Chance to discover the world of Otis Gibbs
ONCE upon a time Otis Gibbs would have stuck out like a sore thumb on a UK street.
These days the kids like
to emulate that Southern hick look but this fella – playing The Grapes on Wednesday – is the real deal.
That's not to say he is some simple 'hick'. His album Grandpa Walked A Picketline is rightly acclaimed; tough rural folk with a lot of heart, Gibbs' gravel-tongued vocal oozes a potent honesty and sense of place that commands attention.
Raised in Indiana, Otis
has been referred to as a
folk artist, but this is music from a man who has planted over 7,000 trees, slept in hobo jungles, walked with nomadic shepherds in the Carpathian Mountains, been strip-searched by dirty cops in Detroit and has an FBI file.
He's played everywhere from labour rallies in Wisconsin, to anti-war protests in Texas, Austria
and the Czech Republic, stores in the Midwestern US and in countless theatres, festivals, bars and living rooms.
"Much of his work concentrates on the world that is ignored by pop culture," says his brief. "Sometimes forgotten, obsolete or simply marginalized, it is a world that doesn't fit into a 20-second sound bite or a White House talking point. Otis has spent the last 15 years travelling across America and abroad documenting this world and has a story to share about each stop along the way."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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