From The Vault :: The Robert Lester Folsom Interview
Where are you originally from, and when did you first become interested in playing music, more specifically the guitar? Was music something that was common around your household growing up?
I was born at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, which is located about 10 miles outside of Valdosta, GA. I grew up in a small rural Georgia town called Adel. It is on I-75 about 40 miles north of the GA/FL line. Farmland and swamps and pine trees! We had a wonderful AM radio station that played all genres of music throughout the day, and then I would listen to stations from Chicago and Ft. Wayne, Indiana at night. I grew up with twin sisters, and they were 3 years younger than me. Music was always common in our home and there was great music at our church. My dad loved bluegrass and played the fiddle. My mom sang at church and my sisters sang and played the piano. I went to southern gospel singing with my parents. I saw Jerry Lee Lewis (the killer) when I was about 6. That was a wild and rocking show! My first massive concert was The Allman Brothers Band in Macon, GA about 9th grade. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan made the heaviest impression on me. I had been taking piano lessons and I immediately had to get a guitar. My closest friends and I grew our hair out and started taking our guitars to school. We tried to write songs, and we tried to play them. My first live performance was for an elementary school assembly program. I was extremely nervous, and I played "Mellow Yellow" by Donovan. It was awful, but I immediately became a celebrity musician in my little town.
Where would you go to see local shows in your community, and who left a heavy impression on you in those early days? Did you participate in any groups or projects prior to taking off on your own as a solo musician? Tell me about writing and recording your debut masterpiece “Music and Dreams”. How did the deal with Abacus Records come about during the country's epic 200th birthday?
I had been writing songs and recording on my reel to reel for a few years when I formed a band in college called Abacus. It included college friends and some of the friends from my hometown. After playing many local gigs, mixing originals and covers, we made a demo in Atlanta with hopes of recording an album soon after. The band's album did not materialize, but the engineer at the studio was impressed with my songs and, somehow, between us, we decided to produce a solo album, which would be "Music and Dreams". I borrowed money for the project and the engineer was able to get me incredible rates and free recording time. Funny thing is, I used my band members for my solo album because they wanted to and my engineer got a few hired hands from the Atlanta area to participate. I released the album in 1976 on my own label, Abacus Records. I am not a recording engineer, but I am a producer and I have produced quite a few projects since that first album. I asked an art student from my college, Danny Dickens, to do the cover for "Music and Dreams". I told him I wanted a pencil sketch of myself with a pale blue background for the front cover, and he could do a collage for the back cover of his own ideas. At first, I did not think it was a very impressive cover, but now I think it is somewhat iconic. The album was recorded at LeFevre Studios and the engineer was Stan Dacus.
Tell me about that particular writing and recording process of this album and when and where did recording begin? What was the ultimate vision you had in mind for the album, and can you walk me through the process and approach to constructing the songs that are featured?
I released the album with my bass player, Sparky Smith, who I traveled all over with, hitting radio stations and record stores. I put together a record release show in my hometown. We may have played a few shows after that but fairly soon we fell apart. In retrospect, this is very sad as we were good friends, and we played music together very well. There may have been some ego issues and some band members wanted to play a bit more aggressive type of music. I have always felt loyal to anyone willing to play my music with me. I'm not sure all of my band members at that time even liked the album. Needless to say, we all drifted apart. After "Music and Dreams", I produced a band from Valdosta, GA called The Stroke Band, featuring Bruce Joyner. They had a unique style compared to my music, but they asked me to produce their album "Green and Yellow" and release it on my label, Abacus Records.
What was the first order of business once the album was released? Just a few years later you followed up with the single “Blues Stay Away/Warm Horizons”. What was your goal going into this project and did you continue to write and record after that point?
