Robert Lester Folsom

A singer and songwriter drawn to the creation of sunlit soft rock and AM pop laced with psychedelic elements, Robert Lester Folsom issued his sole studio album, Music & Dreams, in 1978. The record drew regional notice at the time yet stayed largely unknown beyond the South until Mexican Summer, the Brooklyn indie imprint, brought it back into circulation in 2010. That reappearance stirred Folsom’s creative drive once more, prompting fresh recordings and live performances; Mexican Summer sustained its support by issuing further archival material, among them the 2022 set Sunshine Only Sometimes.

Raised in Georgia, Folsom grew up immersed in the local AM station alongside his parents, absorbing the era’s abundant sounds from Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. He performed in groups during high school, eventually acquiring a Sears reel-to-reel four-track that allowed him to capture his own work and that of his friends. After South Georgia College he connected with the players who would form Abacus—Sparky Smith, Hans Van Brackle, Van Whiddon, and Jimmy Whiddon. The ensemble sharpened its skills at mixers, proms, and similar gatherings before traveling to Atlanta in search of a studio for original songs. Creative differences during tracking led Folsom, aided by LeFevre Studios head engineer Stan Dacus, to pursue the project alone, though he still drew on the band’s contributions to complete the sessions.

Only one thousand copies of Music & Dreams appeared in 1978; the album received airplay across Georgia and Florida, yet mounting financial and family obligations soon redirected Folsom into a full-time house-painting career. A resurgence arrived in 2010 when Mexican Summer and South Korea’s Riverman Music both reissued the album in expanded vinyl and CD editions. Further home recordings surfaced as Ode to a Rainy Day: Archives 1972-1975 in 2014. While listeners newly encountered his earlier work, Folsom completed fresh material, releasing Beautiful Nonsense in 2016 and Abacus Atlanta Sessions in 2020. Another volume of unreleased demos, Sunshine Only Sometimes: Archives Vol. 2, 1972–1975, emerged in 2022. Drawn from the same lo-fi domestic tapes as the earlier archive collection, the set emphasized more psychedelic and occasionally somber selections, presenting twelve additional songs from an extensive cache reportedly holding dozens of fully realized, if informally documented, compositions.