I'm going to end my little Bob Gibson/Shel Silverstein detour with something from Bob Gibson only, and one that's a personal treat. I've told the background to this before, but not the conclusion, which only crossed my paths a few months ago. Years back, on the campus of Northwestern University, they started up a little coffeehouse in the old Scott Hall student union called Amazingrace (started by a collective known as the Amazingrace Family) which built up a reputation and started to attract a pretty respectable lineup of performers, finally getting its own space on campus in a Quonset hut. I remember seeing the legendary Odetta there, for instance (and yes, she was tremendous, filling the space with her power and artistry). And checking its Wikipedia page -- yes, it was impressive enough to have a Wikidpedia page -- among the many performers who played there were Phil Ochs, David Bromberg, John Hartford, Mimi Farina, Ry Cooder and more. Occasionally, they'd sponsor even larger concerts at the school's Cahn Auditorium and McGaw Hall (the basketball venue), like Taj Mahal, Leo Kottke, John Prine, the Grateful Dead and Steve Goodman. Eventually Amazingrace grew to the point that it moved off campus and had a long and successful run elsewhere in Evanston, closer to Chicago, and had such national acts as Randy Newman, Jimmy Buffet, The Persuasions, Emmylou Harris, and Doc and Merle Watson. (My favorite line in the Wikipedia article is about how "The audiences came to trust the venue, and it was not unusual for a patron to show up, buy a ticket, and only then ask who was playing." (I am very certain that longtime reader and folk music aficionado Eric Boardman could fill in many holes here and tell the Amazingrace story amazingly better. But you'll have to leave it at this, especially since I've wandered off the path, though like to add perspective...) Anyway, to bring this back to the point of all this, I saw Bob Gibson play there in the Quonset Hut version -- he's even quoted in the Wikipedia piece. And was a joy. At intermission I went up to him and requested one of my favorite songs of his that he not only recorded (as did others), but also wrote, "The Train To Morrow." He face lit up at the mention of it, but he said, "Wow, I haven't thought of that song for years. I'd have to go re-learn it before I'd dare tackle it." That's the background. But taking the story up to date, as I was searching for videos for this "fest," I was SO glad to find a video of him from a few years after that exchange where he's on stage and singing "The Train to Morrow"!! I have absolutely no idea if my mention of the song jogged him into relearning it and bringing it back into his repertoire. I doubt it, but I'm going to go with "Yes," anyway. And as you'll see, it is such a convoluted tongue-twister of the song, I completely understood why he had to go back and learn it before trying to sing it -- even being his own song -- without it being fresh in his mind. But it's so wonderful, and I'm glad he did.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|