Robert Lester Folsom - Music And Dreams (Korean Remastered) (1976/2010)

It's not like all Great Lost Albums can come from twisted eccentrics or rockabilly cavemen. Sometimes you get gentle types like Robert Lester Folsom. His vision probably never got any more crazed than a dream of opening for Poco at the Great Southeast Music Hall. Maybe he did. A few tracks from Music and Dreams – according to this reissue's liner notes by bassist Sparky Smith – got some Atlanta radio play back in 1976. That was a big achievement for a bunch of kids who got together as Abacus at South Georgia College.

The liner notes don't explain how Abacus would record what became a solo album by Robert Lester Folsom. It might not be that interesting of a story. The interesting thing is that enough copies of Music and Dreams (originally self-released on the Abacus label) made it into the bins to get a South Korean label to present this really nice reissue. Music and Dreams is dolled up in a package that duplicates the popular mini-LP packaging in Japan. There's a lyric sheet, and even a fake obi strip that the label uses for some advertorial copy. They want you to know that Folsom is straight out of "the mellow gold school of '70s folk rock," and that "CS&N, Todd Rundgren and Steve Miller are all good references."

The blurb also mentions "a healthy dose of yacht rock" in a bid for modern relevancy. Nothing wrong with that. The nod to Todd and Steve is also legit, although you can also go with unfashionable comparisons to Al Stewart and (pre-Comes Alive) Peter Frampton. Folsom certainly doesn't sound like the bearded longhaired hippie who's sketched on the album cover. The staff at the humble LeFevre Sound Studios did a fine job of making Music and Dreams worthy of any big L.A. studio with drifts of cocaine over the mixing board.

In fact, Folsom could've given Lindsay Buckingham some competition at being the guy who came in to save Fleetwood Mac. He even gets kind of danceable on tracks like "My Stove's On Fire" and "Jericho." It's not nearly as excruciating as what the Bee Gees were up to at the time. Other folks might find Music and Dreams to be a little too mellow, but Folsom is also a great alternative for music fans who don't want to have a Seals & Crofts album in their collection. This reissue adds two bonus tracks of, respectively, bold rock and indulgent jazz-funk sappiness.