Album – UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

By the mid-’80s, living on Chicago’s upper north side and the proprietor of his own chili parlor and music room, Bob was at the top of his game creatively. This album, produced by Anne Hills, was released on Hogeye Records which Bob founded along with Anne and Tom Paxton. These well-crafted and tastefully arranged songs are prime examples of some of Bob’s finest.

Hog Eye Records, 1984
Bob Gibson Legacy, 2008 (CD re-issue)

Let the Band Play Dixie

Uptown Saturday Night

Baby, if You Don't Know Know

Lookin' for the You

Tom Cattin' Time

Bein' on the Road

…a consistent collection of craftsmanlike original material that displayed the singer’s talents well. His love songs, notably “Rest of the Night” and “Lookin’ for the You,” were tender and wistful, and they were offset by the comic material, which he rendered equally well….

NEWS, REVIEWS & NOTES

…there’s a bone-weary wistfulness imbuing the record that’s only rarely evident beforehand. The guy had missed the train a number of times, cheated of his rightful place by Fate and Fortune, dames no one wants to mess with, and here seems reconciled with that….

Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange Review by Mark S. Tucker

With this, the fourth in the Bob Gibson Legacy series, the stalwart folkie entered a bit of a new phase, touting more in the way of a full backing band rather than the usual duo / trio / quartet configurations normal to his ouevre. In that, something was gained and something lost.

The original release date is 1984, and Gibson had been through a lot. It shows, and there’s a bone-weary wistfulness imbuing the record that’s only rarely evident beforehand. The guy had missed the train a number of times, cheated of his rightful place by Fate and Fortune, dames no one wants to mess with, and here seems reconciled with that.

There’d always been a bit of Ray Stevens in Gibson. It emerges more fully here, not to mention the temporary admixture of Jimmy Buffet (Tequila Sheila), both tending to adjust him to a fuller populist sense rather than the uniquely borderland folk normal to his wont. Annie Hills was retained from the last release and, though Paxton’s absent, her presence instills Uptown with a better sense of the past, affecting an Emmylou Harris-ish backing role, sweet and fragile.

Gibson’s individual voice shines through clearly in cuts like Lookin’ for You, a return to the old days leavened with a touch or two of modernity (the uncredited flute accompaniment is nice indeed, straddling antiquity with lightly chambered jazz). Thankfully, too, the guy picked up the banjo again, adding to his 12-string mainstay, and if the CD title sounds a bit Tom Waits-ish, then the Tom Cattin’ Time proves to indeed be vaguely Waits-esque, back alley grinning, dusty, scuffed, and melancholy.

Listening to this album, though Gibson was the most pleased with it above his other work, one gets the feel of impending change and in a fashion not interpreble. There are Brian Wilson elements, as well as a bit of the better Manilow, some Springsteen, Billy Joel, and various other folk-and-pop-to-mainstream successes, though none so dominative that his imprint is marred. There’s also an air of indecisiveness, so I have to suspect that Gibson knew what he was really shooting for, and Uptown represented a firm step in that direction rather than a solid achievement.

Review by Mark S. Tucker (progdawg@hotmail.com)

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F A M E - Mark S. Tucker

…a highlight of the album is “Pilgrim,” a song about the universal search for the self. It is Gibson’s summation of what he learned in recovery. The song has become an anthem for Alcoholics Anonymous …

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Rambles Magazine - Michael Scott Cain

When I was a kid, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Beryl…said if I was going to be a serious songwriter I should study the masters, and that Bob Gibson was definitely among them. I wore holes in that record [UPTOWN] … With masterful writing, storytelling, lessons in history and humanity, that record was “Life 101” on vinyl.
JOE JENCKS

Joe Jencks

Album – UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

UPTOWN SATURDAY NIGHT

ALL MUSIC GUIDE William Ruhlmann

NEWS, REVIEWS & NOTES

Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange Review by Mark S. Tucker

Review – Rambles.net