The Gibson Brothers have released their
eleventh album in a twenty year career to rave reviews. After six
straight number one's on the Bluegrass Unlimited charts, it's little surprise that this one is climbing
up the bluegrass charts too, including the Billboard Bluegrass Chart. There's no reason they won't get there
with this masterpiece of new work, also. Their body of work, for that it has certainly become, carries with it the burden of
continuing to create new material within the unique band sound and
sensibility characterizing Gibson Brothers songs. When they release
an album, it always presents music that represents the best they can
offer. There's a level of thoughtfulness and sincerity in their material
that many other artists can only hope for. In this album,
TheyCalled It Music, (Compass Records and all recording outlets) they've once
again achieved their goal and may even have surpassed it. In a year
in which they lost their father, their
work shows added depth and maturity, combining a sense of loss with
the inevitable triumph that follows. Even more than in previous
releases, They Called It Music grows
in depth and nuance with repeated hearings. While it's good on first
hearing, repeated playing of the songs in this collection leave no
doubt about the continued growth of this group. The songs meld
together into a whole that's even greater than its parts.The Gibson Brothers also record with their real road band, a rare treat these days.
Containing twelve
songs, six written solely or in collaboration with others by Eric
and Leigh, with the six others carefully chosen from new and
historical sources. They reach back as far as 1913 to rearrange a
song by Austin Taylor as well as including new songs by or in
collaboration with Joe Newberry and Shawn Camp. Other songs look as
far away as Loretta Lynn and Mark Knopfler. Each one
brings a particular sensibility of its writer while never straying
from the quality of compassion, loss, joy, hope, and encouragement
the Gibson Brothers exude. The CD is appropriately dedicated to the
late Kelley John Gibson (1941 – 2012) whose life has inspired so
much of their work. Let's take a look at each one:
Leigh & Eric Gibson
Buy a Ring, Find a Preacher
by Eric and Joe Walsh, with an assist from Leigh opens the album with
a lilting ditty that at the same time speaks to the dilemma faced by
every worker on the road.
I've had one foot in
and one foot out
You've stood firm
without a doubt
Words that always
worked before
Tonight can't make you
stay.
The
refrain of a guy who just has difficulty committing, but it may
not be today. The problem is one faced especially by musicians on
the road, confronted with temptations and opportunities not regularly
available to all travelers. Nevertheless, the singer is closer to
making the choice to commit to his loved one while still wishing to remain on the road. He
suggests a music man shouldn't have to make the choice between two
kinds of lives and loves. Regardless, there's a happiness in the song
and not a hint of doubt, finally....
The
title song of this CD “They Called It Music” is destined to be
one of the Gibson Brothers masterpieces, quickly moving from workshop
form, where we first heard it, to the concert stage, to recording, to
shooting up the charts. The song was suggested by a question Joe
Newberry, Gibson friend and frequent writer of excellent songs for
the duo, had asked an old musician in the mountains. When asked
about what they called his style of music, the old man responded, “Son, they
called it musc.” Eric couldn't resist the response, which grew into
this great song. The Gibson Brothers tend not to be “in your face”
about their music, but with this song, the Gibson Brothers'
gentle way challenges the concept of musical genre as inferior to matters of
melody, lyric, meaning, and intent. Music transcends daily concerns
like money and reaches to the core of human experience. The music
comes from within, not requiring those who make it to read or learn
it, but rather to respond to it and make it.
They called it music
in the church house, in
the fields
It was honest, it was
simple
And it helped the hard
times heal.
The song
has reached the #1 spot three times on the Bluegrass Today chart and
is #1 on a recent XM/Sirius chart. It peaked at #4 on the Billboard
Bluegrass (sales) chart.
