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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZGIBSON, Bob(b 16 November 1931, NYC; d 28 September 1996, Portland OR) Folksinger, songwriter. His father was a singer; as Gibby Gibson he had a radio show after WWI. Young Bob heard Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly on the radio and learned guitar and five-string banjo. He worked outside music; went to visit Pete Seeger and helped him build a chimney; first appeared on TV 1954 and was a winner on the Arthur Godfrey talent show, began touring and ended up in Greenwich Village, where he had lived as a child: he helped get folk music into club the Bitter End, then a coffee bar with bongo players and poets (owned by Fred Weintraub, who later became a film producer). Manager Albert Grossman already had an idea for a group like Peter Paul & Mary, with Gibson, Bobby Camp and a girl who was taller than either of them; in a 1986 interview with Arthur Wood, Gibson could not remember who is was, but said it was not Mary Travers or Judy Henske. He worked at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel in NYC, the Gate of Horn in Chicago: 'That first job there turned out to be eleven months long. That's how it used to be. You worked places two weeks minimum. Now it's one nighters ... If you don't have an audience, it's almost impossible to build one.' He was later on TV's Hootenanny, sang at Newport Folk Festivals, Carnegie Hall, later at Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. Four LPs on Riverside began with Offbeat Folksongs, whereupon Stinson issued an audition tape (long available as Folksongs Of Ohio) for which 'I've never gotten a penny'. LPs on Elektra began with Ski Songs '59 (Gibson hung out in Denver, wrote songs with locals for a musical about skiing that never happened). He said he made more money from that album than any other. There was a live LP The Gate Of Horn '60; Where I'm Bound '64 included his own songs; then he left music for a while, returning with Bob Gibson on Capitol c.'71 included John Prine's 'Sam Stone', Jerry Wexler of Atlantic enjoined the Gibson LP in court because a Prine album was about to come out on Atlantic, though Gibson's version was very different; Prine felt bad about the whole thing. Capitol pressed 17,500 copies and dropped Gibson. The live Funky In The Country appeared on his own Legend label, later on Mountain Railroad; A Perfect High and Uptown Saturday Night on a Hogeye (label formed for Gibson and Tom Paxton LPs); Homemade Music '78 with Hamilton Camp on Mountain Railroad. He co-wrote songs with Shel Silverstein, Camp, Paxton (produced several Paxton LPs); he wrote/acted in play with music The Courtship Of Carl Sandburg c.'84 which ran 14 weeks in Chicago. He wrote for children; Makin' A Mess: Bob Gibson Sings Shel Silverstein appeared on Asylum, with guests Paxton, Oscar Brand, Emmylou Harris, several others. Quotes from an interview by Arthur Wood in Peter O'Brien's Omaha Rainbow, later also at FolkWax.com. Seven Gibson albums were reissued in 2008. |