The Gibson Brothers - Ring The Bell
  • I Know Whose Tears
  • I Can't Like Myself
  • The Wishing Well
  • Ring the Bell
  • Angel Dream
  • What Can I Do?
  • Jericho
  • Farm of Yesterday
  • Just an Old Rounder
  • Forever Has No End
  • That's What I Get
  • Bottomland
  • I Know Whose Tears
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (04:04) [9.31 MB]
  • I Can't Like Myself
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (02:30) [5.73 MB]
  • The Wishing Well
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:46) [8.62 MB]
  • Ring the Bell
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:51) [8.82 MB]
  • Angel Dream
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:56) [9.02 MB]
  • What Can I Do?
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:57) [9.06 MB]
  • Jericho
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (02:46) [6.33 MB]
  • Farm of Yesterday
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:37) [8.26 MB]
  • Just an Old Rounder
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (04:04) [9.33 MB]
  • Forever Has No End
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:51) [8.82 MB]
  • That's What I Get
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (03:07) [7.12 MB]
  • Bottomland
    Genre: Bluegrass
    MP3 (04:40) [10.69 MB]
Biography
Help My Brother is The Gibson Brothers’ tenth album and second on Compass Records and is the winner of the esteemed 2011 IBMA Album of the Year Award. The album also garnered the brothers the 2011 IBMA Vocal Group of the Year Award and follows the success of Ring the Bell, the title cut of which took Song of the Year and Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year at the 2010 International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards at the Ryman Auditorium—the real Grand Ole Opry. That album was also the fifth consecutive Gibson Brothers album to hit the #1 spot on the Bluegrass Unlimited radio airplay chart.

Eric and Leigh (pronounced Lee) have received other awards since they started playing music together as kids in upstate New York. When I say upstate, I mean six miles from the Canadian border in bottomland dairy country where the brothers got up at 4 a.m. most mornings to milk the cows and do the chores—that’s UPstate.

Eric, who plays banjo, is a little less than a year older than Leigh, who plays guitar. They grew up with the same rivalries and competitiveness as most close brothers. They both loved baseball and I can imagine the sound of the ball hitting the other’s mitt on those cold spring mornings.

Then they heard the close harmonies of Don Rich and Buck Owens, of Emmylou Harris and Ricky Skaggs; the country stylings of Don Gibson, Don Williams, and Merle Haggard; the rock’n’roll sensibilities of Tom Petty and the Everly Brothers; and the bluegrass of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers. The Gibsons learned to play banjo and guitar and began singing together. Both have tremendous range and tone and they could hear the blend as only brothers can.

In 1993, with Junior Barber on dobro and his son Mike Barber on bass—who is still in the band and considered the third brother after 18 years on the road—they began playing the bluegrass festival circuit.

With each album they got better and better, and they began writing songs and defining their own sound. In 1998, they received the award for IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year.

Now, in 2011, they are releasing their finest album to date, Help My Brother, a Janus-like album that pays tribute to the great brother duets, while carrying the tradition forward with their own songs and sensibilities. Seven of the twelve cuts were penned or co-written by Eric and Leigh.

But it’s an ensemble effort. The Gibson Brothers band is one of the strongest groups playing bluegrass today. Instrumentally, it’s a classic lineup of banjo (Eric), guitar (Leigh), bass (Mike Barber), fiddle (Clayton Campbell) and mandolin (Joe Walsh). Each player is steeped in the tradition of his instrument, but they always play to the song.

The band recorded the album in under a week and the duet brother vocals were recorded live into one microphone, which enabled them to make those microsecond harmony choices that only brothers hear.

Appropriately, the Gibsons have cut the Louvins’ “He Can Be Found,” originally on their fabulous Satan is Real album. And they honor Jim & Jesse with the McReynolds’ “I’ll Love Nobody But You.”

But it’s the fresh material that makes this album the best and most thematically coherent yet. Starting with the opening cut, “Help My Brother,” the themes are positive ones—selflessness, charity, and the lessons learned from good and bad times.

