Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From: Jim Bennett
Date: 16 Jun 05 - 08:21 PM

Jody's Newport Daily News obituary is now on line.

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From:
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 05:49 PM

Sorry to hear that he's passed on.

Cranky was always one person whose messages I read with interest. May he find himself in a special place with lots of music and friends.

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From: GUEST,Melani
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 09:02 PM

I'm so sorry I never got to meet him.

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From: Ferrara
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 09:51 PM

Wow. Always enjoyed his posts here, but never knew anything about him. As one of my friends used to say, "What a mensch!" A full iife, fully lived. I'm glad to know more about him now.

Best wishes to his family and friends.

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 17 Jun 05 - 11:30 PM

very sad news.
I met Jody in 1991 when I was crewing aboard the Bounty replica. Jody was a guest of the captain, and we sang some chanteys together the several days he visited and talked some. I'll never forget his hat that had written on it "HMS Redundant." Jody's enthusiasm was memorable. My condolences to the family.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From: seagoddess
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 11:54 AM

Helping the family to get the word out:

A reminder for friends of Jody's that the Memorial Service and Musical Celebration for him is tomorrow, Thursday, at 4:00PM at St. George's Episcopal Church, Rhode Island Ave. in Newport. Following that will be a jam session at 5:30PM at Billy Goode's Tavern, Marlborough St., Newport; friends are welcome at either or both. St. George's has started a Memorial Fund in Jody's name and is accepting donations to help his widow, Donna, in covering final expenses, outstanding medical costs, etc., and there will be a donations jar located at Billy Goodes as well...see the owner, Kevin Campbell, or myself, Cindy Peloquin. And Mudcatters - feel free to bring along a song to sing, instruments to play, and please be sure to say, "Hi!"

Jody was laid to rest on Monday, June 13 with full Military Honors at the Veterans Cemetery in Exeter, RI, with close friends and family attending. Besides the military honors, beautiful Christian prayers, and readings from the Hebrew tradition, several of Jody's favorite songs were sung - including "This Land is Your Land," which he'd requested. Way to go, Jody!

The Providence Phoenix had some interesting things to say regarding Jody and his remarkable family:

http://www.providencephoenix.com/music/top/documents/04774224.asp

http://www.providencephoenix.com/features/p_and_j/documents/04768502.asp

Subject: RE: Obit: CRANKY YANKEE - JODY GIBSON
From: Jim Bennett
Date: 10 Dec 05 - 06:07 PM

The Newport Daily News articles have been hidden behind a registration wall, so I have mirrored them here: Hoot and Obituary.

What a man.

If the Daily News gets edgy about copyrights, I will have to take these down, so those who are interested should save them while they can. A word to the wise.

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: GUEST,Jim Bennett
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 03:04 AM

Bump: to keep Jody's Rockabilly Hall of Fame page linked here.

I had not realized that Digitrad threads evaporated like this. If what we are doing here has any relation to folklore scholarship, then "ilka little makes a mickle" and the littles need to be preserved, for those who will come later. By the way, I still do not see Jody's name attached to BLOW YE WINDS IN THE MORNING (II). It's been at least 15 years since the then computerless Jody asked me to ask Dick Greenhaus to get that song properly attributed. I remember submitting that request from an XT with a 2400 baud modem.

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 07:12 AM

Is it really 2 years since Jody left us?

Wow.... seems like last week.

LTS

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: Marc Bernier
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 09:51 AM

Can any one tell me what the NMU is? And why did Jody think they should "Go Shit In Their Hats"?

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 08:52 PM

National Musician's Union?
Just a guess.

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 10:56 PM

National Maritime Union.

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:24 AM

Jim has these posted on his Website, but I think they should also be posted here:


Newport Daily News
Monday, April 25, 2005
Friends gather to jam with Jody
By James J. Gillis/Daily News staff
        
Photo: Singer Jody Gibson plays the guitar during a jam session in his honor Sunday night at Billy Goode's in Newport. (Jacqueline Marque/ Daily News staff)
        
NEWPORT - Singer Jody Gibson has loved Newport passionately for nearly 40 years. On Sunday night, Newport loved him back.

Friends and family packed the stage area at Billy Goode's, sometimes 15 at a time, to sing and play with a musician who seems to know every song ever written. There were no speeches, just music. Gibson's one-time Popeye frame has shrunk a bit, but his customary Greek fishing cap was in place as he sang and played from a wheelchair, loving every moment of it.

Gibson is best known as a local troubadour, a hillbilly singer from way back, a guy who hung out in Greenwich Village as a young man with Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, and Newport's contribution to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

But that's just part of it. Gibson, 75, also is known for forming a hard set of opinions and sharing them with little provocation. He is characteristically direct about his current situation.

