Camp.
Click on the album titles or images to visit the album pages for more about these two CDs, and for clips of all the songs.
Bob Gibson Legacy Shows, April 30 & May 1
Celebrating the Living Legend Years CD Collection
Two nights of performances celebrating the music of legendary folk singer Bob Gibson will be presented at the Mendocino Hotel on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 and Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 7:30 PM. Doors open at 6:30 PM and a $10 donation is requested.
The concerts will feature Bob's daughter, Meridian Green, Rick Grumbecker, John Heller and various guests performing songs from Bob's forty-year and 20-album career.
See poster with additional details here. Sponsored by The Coast KOZT-FM.
Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years Recordings
2 More CDs Shipping!
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Funky in the Country |
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| Homemade Music |
03-25-2008 — We are excited to announce that not only is the 2nd CD, Funky in the Country, now shipping as scheduled, but the 3rd CD in the series, Gibson & Camp: Homemade Music, is available and shipping as well - a full four weeks early!
We now have clips on the web site for all the songs on the three released CDs, and some clips for the two other CDs. Visit the album page for each CD to hear the samples. We will be adding clips of the remaining songs in the next week.
All pre-orders of the two CDs have been shipped. The compilation CD, The Living Legend Years, has been available since late February.
Always an innovator, Bob Gibson invented the idea of the artist-owned, independent record company. In 1975, he released Funky In The Country on his Legend Enterprises label and brought the records directly to his fans at shows. At the time, it was a radical concept. Recorded live at Amazingrace, a coffeehouse near Chicago, the album showcases Gibson’s signature bass lines on his ringing 12-string guitar. Billboard said "One of the finest singers in American folk history returns to the recording scene with a fine live set. Gibson’s vocals sound as strong as ever."
It has been said that Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn [Elektra, 1961] was the first gold album in the folk genre. Seventeen years later, Gibson & (Hamilton) Camp reunited to record Homemade Music at the home of veteran musician and session-player, Dick Rosmini. Nowadays everybody makes records at home but in 1978, it was a cutting edge concept. Billboard said, "Excellent pairing of two country/folk singers who have collected songs from Shel Silverstein, Steve Goodman, themselves and others that sparkle with droll wit and insight." Cashbox said, "Rarely does an album emerge with such intrinsic warmth and charm…An excellent effort."
The two remaining CDs that complete Living Legend Years collection are scheduled for availability later in the Spring: Perfect High on May 14 and Uptown Saturday Night on June 11. They are available for pre-order. All of the albums have been digitally re-mastered.
For more information about these CD releases, please visit the news page of the Bob Gibson Legacy web site:
bobgibsonlegacy.com/news.asp.
Or go directly to the on-line store to place your order today:
storerevenue.biz/bobgibsonlegacy/order.asp
Thanks to all of you for your support for this project.
Bob Gibson Legacy announces the release of five CDs
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| Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years |
3/19/08: The first three CDs, The Living Legend Years, Funky in the Country, and Homemade Music are now available!
"Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years" [BGL-1001] is the first of the five CDs from Bob Gibson Legacy. This compilation disc features tunes from four of Gibson's independent label releases, as well as new, previously unreleased material from the 1970s through the 80s.
The four albums that complete Living Legend Years collection have been digitally re-mastered and are coming out over the next four months. Bob Gibson, Funky In The Country will be released March 19, Gibson & Camp, Homemade Music on April 16, Bob Gibson, Perfect High on May 14 and Bob Gibson, Uptown Saturday Night on June 11.
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| The four digitally re-mastered albums that complete the collection are coming out over the next four months | |||
"Ain't it great to be -- a living legend". Part of Gibson's magic was being able to sing this song Shel Silverstein wrote for him with gentle irony and no bitterness. Gibson's love of the music first heralded, then profoundly influenced, and eventually outlasted, the heyday of the folk revival. There he was, a legendary folksinger, in the age of rock and roll. Though he'd been a major instigator of the great folk boom, the folk boom was bust. Even the folk-rock era, in which bands like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield acknowledged Gibson's inspiration, was biting the disco dust. By the early 70s Bob's audience was smaller but he still had them in the palm of his hand.
So, innovator that he'd always been, Bob Gibson invented the idea of the artist-owned, independent record company. In 1975, he released "Funky In The Country" on his Legend Enterprises label and brought the records directly to his fans at shows. At the time, it was a radical concept. Recorded live at Amazingrace, a coffeehouse near Chicago, the album showcases Gibson's signature bass lines on his ringing 12-string guitar. Billboard said "One of the finest singers in American folk history returns to the recording scene with a fine live set. Gibson's vocals sound as strong as ever." Tracks from "Funky in the Country" featured on "Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years" [BGL-1001] include "That's The Way It's Gonna Be," co-written with Phil Ochs, and two Shel Silverstein-penned songs, "I Never Got To Know Her Very Well" and "Living Legend."
It has been said that Gibson & Camp at the Gate of Horn [Elektra, 1961] was the first gold album in the folk genre. Seventeen years later, Gibson & (Hamilton) Camp reunited to record "Homemade Music" at the home of veteran musician and session-player, Dick Rosmini. Nowadays everybody makes records at home but in 1978, it was a cutting edge concept. Billboard said, "Excellent pairing of two country/folk singers who have collected songs from Shel Silverstein, Steve Goodman, themselves and others that sparkle with droll wit and insight." Cashbox said, "Rarely does an album emerge with such intrinsic warmth and charm…An excellent effort." Tracks from "Homemade Music" include "Me and Jimmie Rodgers", "Billy Come Home Now" and "Sing For The Song".
By 1980, with a couple of years of hard won sobriety under his belt, he was having enough fun to record "The Perfect High". He'd always made it look easy to light up from the inside but now it truly was. His self-deprecating humor, gentled by compassion for his own flaws, gave rise to his drollest album ever. The Living Legend Years compilation includes "Box of Candy (and a Piece of Fruit)" which was co-written with Tom Paxton and tells the tale of Bob's Yuletide incarceration in a Canadian jail.
A studio masterpiece, "Uptown Saturday Night" was released in 1984. Produced by Anne Hills, and with a host of outstanding players, Gibson turns in amazing performances on a collection of originals including "And Lovin' You", "Let The Band Play Dixie" and "Pilgrim".
"Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years" [BGL-1001] also includes three never before released cuts. Gibson & Camp's soaring harmonies on Antonia Lamb's "What You Gonna Do About Love" are a poignant soundtrack to the tragicomedy of life. "The Ballad of Smoke Dawson", recorded in Nashville and produced by Bobby Bare is a long-lost gem. The most mysterious find in the Gibson archives is Bob's haunting version of Fred Neil's "The Dolphins".
Pre-order any or all of the five disc Living Legend Years collection at the online store at www.bobgibsonlegacy.com.
info@bobgibsonlegacy.com
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