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Geoff was bewitched at an early age, by the singer Petula Clark and her producer and writer Tony Hatch before discovering the Beatles and
Simon and Garfunkel. As a youngster on Canada's west coast, he was urged to join the British Columbia Boys Choir by his mother, a keen opera buff who taught in the North Vancouver School Board while Geoff's
father was a professor on the faculty at Simon Fraser University. "I'd been playing in the school band, but my mum tells me I wasn't too keen on the choir until I heard one of the trained altos. After
that, there was no doubt I was going to join."
After four years of singing "in an insanely high register" and touring as a soprano soloist, Gibbons dropped out to pursue cooler teenage
pursuits. Soccer soon gave way to guitar. He fell hard for Neil Young, Cat Stevens, The Eagles and Don McLean - "not necessarily because of 'American Pie,' but more for great songs like 'Vincent' and
'Sister Fatima'.
He and high school buddy Jack Guppy, who later would become the drummer in Barney Bentall's band The Legendary Hearts, formed the group Cove Company and established a popular weekend
slot at a club in North Vancouver. After the tragic death of its keyboard player caused the group to disband, Gibbons, now 20, used his winnings from a local talent show to finance a trip to Australia's Gold
Coast near Brisbane.
Confident enough to talk his way into a steady paying gig, Gibbons spent nine sun-baked months entertaining dinner patrons at night and lazing on the beach during the day. When
his Vancouver friend Ken Kirschner arrived down under, the two decided to team up professionally to put their own spin on the sunny, California-influenced pop they loved. Both were reading J.R.R. Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings trilogy at the time, so they adopted the name "Silverlode" from Lathlorien's mystical Silverlode River.
Back in Vancouver, Silverlode cut an independently released EP and
then a sleek, full-length album with producer Claire Lawrence (The Collectors, Chilliwack, Shari Ulrich). The single "Sky High" became a regional and eventually a national hit. And the duo became
one of Vancouver's leading attractions of the early '80s, landing on the cover of the Georgia Straight and opening concerts for the likes of Emmylou Harris, the McGarrigles, David Crosby and The Band's Levon
Helm and Rick Danko and The Little River Band.
On a national level, however, Silverlode's brand of harmony-laden, radio-friendly pop fell between the cracks in an era when punk and new wave rock was
at their zenith. And, following a steady summer of work at Vancouver's Expo 86, Silverlode split. (The group's recorded output was re-issued as Sky High: The Best of Silverlode by Bullseye Records in 2001).
Back on his own, Gibbons was again plying his trade as a working musician with an unquenched need to hone his craft as a writer of original material in the vein of Gram Parsons, the Eagles and John
Hiatt.
Those influences were present on his eponymous solo debut, co-produced by Robbie Steininger (best known at the time for his work with the Sue Medley Band) and recorded in the live-off-the-floor
vein of John Hiatt's masterpiece Bring The Family. "For the first time," says Gibbons today, "I was really proud of what I'd accomplished in the studio. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't so
much of a compromise in the pop direction that a lot of business people had been pushing me in."
A distribution deal with Sony Music in Germany and video airplay for three of the album's tracks -
"Just What I Am," "House of Horrors" and "Can't Curse The Rain" - on CMT in Europe and Canada sowed the seeds for the next album. It came together over a three-year period with
assists from such stalwart local players as Steininger, k.d. lang's back-up vocalist Sue Leonard, keyboardist Robbie King and bassist Rob Becker from Patricia Conroy's touring band.
"'Love
Tattoos' got me critical recognition and I think I began to be regarded as a quality songwriter, which felt tremendously satisfying," says Gibbons. With CMT again giving strong support for the singles
"Bones In The Road" and "Living" the album made an initial buzz as an independent before being picked up in 2000 by the ambitious Toronto-based record company Song Corp. That promising
scenario ended when Song Corp. went under the following year.
When not focused on his own music, Gibbons has been involved in a variety of outside projects. Back in the Silverlode era, his vocals were
in demand by Vancouver's jingle industry and such clients as Labatt's, Dallas Daily News, Growers Cider, and Fleet Street tabloid The Star. He's also worked extensively as a producer/collaborator with his
many west coast friends and compadres.
In recent years, his songwriting talents have been recognized more widely. Three of his songs - "Love Makes No Rules," "The April Place" and
"Nowhere Town" - were featured in the FOX Television series Higher Ground. His skills as a songsmith have also been put to good use of late writing for an animated series as well as songs for a
number of feature films.
Gibbons continues to write and record, assembling a storehouse of material in his home studio The Roots Cellar in Vancouver that has now become his third solo release
'Sentimental Maniac'. |
