obscure characters and that s one of my great loves and passions. we spoke on this weird wavelength where other people were left out as we discussed the finer points of jesse white. the last time i talked to gilbert he phoned me to have a discussion about irwin c. watson. he was a chitland circuit comic from the 1950s. he was an opening act for james background. gilbert phoned me. there were three levels to gilbert s voice. there was the famous loud, obnoxious screamer or that he emulated when he did the parrot in aladdin. then there was a scaled down version of that same voice, more controversial conversational but had the same nuances. then there was a third voice that the public never heard which i was honored to hear which was he would phone me and say, hey, cliff, it s gilbert. had a question for you about irwin c. watson. that s exactly what he sounded like. he really only spoke in his