2010-2011 Season
The Gibson Brothers
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Bluegrass band
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, and 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 Flatt 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 monstrous dreams. But each year we’d 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, 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 bore. 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 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 2005, the brothers signed
with Sugar Hill and subsequently released four albums: Bona Fide
(which went to #1 on the Bluegrass Unlimited chart), Long Way Back
Home, Red Letter Day, and 2008’s Iron and Diamonds, which
is a reference to their hometown’s two claims to fame -- iron ore mining
and baseball. The Gibson Brothers’ debut release on Compass Records,
Ring the Bell, will be available in stores on May 5, 2009.