Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
Review by Mark S. Tucker

This re-issue CD is the first in a five-some constituting a long-overdue revisitation of an industry legend who never really attained to his proper niche in the public eye. Though word of him only rarely leaks out now, Gibson was once one of the key figures in modern folk music and fairly esteemed for it.

A live gig from the Amazingrace dive (Evanston, IL), Funky carries a vibe impossible to evoke now in the 00’s. Then, on the consumer side, the LP itself is very hard to locate and expensive as hell if you do, so there’s a blessing present in many more ways than one.The release is, as I infer, actually a crucial recording, representing a splinter of folk in danger of being entirely swamped by the many permutations that came after. As attractive as those are, this is a piece of history, as is Gibson, and needs to be preserved in the annals no less than the rudimentary and evolving forms of roots blues, jazz, and other American modes.

Though the folk “brand” itself goes back endlessly into the recesses of time, Gibson was not only there while it was being made anew on these shores but was a key figure. His music was not the type Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, or any of the other Brit marvels were making but rather found itself pushed further as a blend of the prairie with the streets of New York.

Like his inspiration Seeger, Gibson was both deadly serious and breezily cool, qualities in abundant evidence throughout the performance. His adroitness in the style permeates the roster of songs chockablock with broad slices of humor partially attributable to a partnership with Shel Silverstein, a pairing that would come to yield ever more bountiful returns as the years proceeded. The tracks also demonstrate why Bob would attract Tom Paxton as a sometime-confederate and musical soulmate: lots in common ‘twixt the twain. In fact, it might even be said that Funky in the Country represents the perfect dividing point at which Dylan, ultimately and controversially a provocateur, deviated from both traditionalism and Gibson-styled novo-folk to create what would dominate the style and still does. Thus, the CD provides a very interesting retrospective scrutiny upon a little-known nexus understood only now, in contrast to the record.

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