Album – FUNKY IN THE COUNTRY

FUNKY IN THE COUNTRY

Recorded live at Amazingrace Coffee House in 1974, this solid collection of songs had been several years in the making. Accompanying himself on 12-string guitar, with John Guth playing lead, Bob returns to the pure acoustic folk sound with which he had long been identified. Recognizing that formulas used by the major labels allow for little remuneration for the artist until all expenses are recouped, Bob did something very few performers were doing at that time – he released Funky in the Country on his own label.

Legend Enterprises 1974
Bob Gibson Legacy (Re-issue) 2008

Cindy Dreams of California

I Never Got to Know Her Very Well

Come On Back Baby (Lovesick Blues)

One and Only Brownsville

The Tarot and the Banjo

That's the Way It's Gonna Be

One of the finest singers in American folk history returns to the recording scene with a fine live set. Acoustic material, as might be expected. Gibson’s vocal sound as strong as ever.

Billboard - Aug 9, 1975

NEWS, REVIEWS & NOTES

FAME

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… Funky carries a vibe impossible to evoke now…

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.

(progdawg@hotmail.com)

Album – FUNKY IN THE COUNTRY

FUNKY IN THE COUNTRY

NEWS, REVIEWS & NOTES

Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange Review by Mark S. Tucker

Review – Rambles.net

Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
Review by Mark S. Tucker