They Called It Music - Video
The Darker the Night, the
Better I See is a Joe Newberry
song tailored for Leigh's voice. Written from the point of view of a
perpetual honky-tonker, the song suggests that the singer's vision
becomes better the darker the night becomes. It also carries within
it, the thought that the difficulties and dark times which enfold us
at the hardest periods in our lives carry with them the light that
can lift depression and sadness. The final line, beginning, “You
heard me right” suggests the
singer is aware of the ambiguity of finding light in the midst of
darkness, and is grateful for it. For some, this song carries the
message of a good gospel song within the life of one confronting
hardships.
Some years ago, Shawn
Camp, one of the most creative young song writers around, and Loretta
Lynn wrote Dying for Someone to Live For, another
song taking two opposites and fitting them together.
This CD is filled with remarkable contrasts: dying and living,
darkness and light, sundown and sorrow. This song, written in ¾ time,
seeks to find the antidote for loneliness, and. as usually happens,
it's another person, in this case, unknown. The singer questions why
he can't find another person to fit into his life.
And the weeping willow
cries
Every time a good love
says goodbye
I hear the tide coming
in on the shore
I'm dying for someone
to live for.
The
melody lies firmly on Clayton Campbell's able bow as it cries out
loneliness and loss. Leigh and Eric's voices blend and caress the
song in its unvarnished sense of loss and longing.
Dying for Someone to Live For - Video
Eric's
banjo introduces I'll Work it Out, a song of hope and
confidence in the face of the kind of serious problems that face us
as we encounter the big questions in life. The banjo is essentially a cheerful
instrument that drives this song through difficulties to unknown but
inevitable strong solutions.
When my last bridge is
burning
and I cannot find a
friend
With whispers all
around me
Sayin' no way he can
win
I'll work it out, I'll
work it Out
I'll find a way to work
it out.
An
example of a Gibson Brothers song many years in the making, Eric took
an incident from the period when he was anticipating the risk of
turning to making music full time and allowed the weight of time and
the complementary skills of his brother to come together into a song
of optimism and hope relying on familiar themes and responses without ever resorting to cliches or hackneyed language, showing the art and skills of a thoughtful poetic craftsman. Such simplicity is not easily achieved.
Mike Barber
Written
with Shawn Camp,
Something Coming to Me has been an enigma to
me since I first heard it months ago. As I listened and wrote at
4:45 AM I looked to Eric's superb
Journal on the Gibson Brothers web
site. Turns out “something coming to me” has multiple meaning,
most of which appear in this wonderful and nuanced song. As Eric
says, it refers to a new idea or event just over the horizon; what's
coming in the future, no matter how unknown. It can also refer to
what a person has earned through effort and sweat. It asks “where
are the rewards I've worked so hard for?” The song looks backward
and forward simultaneously. Leigh sings:
My Momma told me son,
there ain't no
guarantees
But ain't I got
Something comin' to me?
The
plaintive loneliness in his voice accompanied by his elegantly simple
figures on the guitar communicate both loss and hope, the possibility
that through work, love, and prayer the future will open up is always
there. “The road of love just winds on by me, I don't know where
it leads.” Finally, the “something” in the song is help and
understanding, gifts we can all ask and pray for, whether, like the
singer, we know how to pray or not.
Mark
Knopfler's “Daddy's Gone to Knoxville” is a bouncy song
featuring Joe Walsh's complex mandolin figures and elegant timing as
well as fiddler Clayton Campbell's oh-so-excellent backup and solo work. The
lightness and freedom of the road provides a carefree view of the
world which is well-interpreted by the almost always happy sound of
the banjo. Who can keep from smiling when the banjo is there?
Left in this dusty old
world without joy
Lost in the weeds like
a forgotten toy
…
Makes me wonder what
I'm hangin' round here for.
The loss
of loved ones inevitably leads to questions about the value of life.
Eric wrote this very bluegrassy song that, typical of some of the
best bluegrass, asks difficult questions in a sunny, forward looking
way. It suggests that the hope for the future is difficult to grasp,
while always just out of reach somewhere down the road. Not the
least bit bleak, the song still lingers on the edge of loss as Dusty
Old World asks, “What's a man to do?” The instrumental work of the Gibson Brothers always services the song. All five members of the band, each a master of his own instrument, seek to complement the lyric and tune, never intruding, but always contributing. Listening to Gibson Brothers music means developing an increased appreciation for the backup instrumental work of each man, without its ever intruding on meaning or effect. Creating such wholeness may be what makes the Gibson Brothers band great.
