ROBERT LESTER FOLSOM
Robert Lester Folsom brings his rediscovered 1970s southern folk-rock archive to Songbyrd Music House on Thursday, October 8, 2026, with Vermont-based singer-songwriter Liz Cooper opening. Presented by Songbyrd and U+N Booking, the show focuses on Folsom’s Anthology Recordings reissue series, particularly *Sunshine Only Sometimes: Archives Vol. 2, 1972–1975*. The evening spotlights a long-obscure songwriter whose homemade recordings from rural Georgia have earned him a dedicated cult following decades after they were made.
Folsom grew up in Adel, Georgia, and was transformed by Beatlemania as a child, eventually trading in a children’s record player for a beat-up, stringless guitar. Over the following years, he became a de facto producer and arranger for local garage bands and aspiring singer-songwriters, using a Sears 3440 two-track reel-to-reel and inventive home-brewed overdubbing techniques. He recorded across Georgia in bedrooms, a barn, and a motel room, often alongside guitarist and collaborator Hans VanBrackle. That period produced the material heard on *Ode to a Rainy Day* and *Sunshine Only Sometimes*, as well as Folsom’s later rural-tinged southern rock band Abacus. His sole contemporaneous album, *Music and Dreams*, came out in 1976 and was reissued by Anthology Recordings in 2010. The newly surfaced recordings on *Sunshine Only Sometimes* blend mellow folk, darker downer vibes, rural country, and off-kilter psychedelic pop, with comparisons drawn to George Harrison-inflected melody, ragged country-blues, and the cosmic American music strain of the early 1970s.
Liz Cooper opens the night with material from her third album, *New Day*, a psychedelic pop reinvention born from a period of personal upheaval. After moving to New York, weathering the pandemic, and coming out to herself, Cooper returned to music with a new approach, recording demos alone in her apartment and taking on production duties for the first time. With co-producer Dan Molad, she experimented with unfamiliar studio textures, including running her guitar through synthesizer effects and recording feedback from Marshall amplifier stacks at the War on Drugs’ studio. The result is a bold, self-assured turn toward psych-pop.
When: Thursday, October 8, 2026, at 7:00 PM.
Door Time: 7:00 PM.
Venue: Songbyrd Music House, 540 Penn Street NE, Washington, DC.
Tickets: $25 / $30, with paid ticket options.
Age Restrictions: All ages.
Genre: Country, folk, singer-songwriter.
Lineup: Robert Lester Folsom, with supporting act Liz Cooper.
Organizer: U+N Booking, also known as Unregistered Nurse Booking, an independent booking company founded in Baltimore in 2009.