A week before he died, Bob Gibson held his own wake. It was in a large room at a hotel on the shore of Lake Michigan North of Chicago. He had sent around invites to some of us in Chicago and we sang for Bob well past midnight. He stated that he missed the music more than anything, and he just wanted to hear it another time. Shel used my guitar that night to do 3 or 4 songs. But it was Rick Neely who did this "Frankie And Johnny" that night. -- By then Bob was too ill with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and couldn't play at all.

He passed away in his sleep -- exactly a week after his farewell party. One of the songs I did for Bob was Jerry Rasmussen's "A Handful Of Songs." --- When my 1998 CD "The Older I Get, The Better I Was" came out on Waterbug Records, I used that tape we had from the party to end the CD. ---- Bittersweet memories. Shel is gone too.

Art Thieme