"I've had this colon cancer the past two years," he said during a break in the music. "I don't have much time left. That's official."

His wife, Donna, puts it differently: "You know Jody. He says he'll go when he's ready."

There was more joy than tears Sunday night at Billy Goode's. It was a jam session, a sing-along and a hootenanny. Performers took turns leading songs, with John "Fud" Benson starting things off on fiddle, Gibson's daughter Joyce Katzberg leading a rousing "Hey, Good Lookin,'" and everyone sang "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"

Donna Gibson, who has sung with her husband through the years, took a guitar and led "Jambalaya." She said the night was not a fund-raiser (there was no cover charge) and not a concert, either. "This is different. This is music sharing, not different people getting up and singing," she said. "It's a jam, really, everyone sharing."

As the night unfolded, some players dropped out and new ones joined in. Some were familiar faces on the local scene, including Benson, Jim McGrath, Kevin Sullivan, Mark Quinn, Mickey Scotia, Mike Fischman, another of Gibson's daughters, Kate Katzberg, and Cindy Peloquin. Some, like Roger Sprung of New York, played with Gibson at the Black Pearl more than 30 years ago.

If Gibson were a mere entertainer, he'd still be among Newport's memorable figures. But he's always been a pot-stirrer, too, catching heat as early as the 1940s for forming a mixed-race hillbilly band in the Air Force.

In an interview in the 1980s, he proclaimed his undying love for Newport, only to leap from his kitchen chair and stomp his right foot as he railed against the developers who clogged the waterfront with time-share condos and hotels.

Gibson also holds a well-honed distaste for bigotry. The worst part, he said, is that prejudice keeps people from forming friendships: "You miss out on so much."

Benson, who has known Gibson for decades, said the singer always has given all that he had to audiences. "Sure, he loves being on stage, but he's always been able to see it from the other side," Benson said. "He's worked to make sure people enjoy themselves.

"And to be honest, he's one of the most talented people I've ever met. He's just a terrific guy."

Through the years, Gibson's worked as a sign maker, toiled on ships, performed with Donna, singing tongue-in-cheekers like "Pave the Bay" and "Tiptoe Through the Tourists," and taken up martial arts. In more recent years, he's lugged a homemade contraption to open-mike nights, an instrument he dubbed a "digeri-don't."

Kevan Campbell, who owns Billy Goode's, helped organize the party. "If you can call someone a music legend around here, it's him," he said of Gibson. "The night was understandably bittersweet for Joyce Katzberg, a longtime singer and arguably the state's leading peace activist. But it was a fitting way to honor her father, she said

"Jody has given so much of himself through the years, it's wonderful to see all these people here tonight," Katzberg said. "It's really a celebration."

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 02:27 AM

Newport Daily News
Thursday, June 9, 2005
Singer Gibson succumbs to colon cancer
By James J. Gillis/Daily News staff
        
Photo: Jody Gibson plays guitar during a jam session with friends at Billy Goode's in Newport in April. Gibson died Wednesday at age 75. (Daily News file photo)
        
        

NEWPORT - Singer/musician Jody Gibson, 75, Newport's link to the folk era of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly, died Wednesday at his home at 207 Broadway after a battle with colon cancer.

Gibson performed for decades in Newport, whether singing shanties, Hank Williams songs or tongue-in-cheek protest tunes, such as "Tiptoe Through the Tourists." Gibson, born Joseph Paul Katzberg in Brooklyn, N.Y., was a one-of-a-kind presence on the local scene.

In his prime, Gibson was a burly plug of a man in a Greek fishing cap, so robust that neighborhood children sang the "Popeye" theme as he carried a duffel bag of clothes over his shoulder en route to the old Fifth Ward Laundromat on Thames Street.

Gibson knew hundreds of songs and held just as many opinions. "He was extremely honest, the most honest person I ever met," his wife, Donna, said Wednesday. "He never lied to his children about anything. He never lied to me. If you asked him a question, he gave you a direct answer. It might not be the answer you wanted, but he always gave you an honest answer."

While he is best known in this area as a musician, that only tells a fragment of the story. He served in the Air Force as an air traffic controller and was a Korean War veteran, earned a black belt in karate, taught martial arts to at-risk youngsters, worked as a sign carver, toiled aboard ships and as a boat builder.

He is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and recorded a single "Good Morning Captain" while serving in England in the Air Force, with George Martin - who later became the legendary Beatles producer - as his promotion man.

