Robert Lester Folsom

Robert Lester Folsom

Robert Lester Folsom is an American singer-songwriter from Adel, Georgia, born at Moody Air Force Base in Lowndes County, Georgia. His music combines soft rock, psychedelia, Americana and contemporary folk, and he is also associated with folk and guitar-driven singer-songwriter music.

Early life and background

Folsom grows up in south central Georgia, where music is part of family and community life through church singing, the Grand Ole Opry, local AM radio and records from the Columbia Record Club. He is influenced early by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Fat’s Domino and Johnny Cash. Before he plays guitar, he starts a band and later trades his record player for his first guitar, teaching himself from a Mel Bay chord book.

While at school he writes songs, forms several bands with friends and begins recording at home on a Sears four-track reel-to-reel machine. He and a friend transfer recordings to 8-track and sell them to friends. The songs are performed at 4-H Club events, church functions and parties.

Abacus and the first recordings

At South Georgia College, where he studies as a music major, Folsom meets several musicians who become part of his band Abacus. The group includes Sparky Smith on bass, Hans Van Brackle, Van Whiddon, Jimmy Whiddon and Don Anderson, with Don Fleming acting as manager. Abacus plays proms, VFW dances and parties, mixing cover versions with original songs.

Folsom takes the band to Atlanta to record a demo at the LeFevre studio, where engineer Stan Dacus works with them. After further rehearsals, he decides to make a solo album and books studio time at LeFevre. The album is recorded in the summer of 1976 with overdubs and mixing sessions that make use of a flanger effect. Danny Dickens, a college art major friend, designs the cover artwork.

Music and Dreams and later rediscovery

Music and Dreams is self-released in 1976 on vinyl and 8-track. It gains some attention in Georgia and parts of north Florida but does not reach a wider audience at the time. Folsom later records two songs, “Blues Stay Away” and “Warm Horizons,” for a planned follow-up single and possible second album, though that follow-up LP does not appear.

Interest in the album returns decades later after “April Suzanne” is heard online. The renewed attention leads to reissues through Yoga Records, Mexican Summer and Riverman Music. Music and Dreams is reissued in its original form on vinyl by Mexican Summer in 2010, and Riverman Music issues it on CD with “Blues Stay Away” and “Warm Horizons” as bonus tracks.

Archives releases and later recognition

Folsom’s unreleased material later appears on the compilation sets Ode to a Rainy Day: Archives 1972–1975 and Sunshine Only Sometimes: Archives Vol. 2, which present demos and deepen interest in his work. His songs also reach new listeners through social media and through placements in television series including Outer Banks and Gossip Girl.

Following the rediscovery of his music, Folsom resumes performing with a new band made up of Jacksonville, Florida musicians. He appears at the CMJ Festival in New York City and performs at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, and he also plays a sold-out show at the Troubadour and a set at Newport Folk Festival. His work is treated as an example of homespun pop and as part of a broader renewed interest in his original recordings.