“Walkin’ West to Memphis” is a Chris Henry song that sounds like it could be a classic Nashville Bluegrass Band song from the ‘80s. It swings so hard, I found myself playing air mandolin.

Two songs written by Eric, “Dixie” and “Frozen in Time,” reflect, respectively, on a lost chapter in Elvis’s life and on those who spend their time stuck in the past. Both show Eric’s great ability for writing melodies and stories that stay with you.

“Singing As We Rise” is a Joe Newberry gospel song and the whole band sings here, with help from Ricky Skaggs, sounding like a classic cut from the quartets of Flatt & Scruggs.

The brothers co-wrote two of the cuts with others: “Want vs. Need” with Tim O’Brien, which shows what we all want vs. what we really need. And “One Car Funeral,” co-written with Jon Weisberger, somehow hilarious and frightening at the same time, about a funeral where “No one really cared. Not the preacher nor the digger, nor the reason they were there.”

One of the most moving songs is Leigh’s “Talk to Me,” with reigning Female Vocalist of the Year Claire Lynch and genre-bending banjoist Alison Brown contributing. Leigh’s vocals on the opening verse sound like some long-lost Roy Orbison classic, but he makes it completely his own.

The album ends with a true family story, “Safe Passage,” written by Leigh about a Gibson ancestor who sailed from Scotland to Montreal and then went south to fight in the Civil War. The chorus is the perfect coda to this uplifting, coherent, and balanced set of songs.



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Eric and Leigh Gibson grew up on a dairy farm outside of Ellenburg Depot, New York in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains. It isn't the typical beginning for a bluegrass band but sometimes things just come together. "My parents loved music but they didn't play," says Eric. "My father, I think always wanted to play but he worked like mad from the time he was 9 years old. He was a dairy farmer. He'd go to an auction and come back with a fiddle or they ordered a guitar and a banjo through the Sears Roebuck Catalog so we had instruments around the house but nobody knew how to play them. When I was 12 and Leigh was 11, we came home from school and dad said 'there's a guy giving lessons at Dick's Country Store and I'd like one of you to play the banjo and one to play the guitar." Eric chose banjo and Leigh, guitar, and the die was cast.

The brothers took lessons on their instruments and began singing at the suggestion of their minister. "We progressed at the same rate," remembers Eric. "We grew up listening to the same people and seemed to agree about what type of songs we wanted to play and our direction. We never really argued about that. If I like a song Leigh will like it too."

They caught the Bluegrass bug after their teacher introduced them to the music of Flat and Scruggs. But still they never intended to actually make it as musicians. "I was just as much into baseball, if not more so, than music," Eric laughs. "I either wanted to pitch at Yankee Stadium or play at the Grand Ole' Opry and I've gotten to do one of those. I always had monster dreams. But each year we get more and more serious about music."

By the time they were in their early 20's, the brothers couldn't deny the lure of the requests that were coming in for them to play shows and festivals. At the same time, Eric was having problems balancing his career as a schoolteacher with his drive to play music and so he took a leave of absence from teaching. "It was hard decision," he says. "You take the safety net out from under you. We couldn't have accomplished what we've done if we hadn't gone into it full boar. To be a good teacher, it has to be your passion but music is my passion. I always felt pulled by the music. I felt like I had to make a choice."

By this time, the brothers had a few albums out on the Hay Holler label. Eric took a leave of absence from teaching and, in 1998 the brothers won the 1998 IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year award. In 2003, the brothers released Bona Fide, which went to #1 on the Bluegrass Unlimited album chart and placed high on the Americana and Billboard charts. Two more releases followed -- Long Way Back Home and Red Letter Day. The Gibson Brother's ninth release, Ring the Bell came out on Compass Records in 2009.
12
  • Members:
    Eric Gibson, Leigh Gibson, Mike Barber, Clayton Campbell and Joe Walsh
  • Sounds Like:
    Alison Brown, Peter Rowan and Matt Flinner
  • Influences:
  • AirPlay Direct Member Since:
    12/10/12
  • Profile Last Updated:
    09/09/23 14:05:06

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