As a boy, Gibson roamed the Greenwich Village music scene, where he got to know Guthrie and Leadbelly. "He's really one of the last singers who played with those guys," said Newport blues singer/guitarist Paul Geremia.

By phone from California, where he is touring, Geremia said he went back to the mid-1960s with Gibson, opening for him at the old Tete-a-tete Club in Providence.

"I opened for Jody, I think it was in '64, and there was a snowstorm and Jody drove this old clunker and he gave me a ride to my parents' house or wherever the closest place was I could stay for the night," Geremia recalled. "We kept getting stuck and had to get out and push. Jody kept saying it was a bad theme."

Gibson often dropped by Geremia's Newport apartment in recent years to talk up some new crusade or invention. He liked to listen to Hawaiian guitar records, 78 rpm, that Geremia collects. "He didn't always come by at the most opportune time," Geremia said with a chuckle. "But you were always glad to see him. I really liked Jody. I'm very sad to hear he has passed away. I knew he was terminally ill but I didn't think it would be this soon. I had hoped to spend time with him when I got home."

On April 24, some of Gibson's family and best friends gathered at Billy Goode's to pay homage to him. Gibson had been suffering from colon cancer for more than two years and was typically blunt about the forecast.

"I don't have much time left," he said that night. "That's official."

Daughters Joyce and Kate Katzberg, both well-known Rhode Island singers, joined some of Gibson's best friends on tunes like "Hey, Good Lookin''' and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" Donna Gibson sang "Jambalaya" and the night went on for hours. "This is music sharing, not just different people getting up and singing," Donna Gibson said.

Roger Sprung, a veteran of the New York music scene, came to town to perform with Gibson, with whom he played at the Black Pearl 30 years ago. Gracious Audette, who owned the Blue Pelican Jazz Club from 1982-91, also was there that night.

"It offered people a chance to provide a wonderful acknowledgement (of Gibson's life) and be able to participate in something memorable," Audette said.

Audette grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, and moved to Newport in 1978. She remembers Gibson driving a beat-up Volkswagen with some kind of protest message, perhaps targeting the new-money yachties, painted on the vehicle. "I knew once I met him that I was in a town full of characters," she said.

Gibson never cared whether his views were popular. In the Air Force, he caught heat for forming a mixed-race hillbilly band. In Newport in the 1980s, Gibson railed against "land speculators" he felt were trampling his adopted hometown.

In his kitchen on a day back then, he jumped to his feet and slammed his fist on the kitchen table to pound home a point. He felt racial prejudice was poison, that it kept people from building friendships: "You miss out on so much."

Jim McGrath went back to 1970 with Gibson, when Gibson worked on ships docked in Newport Harbor. At about that time, Gibson moved away from country music, McGrath said, and toward sea shanties.

"I remember seeing him and thinking, who the hell is this?" McGrath said.

And he remembers Gibson commuting to gigs at the old Stone Bridge Inn in Tiverton - not unusual for musicians. "The thing is, he used to ride his bike from Newport, with his banjo strapped to his back," McGrath said.

"You could go on all night with the stories," he said. "He was a brilliant guy with his wires in different directions."

McGrath, a singer in town since the 1960s, said Gibson's passing is sad for his friends and family, and a loss for the community as a whole. "We're going to miss him," McGrath said. "He was another one of those great characters we're not going to see again. The town's gotten so homogenized."

Donna Gibson saw a side of her sometimes-fiery husband less apparent to outsiders. She remembered Gibson as a gentle and kind soul, a generous person who went ashore in Newport years ago and lost his wanderlust.

"Jody lived all over the world," Donna Gibson said. "But he chose to settle in Newport. After all those years, he found his home in Newport."

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: GUEST,Mike Westman
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 10:05 PM

I guess I have been away for a while. I remember Jody and myself in late October a long time ago riding his 14 foot square rigged yacht in the Newport Harbor and feeling like I was going to die. Jody had a way of bringing the immediate and mundane into a wierd harmony with the cosmos and the whole of it all.   it took a lot to stay with him he was an intuitive genius.   Mike Westman

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 12:26 PM

I just re-read PMs I received from Jody. He was a character...somewhat opinionated...and very generous with his knowledge and his friendship.
RIP, banjo in hand!
SINS

Subject: RE: Obit: Cranky Yankee-Jody Gibson (8 June 2005)
From: katlaughing
Date: 16 Dec 07 - 04:03 PM

I could have sworn I posted to this the first, or at least the second time it came back up. I know I did on some of the other threads when Jody took ill.

Regardless, I have missed him and he sure was a character. If ya met him, even in cyberland, you knew you had met him and that he was something special.

RIP, Joe D.!

luvyakat