Clifton Hicks

George Gibson's "Last Possum Up the Tree" Now Available on Bandcamp!

Added 2019-11-27 22:42:05 +0000 UTC

Hallelujah!

'Banjo master George R. Gibson was born in 1938 at the confluence of Little Double, Big Double and Buffalo Creeks in Knott County, KY. He learned to play and sing the old songs, in the old tunings, from family and neighbors including his grandfather, George W. and his father, Mallie. In the liner notes for this recording George says, "As far as I know, I am the last person left playing the old Burgey’s Creek banjo music. I am the last possum up the tree."

'Gibson has mentored a younger generation of eastern Kentucky banjo players, ensuring that the traditions will not disappear.

'Music scholar Art Rosenbaum writes: "George's singing and playing, with complex interweaving of vocal line and banjo figures with the banjo tuned in any number of old time tunings adapted to suit modal song melodies, is in the tradition of Kentuckians, Banjo Bill Cornett (whom he met as a youth), Walter Williams, Justus Begley and Shorty Ralph Reynolds." (Art of Field Recording, Vol. 2_;Dust-to-Digital, 2009)'