Greetings from Bob Gibson Legacy & The Fare-Thee-Wells

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

Meridian takes the Bob Gibson Legacy show on the road / The Perfect High and Uptown Saturday Night are shipping

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.

Two More Bob Gibson CDs Reissued!

Ski Songs

Yes I See

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 Legacy announces the release of 5 CDs beginning with "Bob Gibson, The Living Legend Years" on February 20

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.


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.