Mention of the Greenwich Village singer-songwriter folk scene of the 1960s calls up prominent names such as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Judy Collins, Tom Paxton and Ian Tyson. Dylan and Collins, the most commercially successful, are still around and -- rather amazingly -- still active. Paxton continues to record, alone or in collaboration, and only last year announced that for health reasons he has had to give up touring. Tyson (originally of Ian & Sylvia) moved to rural Alberta, bought a small ranch, and established himself among the most famous figures in the cowboy-culture movement. Before he passed on a decade ago, he was its official balladeer in all but name. Ochs, plagued by chronic depression, died by his own hand in early middle age.

By virtue of own considerable talent alone, Paul Siebel ought to be placed routinely in this hallowed company. Siebel died on April 5, 2022, a resident of a small town on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Though he had left the music business in the early 1980s (stage fright and creative frustration are the usual cited causes), he remained enough of a memory that the New York Times noted his passing, as an artist whose "career was notable but brief," in an obituary on April 16. But David Browne's otherwise definitive history Talkin' Greenwich Village (2024) fails to mention him even in passing, and I rarely encounter anyone, other than old friends and the occasional music journalist, to whom Siebel's name and music are recognizable.

In their time, though, Siebel's two Elektra albums, Woodsmoke & Oranges (1970) and Jack-Knife Gypsy (1971), generated thunderous critical cheers. Those of us who were mere civilian listeners shared those sentiments, and to us Siebel was a hero. But only one of Siebel's songs, "Louise" (about the life and death of a truck-stop prostitute), became a hit, if not so much on the radio charts as in the many album covers by prominent figures of the time: Linda Ronstadt, Leo Kottke, Bonnie Raitt and more. Siebel did not write many songs, but most of those were gems, and "Louise" is a gem of gems. It still sounded terrific the last time I heard it, which was this morning.

Born in 1937 in Buffalo, New York, Siebel was influenced by the country music he heard on the radio in his youth and by the folk music he discovered in later years. In the mid-1960s, after a tour of duty in the Army, he moved to New York City to pursue a musical career. Curiously, he continued to sing with a country voice and later to record in country arrangements without ever being thought of -- with good reason, actually --as a country artist. In reality, he was a unique songwriter drawn to almost literary portraits of individuals, carrying them atop melodies that didn't sound much like anybody else's. The finest songs are close to unforgettable, as I was reminded as I listened to Suzy Thompson's fond tribute album, Suzy Sings Siebel: Vol 1.

I think I didn't appreciate how fully Siebel's music had burrowed itself into me till I turned on Thompson's to play the first time. My instant response was irrational confusion. I recognized the song -- the powerful "Bride 1945," concerning the failed marriage of a returned soldier and his sweetheart -- but the voice shocked me. When my head cleared, I deduced that in the 1970s I had heard the song so often that Siebel's vocal had burned into my brain, fusing itself nearly organically into the song itself. It took me at least a couple of listenings to embrace a voice at once female and not Siebel's. But eventually it all made sense: of course the problem was me, not Suzy Thompson. In any event, I know Thompson from her and her husband Eric Thompson's long career as oldtime musicians working out of the Bay Area. She's playing guitar here but is ordinarily a fiddler.

Though the Thompsons (like their producer, the accomplished traditional musician Jody Stecher) had been conversant in Siebel's music as long as I have, Thompson never met Siebel. She did, however, connect with him late in life over four long telephone conversations in the months before he died. The recording project evolved over the next few years and is now available to all of us, those who know Siebel's songs and those who do not. By now there are far more of the latter than of the former. I hope the current album does something to deliver this gifted man from the ranks of the undeservedly forgotten.

The content is taken more from Woodsmoke than from Gypsy, the former generally thought to be more consistently excellent than the latter. Still, "Uncle Dudley," only a dim impression from Gypsy, proves to be a wonderfully told story of a sweet but hapless acquaintance of Siebel's childhood. For me it feels more like a discovery than a rediscovery. "You Don't Need a Gun" is a discovery. Not released till now, it was given to Thompson specifically for her tribute album. My favorite Siebel composition, however, remains the elegant "Long Afternoons," evoking the kind of singular love affair that survives only in images that linger in memory to sadden and console the rest of our days. As Siebel sings it:

Hay fields will ripen
Soon the berries will show
And they'll fade into autumn to fall under the snow
Some years among many leave so much more to remember
No need to explain how I feel about her.

Stecher's production does not precisely replicate what Peter K. Siegel did on the original Woodsmoke, but it nicely captures the spirit. Perhaps the most obvious departure is in Stecher/Thompson's reimagining of "Any Day Woman"; this version takes its inspiration from Jimmie Rodgers in front of a traditional jazz outfit. (Also the Vietnam-era parable "Honest Sam" is revised here in a bluegrass arrangement.) All of this and more is accomplished with a stellar studio band comprising some of the top roots-music players around.

You will enjoy Suzy Sings Siebel: Vol 1 even if you've heard the originals. And if you haven't, your pleasures will be double.

[ visit Suzy Thompson online ]