Home
on the River is a Delmore Brothers song. As the Gibson Brothers
become more interested in their own image as a “brother duo” they
appear to be seeking out earlier works by brother duos to include in
their CDs. This is a gospel song featuring most prominently the
voices of the two brothers which blend and twine so effectively.
Joe Walsh
Roy Hurd
and Elizabeth Hill wrote “I Will Always Cross Your Mind,” a
touching love song redolent with references clear to anyone who
spends much time in the Adirondacks – the ridge line, morning sun
warming the skin, lonesome wind whispering in the pines.
Run if you must from my
memory
Let the night tell you
that it's gone.
When you stop to catch
your breath
There I'll be right
beside you
gently holding on.
Bob
Paisley, of Southern Grass and Danny Paisley's late father, covered
Sundown and Sorrow the Hank Williams version of the Pee Wee King/J.L.King song of lost love. It's a lilting
bluegrass love song. The kind of song that belongs on every good
bluegrass album. The distinctive Gibson blend keeps this otherwise
pretty prosaic song working. Mike Barber's bass, as always in Gibson
Brothers work keeps his beat always in the right place at the right time, driving the song
forward with the best bass players in the music. There's also a solid
guitar break from Leigh. Throughout the CD, Leigh's guitar is always present and contributing without gratuitously calling attention to itself with unnecessary virtuosity. The song makes a worthwhile nod to an
earlier era of bluegrass that influenced the current music of the
Gibsons.
Clayton Campbell
“The
Songbird's Song” written by Eric after hours of tossing without
sleep in Denmark, is a most fitting end to this fine album which
speaks so much to the brothers' sense of loss after their Dad's
death.
Now the birds have beat
the sun up
I don't know what
they're singing for
But they ease my mind
from racing
I'm not as lonesome as
before
And I know it may sound
funny
And I know it could be
wrong
But it seems like life
is out there
In a little songbird's
song.
While
the song seems elegiac, expressing loss and loneliness, it
nevertheless sees the daybreak, the dawning of a new reality just
ahead and looks forward with hope. Joe Walsh's bird song on the
mandolin captures the bird itself in all its fullness. The longest
song on the CD, it brings a fitting end to a great piece of work.
Words don't always suffice, so the fiddle, the ooh, ooh, ooh of the
singing duo along with Clayton's drawn out final note fade out as the
sun rises.
It's
impossible to escape the fact that much of
They Called It Music
was written and all of it recorded in the period after the loss
of Eric and Leigh Gibson's father, who appears in so many of their
songs, and who's spirit is redolent in so many more, from their
reminiscences of life on the farm in rural upstate New York to their
gratitude for the musical heritage and work ethic he passed on to
them. Many of the songs reference loss and grief. Nevertheless, the
essential optimism of the best of the Gibson Brothers' work flows
clearly and naturally through the fabric of this magnificently
structured and rendered CD. Those who merely download cuts will
inevitably miss out on the massed effect of this project, which
continues to haunt and inspire, growing in richness and detail with
listening to each song and hearing the work through and through in
its entirety. By refusing to be stampeded into releasing annual
albums; by refining and developing each song through multiple
performances, workshops, and work sessions; by carefully selecting
appropriate songs from a treasured world of contemporary and
historical writers, the Gibson Brothers continue to forge the
future of their own music, while never losing contact with what
brought them to where they are.
They Called It Music, as both
an album and a song is worthy of recognition in the world of awards,
but, perhaps better still, as a significant contribution to how we, as listeners, live our lives.
Eric Gibson
Leigh Gibson
Many thanks to John Saroyan, Katy Daley and, always, Irene for ideas that helped me approach this CD with new eyes.
