I figured this would be a quick one. Just a feel-good story of a forgotten singer/songwriter getting plucked from obscurity and put on the stage once again. I reckoned a couple of hours at the gig, a snap or two, a few quick paragraphs that I'd wrap up with a happy ending of glowing nostalgia, and Bob's your uncle. I was wrong.

The show started as expected. Vocalist/guitarist Suzannah Johannes opened the show at 7:30. An early gig on Memorial Day Monday. Somehow the room was full. She was joined on stage by pianist David Wetzel. He is a bit of a sideman about town that more than earns his keep. Johannes creates indie rock tinged with folk and then performs them as singer/songwriter fare. Sometimes this softens her compositions. Sometimes it imbues them with added emotional heft. Her twenty-five-minute set was packed with short two-minute songs. Each was engaging – sometimes even catchy. That's an adjective which both belittles and praises her craft. She performed sitting down, eyes closed, her fingers tumbling over the strings of her electric guitar. The audience was split – those that had come for Johannes and those that had never heard of her – but all were attentive. Maybe impressed. I'm always impressed when I see Suzannah Johannes.

Everything was going as predicted when Florida's Landon Gay took the stage as Howdy. He's been called a "saltwater cowboy," though his thirty-five-minute set felt more indebted to laidback '70s singer-songwriters than modern country. Gay sat center stage on a high stool, punctuating acoustic strums with slight percussive chucks. Several songs echoed Leonard Cohen's vocal cadence. One stood shoulder to shoulder with Glen Campbell's "Gentle on My Mind." A cover of The Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" was both well done and well received. When I heard the dexterous fingerpicking in closer "Golden," I decided I had enough for my quick write-up.

But between acts, the anticipation of the large crowd became impossible to miss. I began to wonder why there were over a hundred twenty-somethings at RecordBar on a Monday holiday to see a 71-year-old singer/songwriter, one whose sole album of acoustic sunshine pop was self-released in 1976. Like most things I don’t understand about modern music, the answer was Spotify. The algorithm unearthed those forgotten tunes, pushed them to a Generation Z audience, and in a viral moment, everything old became new again. That thought was reinforced when I watched a disposable camera handed to a stranger-turned-photographer. “It’s already wound, you just have to hit the button,” came the instruction. Oh, we’re doing this again now too?

Robert Lester Folsom’s path to the RecordBar stage is a fascinating one worthy of the long articles that others have already written. I had planned to rehash it for schmaltz. Then Folsom took the stage. He was a jolly frontman, thrilled to be given another chance to play the music and live the life he always dreamt about. Between songs he offered stories, befuddled amusement, and sincere appreciation for the audience. That same joy was often infused into his AM gold and sunshine pop gems. Each was simple, hummable, and lyrically direct. His backing quintet – each nearly fifty years his junior – offered beautiful harmonies, smart leads, strong bass lines, and accented Folsom’s sparkling melodies. The optimistic lyrical moments recalled Laurel Canyon’s easy vibes. The darker ones recalled the rich countrified storytelling of The Band. The audience knew them all, fawning over “April Suzanne,” “Super See,” and “My Stove’s on Fire,” leaping for the Moon Pies that they knew would be tossed out during “Sitting on the Moon,” and clapping along to “Singing in the Shower.” Over the course of a nearly two-hour set, I realized the night wasn't about Robert Lester Folsom's history, but about his present. The backstory isn't the story at all.