There are some records that strike like lightning, and others that slowly reshape the landscape grain by grain. Originally recorded and self-released in 1976, Robert Lester Folsom’s Music and Dreams began its journey passed among friends, and delivered to local record stores and radio stations, before (mostly) falling off the map. Decades later, after attaining legend status among collectors and curious alike, Anthology Recordings now presents Music and Dreams: 50th Anniversary Edition, a double LP that pairs a remastered treatment of the album alongside the original reel-to-reel demos, revealing new contour and color to music that continues to find an audience in its own time.
Music and Dreams’s long and not necessarily strange ascent became tangible in 2024 when Folsom stepped onstage at a sold-out show in Chicago to perform material from the album. His fanbase had steadily accumulated both online and off for years, as more listeners found their way to his music, many no doubt guided there by the three collections of Folsom’s previously unheard archival material unearthed by Anthology since 2014. “I’m guessing the average age of the crowd was around twenty,” Folsom recalls. “They were all so excited and singing my songs with me, and that’s when I decided that I needed to tour.”
The connection this music has forged with younger audiences isn’t so surprising. Folsom wrote these songs while he was still working through the same questions and uncertainties that come with growing up and falling in love, albeit from the perspective of a music-obsessed, small-town visionary tucked away in rural Southern Georgia. He remembers listening to and learning from whatever music he could, whether that meant hymns echoing from the local church, country, gospel, soul, and pop music drifting from his parents’ kitchen radio, or late night transmissions snuck on a small transistor that carried new broadcasts from distant metropolises like Chicago (he recalls listening to “Hey Jude” for the first time on one such evening). Regional record stores were few and far between, making every discovery feel particularly significant. Alongside an early and undying loyalty to The Beatles, songwriters like Hank Williams, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, and Joni Mitchell gradually broadened his sense of what a song could do.
It was in the early 70s, after years of writing and playing music alone and with friends, that Folsom started laying down his original songs on a beloved Sears reel-to-reel. It’s this same reservoir of recordings that eventually became the foundation of Music and Dreams. The songs on the album were selected for a full studio treatment together with Stan Dacus, head engineer at Atlanta’s LeFevre Studios, who had invited Folsom to record a solo record after he happened to hear the young songwriter and his then band, Abacus, recording a demo at the studio (this session was released by Anthology as Abacus Atlanta Sessions in 2020).
Dacus, deeply impressed by Folsom’s work, generously cut a deal with the artist, giving him a premium on studio time, and inviting local musicians that he knew from around Atlanta to help build the album’s world of sound. One of those was Jay Tobin, who contributed the synthesized ELKA strings on songs like “Music and Dreams” and “Biding My Time,” an unexpected texture that somehow pits perfectly against Folsom’s acoustic guitar.
Folsom eventually pressed 1,000 copies of the LP, 500 45s pairing “My Stove’s On Fire” with “Show Me to the Window,” and a run of eight-track tapes. But without the means to promote the album at a national scale, and with the band members moving on to other things, Folsom gradually turned his attention toward building a family and making a living, though he never stopped writing songs or playing music entirely.
Half a century has changed Folsom’s relationship with the album as much as it has reshaped its audience. Songs he once dismissed as slight or even silly have become some of the most anticipated moments in his live sets. One of those is party starter “My Stove’s On Fire,” a playful protest against disco’s growing takeover of live venues during the 70s. “I always thought it was just a novelty song,” he says. “Then one day I realized it’s just really good. It’s the last song we play before the encore, and people go crazy because they’ve been listening to all these songs about heartbreak and then all of a sudden we just get together and dance!” If “My Stove’s On Fire” has taken on a new life onstage, “Please Don’t Forget Me” remains the song that best captures Folsom’s original intentions. “There’s not a demo of it, but that’s probably my favorite because that’s really why I made the album. I didn’t want any of the people I wrote those songs about to forget me.”
As with Folsom’s other archival reel-to-reel recordings, the demo versions of Music and Dreams are peppered with the bare-bones mentality and the slight imperfections that are so charming about his raw bedroom sound. One of the standout tracks from this set is “Weeping Willow Tree,” performed by an old high school friend of Folsom’s, whose incredible vocals call to mind iconic folk vocalists from the era like Linda Perhacs and Emmylou Harris.
In an era that puts a premium on immediacy, Folsom’s story is a reminder that some music follows a different timeline. Today, the album no longer feels like a forgotten relic finally receiving its due, but a living work that simply took its own path to the people who were always meant to hear it, from an artist who never gave up his devotion to music. “I kept writing songs, I didn’t sell all my guitars, I played at parks with people here and there. I didn’t tour but I was still somewhat active. I just kept enjoying it, and something good happened in its own time. And when it did, I wasn’t too rusty! I don’t take any of it for granted.”
Robert Lester Folsom’s Music and Dreams: 50th Anniversary Edition arrives as double LP, CD, and digital editions, the demo material miraculously sourced by Folsom’s longtime collaborator Don Fleming, all material mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Jessica Thompson.