About Bob Gibson: 

 I am embarrassed to admit that it was only in the last 5 years that I fully realized the important role Bob Gibson played in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. If you are interested, you can Google him (just make sure you don’t get directed to the famous baseball player, Bob Gibson.)  One of the many things that he was known for was introducing Joan Baez to the world.  In 1959, Gibson was a big name in the folk scene and was one of the headliners performing at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959.  Without the permission or knowledge of the festival organizers, he brought the unknown 18-year-old Joan Baez up on stage to sing two songs with him.  Here is a recording of the first song they sang:  

 Bob Gibson with Joan Baez at Newport, 1959: 

Needless to say, after that performance, the rest is history. 

I also like this YouTube video clip of Gibson performing on the TV show “Hootenanny”, from 1963.  While it is definitely a period piece (check the college students he is performing before!), the ease of his performance inspires me.

As many of you know, at the start of the global pandemic, from April until October, I decided to play my banjo and sing out to our Seattle Jones Avenue neighbors every Friday night at 7:00 PM for a half an hour at a safe distance from the top of our entryway steps.  As the pandemic had precluded our band, Clallam County, from getting together for our weekly rehearsals and cancelled our plans for a 40th Anniversary concert in November, I realized I needed some motivation to keep practicing and singing. Judy joined me on several songs over the months and did couple of kids' performances on Saturday afternoon for the neighborhood kids. Fellow bandmate Pat joined us for a few songs one Friday evening in late June.  But in July, our governor needed to impose further restrictions on public gatherings and our weekly “Sing Out the Darkness” gatherings had to end.  Judy and I continued on with “Covid Caroling” – walking around our block each Friday evening, singing two songs to those families that requested it.  But by October, the weather was changing, and it was getting darker sooner, so “Sing Out the Darkness” closed for the season. 

Since early October, I have realized that I still need to keep practicing; having a goal/deadline is a good incentive for me.   I have come up with the following idea:  Each week, by Thursday at midnight, (yeah, I know - I missed the deadline by an hour this first time out!!) my plan is to send an email to those who are interested which will have an attached recording of me singing one of one of the 79 different songs I played during our “Sing Out the Darkness” gathering.  (Now I am posting these prior emails to this blog.)

My new plan is requiring me to relearn several of the songs I sang back in the Spring.  It also is leading me to make some home-grown recordings of each of the songs in my Rube Goldberg mini-recording booth/studio that I have set up. In future weekly emails, I may include a brief paragraph about that week’s song, and at times, I might include a link or two to other versions of the song, should you be interested.  So here it is … 

I wrote this song early in the pandemic, on March 19, 2020.  It is a reworking/rip-off of a great song by Arlo Guthrie that I had recently come across, called “In Times Like These”.  Arlo’s original lyrics included a couple of verses that focused on some other issues, so, in the long tradition of the “folk process”, I rewrote some of Arlo’s lyrics to fit our current situation. (I have attached the recording of my rewrite of the song to this email.)
  Right after I recorded the song, I decided to post it to YouTube, but to do that, I needed some video content to go along with the song.  Here is a link to what I came up with.  (Looking at the video now, I am somewhat disheartened at how accurate the images were that I had selected back in March about Trump and his response to the pandemic. )

Finally, here is a link to Arlo’s original song that inspired my rewrite.  (To skip Arlo's monologue introducing the song, you can scroll ahead to 2:40 in the video.)