I must first apologize for taking so long to post a new review. This isn’t going to be so much a review as homage. I was recently trying to track down Gibb Droll, as his website has been removed. After some Google work I found that he has replaced his old website with a My Space site that is kept by someone other than Gibb. You quickly see that this is less of an informative site than it is a place for current Gibb fans to post comments. And those comments are the same that Gibb has received over the last fifteen years. From the 18-30 year old guys, “Man, you were on fire the other night! How do you play like that?!? I loved it when you played with your teeth…you’re the best!” From the 18-28 year old women, “Gibb, you’re the cutest! I loved watching you on-stage the other night.”
Anyway, I was wading through the posts when I come across an older Gibb-head who commented that he had really enjoyed seeing him recently. Apparently the guy was from the Virginia Beach Music scene and made the comment, “You know we lost Tom…”. This caused me great distress. Was Tom as common friend or the original bass player for the Gibb Droll Band, Tom Hall? After another frantic Google search I found a few references to Tom Hall. Tom, as Mike Williams told me several years after Tom left the band, had returned to Virginia Beach where he became a successful realtor. The Google search led me to an article that alluded to a band that Tom had been playing with recently, called DC3. I was glad to hear that Tom was back to playing music. However, it also went on to say that Tom passed away in April of this year. Tom apparently dropped unconscious at his office and went into a coma. He was in a coma for a while and then had a heart attack and died in the hospital. He never regained consciousness.
Tom was an incredible blues bassist and I have tremendous memories of him. He was always extremely friendly and would talk during breaks in the sets. A lot of the inside information I got about the band came from Tom. He loved playing with the Gibb Droll Band. He once told me that he loved playing the bass line during the song Carrie (an instrumental referencing Gibb’s then-girlfriend) because it portrayed the bounce in Carrie’s step when she walked. He said he could always picture her when he was playing that song. The last time I saw Tom play with the band was at Trax, in Charlottesville. Tom’s father had been very sick, terminally ill I think. Anyway, before the show Tom got word that his dad had just passed away. Tom went on to play that night at Trax, even though I’m sure Gibb would’ve cancelled the show if Tom had said the word. The show was dedicated to Tom’s dad and was extremely emotional. It was an intense show, everyone played their ass off, even Tom. I still have an autograph from Tom and I’ll always remember him as Gibb’s original bass player and a helluva guy. God Bless Tom Hall.