It started out pretty okay, then because of substance abuse and strange behavior, the process was getting out of hand. Don Fleming, who had grown up in Adel with me, helped me pull it together, and I finally got it released on the Abacus label. It did okay and was later reissued on the Anthology Label in 2014. By then, I had the itch to get back in the studio and wanted to record an album called "Warm Horizons". I was close to getting married, so I decided to just do a single. I released "Blues Stay Away/Warm Horizons" as a single in 1978 on the Abacus label. It got good airplay, especially on college radio stations. It was recorded in Valdosta, Atlanta and Nashville with some of my music friends. I thought it was a good record! Then I got married, moved to Jacksonville, FL for my wife's career in retail management. I also got into retail sales at a record store but was not very active in my music. While I was still writing songs, I was not playing anywhere nor was I recording. Along with my wife, we started raising a family. I did some acoustic trio gigs and played in praise bands at church. Then, in the mid 1990s, I joined a contemporary Christian rock band called Revolution Friday and we released an album called "Taken By Storm". It did fairly well, and we played lots of good gigs, but we disbanded in the late 1990s. That was a bit of a bummer, and then I played in the praise bands for a few more years. I felt like all hopes of me following my dreams were over.
2014 saw the release of “Ode To A Rainy Day: Archives 1972-1975”. Can you tell me about that record and how the connection with Anthology Recordings, a label that would become very familiar with your work over the years, came to be? What was it like to finally release that music that had been lying dormant all those years? Are you working on any new projects as of recently? What do you think about a whole new generation of people enjoying your music from around the world? When you reflect on those early days, what are you most proud of?
Music and Dreams had been bootlegged in Japan, and it got a fellow from California's attention. His name is Douglas Mcgowan. He put the album out on the internet and suggested that Keith Abrahamsson at Mexican Summer in Brooklyn might want to reissue "Music and Dreams" on vinyl. I agreed to that. Also, a label in South Korea called Riverman wanted to release a CD of "Music and Dreams" which would include the "Warm Horizons/Blues Stay Away" single as bonus tracks and, of course, I agreed to that. These releases did very well and upon invitation from Mexican Summer we did a show in Brooklyn, NY in October 2010. I put a band together with music friends in Jacksonville to do the New York show. It was amazing and we had a great show. The CD released by the South Korean label completely sold out of two pressings. Between 2010 and 2014, Keith at Mexican Summer started a new label called Anthology Recordings. While in New York, I had given my old Adel friend, Don Fleming, a box full of reel to reel tapes to transfer to digital format.
“I felt like all hopes of me following my dreams were over.”
These were recordings I made back in my teen years. Keith got wind of these recordings and wanted to release some on the Anthology label after he had heard a few. Some of these recordings became the "Ode To A Rainy Day" album. I was amazed and honored that someone was interested in releasing these raw recordings I made in my youth. Anthology released the album and reissued "Music and Dreams" on vinyl and CD in 2014. I was so grateful to be back in the music business again! In 2016, I released a CD called "Beautiful Nonsense" that I recorded locally with my local musician friends. Recorded at Radical Recording, owned by my bass player and friend Roy Peak. I wrote and produced it, and it did very well. It was picked up and released in Japan in 2017 by the Hayabusa Landings label. I was hoping I could get the album on vinyl, but it has not happened yet. It's a good album, and I'll keep hoping! In the fall of 2020, Anthology released the demo my band Abacus recorded in Atlanta just before I recorded "Music and Dreams". It is called the “Robert Lester Folsom/Atlanta Abacus Sessions”. Also, I have released an EP called "Bridge" and an EP called "Autumn Lament" in the fall of 2020. I released 2 singles last year. One was "Georgia Music" and the other was "We Ride Our Bikes Around".
Is there anything else you would like to share further with the readers?
I am starting work on a new solo album and I have not set any kind of release date. But the songs are written, and I will soon be deep in the recording process. Anthology Recordings just reissued "Music and Dreams" on blue vinyl, which is very cool. They told me it had sold very well. A follow-up album to "Ode To A Rainy Day" is already to be released in the fall of this year. Anthology is very excited about it and it will be a vinyl release. It is very rewarding for me to know that folks today love and appreciate the music I made nearly 50 years ago and the music I'm making now. It doesn't get much better than that. It encourages me to keep following my passion and I hope it inspires others to do the same thing. I am so very happy to have always had my music, no matter what became of it. The journey was beautiful!
