Gib Guilbeau

Who is Gib Guilbeau?

Floyd August "Gib" Guilbeau is an American Cajun country-rock musician and songwriter. As a member of Nashville West, Swampwater, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Guilbeau helped pioneer the fusion of rock and country music in the 1960s.

Guilbeau was born in Sunset, Louisiana and raised among fiddle players. His father and brothers played fiddle, and he himself started playing fiddle at the age of fourteen.

In 1960, Guilbeau formed The Four Young Men with guitarist Wayne Moore, which Bobby Edwards then joined to become Bobby Edwards & the Four Young Men. Together, they release the single "You're the Reason", which became a nationwide hit, peaking at #4 Country and #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961.

In 1967, Guilbeau formed Nashville West, a short-lived country-rock group with multi-instrumentalist Gene Parsons, who had played with Guilbeau in a band called the Castaways years earlier, guitarist Clarence White, formerly of the Kentucky Colonels, and Wayne Moore on bass. Along with bands such as the Byrds, Dillard & Clark and the International Submarine Band, Nashville West was one of the first country-rock bands. Country-rock notables such as Gram Parsons and future Flying Burrito Brother Sneaky Pete Kleinow would sit in with the group. They also provided backing for other groups, such as the Gosdin Brothers and The Hollywood Argyles. Nashville West came to an end in 1968 when Gram Parsons abruptly left the Byrds and the group asked Clarence White to replace him.