Ode To A Rainy Day: Archives 1972-1975

The first collection of unearthed, unheard material from Georgia's favourite folk hero, Robert Lester Folsom. Fans of the 1976 private press grail Music And Dreams will revel in this carefully curated assemblage of mellow gold, including the prescient, potent cuts ‘See You Later, I’m Gone’ and ‘Heaven on the Beach With You’.

Robert Lester Folsom’s story isn’t all that uncommon in the parlance of his era. He spent the 1960s growing up in Adel, Georgia, a small town nearer to Valdosta and Florida’s northern border than anything resembling rock & roll, obsessing over his guitar as his craft and skills grew. Folsom would write and record a wealth of material in the early 1970s, which makes up the backbone of Ode to a Rainy Day - the first time these songs have been heard in decades.

Ode to a Rainy Day showcases both impeccable songwriting across light folk, downer pop, front porch rock and woodshed country tropes, combined with ingenious arrangements and technical skills across primitive recording equipment. The beauty of Ode to a Rainy Day lies in its tracking of the seasons in its cycle, how each song feels like a different time of year. Folsom’s legitimate debut would have to wait until 1976, when he self-released the album Music And Dreams, which brings the ideas presented on ‘Ode to a Rainy Day’ into clear, polished relief, lushly appointed with synthesizers, clavinet, an army of percussion and multiple tracks of orchestration and arrangements that’ll make you feel like you’ve heard any of these wonderful songs before.

Folsom provides a homespun challenge to then-established artists as far flung as Todd Rundgren, Neil Young and KC and The Sunshine Band, albeit with touches that credit his upbringing from the decade prior. Had the record any manner of major label backing, it could’ve been a hit; as it stands, Music And Dreams has quietly amassed a cult following, with original copies trading for handsome sums.

For fans of Art Lown, F. J. McMahon, The Rising Storm, Jode, Arthur Russel, Neil Young, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Art Garfunkel, Linda Perhacs, Vashti Bunyan, Todd Rundgren, Tim Buckley.