Overview
Robert Lester Folsom
Sunshine Only Sometimes: Archives Vol. 2, 1972–1975 continues Anthology Recordings’ excavation, and exploration, of southern singer, songwriter, and psychedelic serviceman Robert Lester Folsom’s bountiful archives. Recorded across Georgia in various bedrooms, a barn, and a motel room with a reel-to-reel and a revolving cast of whip smart studio musicians in the first half of a dazed and confused decade, Sunshine Only Sometimes furthers Folsom’s place in the canon of long lost but eventually found independently spirited, high-flying American folk rock.
When Anthology’s reissue of Music and Dreams, the sole contemporaneous album released in 1976 by Folsom, surfaced in 2010, little else was known of Folsom’s nearly five-decade deep archive of unreleased demos and fully formed studio recordings. Born and raised in Adel, Georgia—both then, and now, a sleepy hamlet with a population of less than 5,000—Folsom was fortunate to be minded after extremely supportive parents. Exhibiting a precocious affinity for music, things went widescreen when he observed the same ferry from ‘cross the Mersey as many others of his generation, carrying the four musical moptops to their paradigm shifting appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon thereafter, Folsom began religiously absorbing every morsel of musical output The Fab Four offered, as well as that of their contemporaries. Yet, it wasn’t long before observation transformed into a motivation to create. Even a children’s record player bought by his parents as a gift to him was traded off to a neighborhood friend for a stringless, disheveled guitar (which Folsom’s father shined to prime and function for him in short order). As time went on, Folsom’s innate drive and field of vision broadened; he began enlisting neighborhood friends, classmates, and family members to fulfill his small-scale musical dreams, which would increase in weight with the passage of days.
Over the next several years, while employing ingenious, home brewed over-dubbing techniques with his “love at first sight,” a Sears 3440 two-track reel-to-reel tape recorder, Folsom served as the de facto producer/arranger for any and all scrappy garage band or aspiring singer songwriter in the radius of Adel. Abetted by his mobile recording unit, across a number of unusual locations, and assisted by guitarist and collaborator Hans VanBrackle, this period produced the bounty of Folsom’s self-penned compositions which make up Ode to a Rainy Day and Sunshine Only Sometimes. And eventually, this period of woodshedding led to the formation of his rural-tinged, progressive, southern rock outfit Abacus. Though carrying Folsom’s own singular sound and vision, Music and Dreams, in equal measure, chartered the seas of smooth West Coast AOR before the yachts to come, while tracing the distinctly Californian sound of Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter soft rock Americana, which tussled on the waters before the large vessels overtook the big blue. Folsom’s earlier compositions found on Sunshine Only Sometimes reflect a darker-hued mixture of mellow folk, downer vibes, and rural tones, revealing his talent for melody and hook was intact far before Music and Dreams, with a keen sense of introspection making the dark and light equally resonant. Sunshine Only Sometimes offers up another sterling set of tonally-shifting, sub-underground, alternate timeline classic rock. The C&W-influenced, sprightly-pop of George Harrison—whose Dark Horse Records is one of a handful of record companies Folsom and VanBrackle submitted demos to—is invoked in the uber-melodic “Ease My Mind.” “Julie” brings to mind Nixon-era ragged ‘n’ ramshackled country-blues from the Glimmer Twins’ pen, and the semi-acoustic, heavily-flanged, out-of-time psych-pop of “Lonely Lovers” sits somewhere between a forward-looking glimpse at Music and Dreams and a demo from a would-be Cosmic American Music king.
Unlike similar iconoclasts with crystal vision who held forth with the oppressive thumb of a musical dictator, Folsom was ever in service of song, standing equally aside his collaborators, which uniformly engendered affinity and respect lasting to this day. While a tick higher than the second-tier, the mountaintop was always narrowly out his grasp. Though, with the right set of opportunities, bolstered by talent and drive, Folsom, if not as a stand-alone, star-quality artist, could have led the career of any number of songwriters behind the curtain who rode the magical musical continuum across the decades with faceless success. Perhaps it was Robert and company’s playing “weird spacey stuff and ballads,” as guitarist VanBrackle describes, in small town Georgia skating rinks, bowling alleys, and school dances expecting Top 40 dance-ready hits which held them down. Perhaps it was simply location. Though, the music of Sunshine Only Sometimes is composed of an intrinsic ability to hear the music truly playing, as opposed to the space in air heard by the lay-ear, which places Folsom’s music in a timeless space primed for perennial (re)discovery.
Corey Parsons
"My name is Timothy Steven Corey Parsons (my mom said she couldn’t decide so she named me all of them). A lot of folks call me coco. I was born in Bessemer, AL where Gucci Mane is from but doesn’t claim, got schooled in Hueytown, AL (hence the typos) where Bobby/Davey Allison of NASCAR fame called home, and spent my formative years in Birmingham, AL. I’ve been living in Nashville, TN for a long time. Spent some good times in Austin, TX. And I’ve spent a lot of my life traveling. I was raised by a single mom who worked her ass off to make sure I had a fair shot at life and I hope to one day buy her a Rolls Royce once this music thing takes off. I enjoy writing songs and singing them for people and lucky for me I get to do both of those things quite often. Finishing a song is one of my favorite feelings in the world and I feel it’s important because I believe that relating to other humans is the only way we’re gonna keep this thing going. And music, in my experience, is the easiest way to relate to people. I’ve been obsessed with music since I was a kid when my Uncle Larry played me a Fats Domino cassette in his eighteen wheeler. I thought his name was “Fat Snot Nose” for a very long time. Let me briefly stream of consciousness some of my influences: Fats Domino, Paul Simon, Roger Miller, Don Williams, Jerry Garcia, John Prine, Dylan, Neil, The Band, Ramones, The Last Mr Bigg, Modest Mouse, David Ball, Outkast, JJ Cale, Lucinda, Paycheck, Conway, Dire Straits, Three 6 Mafia, Willie, both George’s, Merle, Thin Lizzy, Bobby Charles, Rolling Stones
And I will take anybody on in 90’s country trivia. Come at me. My favorite color is Purple. My favorite number is 17. My favorite Ninja Turtle is Leonardo. I once won a raffle at Golden Corral to be a bat boy for the Birmingham Barons while Michael Jordan was playing for them. He thought I was cool. My Aunt’s house used to be haunted by a ghost named Keith. Not sure how any of that relates but figured it was worth mentioning. AND THAT’S HOW YOU WRITE A BIO.
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