<Archive Obituary> Folksinger Bob Gibson (September 28th 1996)
Bill Schenley
Photo: http://www.wfma.net/Gibson78.jpg
FROM: The Chicago Tribune (October 1st 1996) ~
By Lynn Van Matre, Staff Writer.
Folk legend Bob Gibson, who helped launch the urban folk revival of
the late 1950s and early '60s and went on to influence countless
younger musicians, died early Saturday at his home in Portland, Ore.
He was 64.
According to a family member, the singer died in his sleep of
complications from progressive supranuclear palsy, a neurological
disorder that affects the brain.
Mr. Gibson, a singer, 12-string guitarist, banjo player and songwriter
whose best-known song was "Abilene," was born Nov. 16, 1931, in
Brooklyn and settled in Chicago, where he spent 35 years as a fixture
on the local folk scene.
Mr. Gibson, who relocated to Portland three years ago, had returned to
Chicago on Sept. 20 for a farewell songfest with family and friends.
Mr. Gibson's daughter, Susan Hartnett of Portland, said her father
realized at the time that the Chicago trip could be his final journey.
"Traveling was getting hard for him, and he figured this would be his
last opportunity to see some old friends," Hartnett said, "so we came
back to Chicago."
Mr. Gibson's lively performances with then-partner Bob (Hamilton) Camp
at Chicago's Gate of Horn club helped to spark the urban folk boom of
the late 1950s and early 1960s. Over the next three decades, Mr.
Gibson performed at folk venues throughout the country, wrote and
starred in a musical play based on the life of author Carl Sandburg,
and recorded nearly 20 albums.
After Mr. Gibson's illness was diagnosed in 1994, Peter, Paul & Mary,
Josh White Jr., Spanky McFarlane, Roger McGuinn and Camp performed at
a benefit concert in his honor.
In a 1992 interview with the Tribune, Mr. Gibson cited veteran folk
singer Pete Seeger as a major early influence.
"Pete never dazzled you with footwork," Mr. Gibson told the Tribune.
"You didn't go away from his concerts totally impressed with the way
he played. Instead, you wanted to get your own banjo. You were on fire
to make music (yourself). That's what I like to do. I love to get up
and perform for people and have them sing along."
Mr. Gibson also is survived by his daughters Meridian Green of Caspar,
Calif., Pati Muench of Daytona Beach, Fla., and Sarah Gibson of
Chicago, and his son, Stephen Camp of Los Angeles. Other survivors
include a sister, a brother, and four grandchildren.
Family members said that no public memorial services are planned.
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Photo:
http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGPORTRAITS/music/portrait200/drp000/p098/p09882u8542.jpg
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Bob Gibson Looked Trouble In The Eye -- And Smiled
FROM: The Chicago Tribune (October 7th 1996) ~
By Bob Greene.
Folk singer Bob Gibson died the other week at the age of 64. His
passing was noted with appreciative obituaries, which mentioned that
his singing and songwriting influenced many younger musicians, and
that his appearances at the old Gate of Horn nightclub in the late
1950s were a big part of Chicago's greatest era of folk music.
Gibson died in Portland, Ore., where he had moved three years ago. The
obituaries made mention of his many friends both in and out of the
music business, and of the warmth with which he was regarded by those
who knew him, and those who admired his songs.
I met Gibson only once, when I was a very young reporter, and that
meeting has always stayed with me because of what it taught me about
several things: about a person showing grace under unpleasant
circumstances, about the conventions and follies of the news business,
and about the way one should behave when faced with troubles.
A bulletin had moved across the City News Bureau wire saying that
Gibson had gotten in a non-stop-the-presses scrape with the law--as I
recall, it was a marijuana-possession arrest which would later be
dismissed. Things like that frequently happened to musicians in the
late 1960s. The bulletin said that Gibson was living in an apartment
in the Marina City highrise.
The bulletin identified Gibson as the writer of the song "Abilene."
"Abilene" had been a moderate hit in 1963, an amiable and endearing
song, and that mention in the bulletin was enough to persuade the
editor on the city desk at the paper where I was working that we must
run a story. If the person who wrote "Abilene" was in trouble, then
that qualified as news. The editor handed me the wire copy and told me
to go over to Marina City and knock on Gibson's door.
So I did, feeling rather stupid. The unspoken message is the same on
all such visits--"Hi, you have no idea who I am, but you're famous and
you're in trouble, so I've been sent here"--and I knocked on his door
and when he answered I stammered out some marginally more polite
version of that sentiment.
A lot of people might have said "Talk to my lawyer about this," or "I
have no comment," or "You must be very proud of yourself, showing up
here to bother me at a time like this." Gibson asked to see the City
News copy I was carrying; he read it, smiled at what he saw, and
invited me in.
We sat and talked. He told me the details of the trouble in which he
found himself-- the specifics of it escape me now, but it was nothing
he was evasive about, he was forthright and wry--and he didn't just
stick to that, he told me about his life and music, and I think he had
as many questions for me as I had for him. He wasn't nervous or
defensive; he seemed amused by the absurdities of life, a life in
which, because he had written a somewhat successful song and then
found himself in trouble, and because I had been given a job at a
newspaper, we found ourselves sitting many floors above the Chicago
River, both of us talking but only one of us writing things down.
He showed me his guitars; he answered everything I asked him, although
he certainly didn't have to. He struck me as a man so confident about
the path he had chosen in the world, so unfearful of life, that
something like this--a beginning reporter knocking on his door with
the assignment to write a story that would almost certainly place him
in an unpleasant light--not only didn't offend him, but clearly struck
him as one more humorous quirk in a world that will always make you
laugh, if you let it.
I trudged back to the city room and wrote the story the editor wanted,
about the trouble in which Gibson found himself. I recall that the
next day, the headline above the story identified him as "Bob
'Abilene' Gibson"--hey, if the paper was going to trade upon the fact
that a well-known person was having some problems, it had better make
sure that the readers knew who the person was. They might not know
Gibson's name, but they probably had heard the song "Abilene." So "Bob
'Abilene' Gibson" it was, right there in the headline.
I sometimes ask myself why some people seem always so afraid and
distrusting of life, and others welcome it in. Maybe it's all in the
eyes of the beholder--how those eyes choose to look at life. If you
remember the words to "Abilene," you'll recall a line:
People there don't treat you mean . . .
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Photo: http://www.musicoutfitter.com/images/items/74/246474.jpg
(Newport 1960)
http://hamiltoncamp.com/images/newport1960-350.jpg
(LtR: Herb Brown, Dick Rosmini, Hamilton Camp and Bob Gibson)