Beach House ‘Dreams’ Big On Robert Lester Folsom Cover

Robert Lester Folsom’s long, strange trip from rural Georgia obscurity to cult-classic reverence continues with Music and Dreams: 50th Anniversary Edition, due Oct. 16 via Anthology Recordings. The double album set expands the 1976 folk rock relic with its original reel-to-reel demos and contemporary covers by Beach House and Hannah Cohen.

Beach House’s haunting take on “April Suzanne” is out now alongside a remastered version of Folsom’s original, offering two very different windows into the song’s lovesick ache. The new edition will be available in double-LP, CD and digital formats, with the demo material sourced by Folsom’s longtime collaborator Don Fleming and mastered by Grammy-nominated engineer Jessica Thompson.

More from Spin:

• Metallica Taking M72 Tour For Another Spin
• David Byrne Expands His ‘Sky’ With Four Songs
• Pearl Jam, Sabbath, CSNY Members Join Power To The People

As previously reported, Folsom’s archival excavation has become one of the more affecting second acts in contemporary music. After spending much of his life working as a house painter, the south Georgia songwriter has seen his long-buried recordings find new audiences through a series of Anthology releases, including the If You Wanna Laugh, You Gotta Cry Sometimes collections. Those rougher, intimate recordings illuminate the songwriting that eventually led to Music and Dreams, his sole studio album, which was originally released with little notice before Anthology’s 2010 reissue transformed it into a legend-in-the-making.

Folsom began recording in the early ’70s on a Sears reel-to-reel, eventually bringing the songs to Atlanta’s LeFevre Studios for a fuller studio treatment with engineer Stan Dacus. He pressed just 1,000 copies of the LP, along with 500 singles and a run of eight-track tapes, before turning his attention toward family and making a living in Jacksonville, Fl.

The rediscovery has now moved beyond the crate-digging realm. In 2024, Folsom performed material from Music and Dreams at a sold-out Chicago show, and he is currently on his first extensive U.S. tour. He’ll play New York’s Bowery Ballroom on Oct. 11, ahead of the tour’s Oct. 18 conclusion in Richmond, Va.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.