The Steel Guitar Forum

I've been listening to California One Internet radio recently and ordered a couple of CD's there. Gib Gilbeau is one of the owner/DJ's and while scanning the stock listing of available CD's I saw one called "Classic Gilbeau". I just got it a couple of days ago and I have to tell you, this one goes into my top 5 for listening. All the tunes are mostly co-written by Gib with a couple of exceptions but all are great. I met him a couple of times about 35 years of so ago when he was at the Nashville West in El Monte, California. I'd heard him on the radio in SoCal also with a song they'd been playing in the LA area called "Sweet Suzanna" by Gilbeau & Parsons which was Gib and Gene Parsons so I was familiar with his work. Gib also was with the Flying Burrito Brothers and did a couple of stints with Linda Ronstadt and others in the SoCal Country Rock Movement. I really like this CD and thought I'd tell everyone about it as it's a keeper for sure. One cut is a remake of the old Johnny Cash tune "Home of the Blues". It starts out with an accapella intro on B-Bender guitar by Clarence White which is simple but awesome. Red Rhodes is on this one as well as a couple more on the CD. There's also some cuts with great steel by Larry "Wimpy" Sasser and some with Dobro by Jerry Douglas. The first tune on the CD is "She's Got a Honky Tonk Heart" which was produced by Randy Scruggs and has a vocal duet with Gib by Mel Tillis. This CD sure makes me miss the talent of Southern California. I know a lot of folks haven't heard of him but I think Gib Gilbeau is a major artist and should be heard by the masses. If anyone's interested they can go to the California One website...Have a good 'un..JH

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

I Listen to California One occasionally, and find it to be quite refreshing. You really get a span of genres and styles on that station. I've heard some great steel picking by JayDee and Sneaky Pete on fairly obscure CDs I wouldn't otherwise have known existed.

Gib is a talent, alright. He certainly has contributed a lot to some of my favorite music through the years.

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<font size="3"><img align=left src="http://countrydiscovery.com/images/cds/ ... border.jpg" [/img]width="96 height="96">Mike Headrick - email: steelfodder@aol.com
<B>CDs
Buddy Emmons "Phases"</B>

Hey Mike, I ordered 3 CD's this trip from California one and your's was one of them. I really liked it too and will be doing a review of it soon. In case some of you Forumites don't know, Mike Headrick, he has a CD called "Steels on Wheels" which is a compilation of tunes either written or co-written by Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons. Some of sweetest E9th playing you've heard in a good while. The CD also has some liner notes by Chris Hillman himself in praise of the work on this one. Being an ex SoCal musician for many years I'm in love with the Southern California music style and this CD has it down to a tee. I like just setting up my steel and playing along with it as it's not the normal tunes you hear on steel recordings. They're all great. My personal favorite is "Desert Rose" and then maybe "Hickory Wind" after that. Have a good 'un...JH

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

Been hip to Gib since his days with the FBB. I have a vinyl disc of a
1979 Shiloh release called "Toe
Tappin' Music". This one has some of the cuts mentioned above and several of Gib's tunes that have a cajun flavor. Clarence White also does some string bending on a cut of Fogerty's "Lodi". Other musicians besides those already mentioned include Sneaky Pete, John Beland and Thumbs Carlisle. Liner notes credit him as writer on Rod Stewart, Rick Nelson, Kristofferson
tunes among others. There is mention of him forming a band called Swampwater in the 70's that recorded 2 albums. I am not familiar with that band though.
Judging by his name, flavor of some of his tunes, and his fiddle style I always figured him having a Louisiana connection, but that is only speculation. Good music.

Swampwater were an awesome country rock band that mixed West Coast country-rock, cajun influence and Nashville country-pop.

Their first album was on Starday/King in 1970, that label went kinda went to the dogs not too many years later when James Brown split the label in late '71 or '72.
The Smapwater LP (self titled) went out of print, but gained a CD reissue in the 1990s.

Swampwater signed with RCA in 1971, at the time the label was trying to get into country-rock. They cut another self titled album in 1971, I believe that Jimmy Day guested on that one, but I'm not sure as I've never found a copy.
A second RCA album was attempted in '72, but they folded early in the sessions.
Beland split, the rest went with Arlo Guthrie for a year.

Good band, RCA really had not idea back then.
They had Michael Nesmith, Pure Prairie League, Swampwater, Rio Grande, etc and most of them were off the label by 1972.
PPL would be the exception, they folded, reformed and after a three year gap cut an album which they issued in 1975.

It might sound cynical, but RCA seemed more interested in pumping out Elvis albums of varying quality. Even the 1971 album by the TCB Band cut by TCB Band alumini James Burton was an afterthought to an abandoned session for Elvis.

I forgot, Gib with a slightly different version of the band ct a reunion album in the late 1970s.
I don't know if it came out in the 1970s, but there was a version that was issued in the late 1980s on an Italian label.

There's a new CD version that just came out called Reunion on the Arkama label.
I don't know much about this, you'd probably find out more from the station that Jerry linked at the start of this topic.

There is a neat site by Mike Masterson (UK) titled 'Gib Guilbeau Family Tree'. It shows the group names as well as musicians associated with Gib from 1951 to present. This site may answer dates, and names, in question. Very interesting. http://members.chello.at/country.rock/tree.htm

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"One never retires from music, any more than one retires from breathing."

Hey, they missed the version of Tex Denton's Hinkley Valley Boys that included Blackie Taylor on steel, a name that Jerry H. would know quite well.

They also missed a couple of versions of the Reasons in 1969, Bud Issacs played with them briefly as well as Butch Hendrix who took over after Gib and the others left to form Swampwater.