Search - Various Artists :: Can't You Hear Me Callin: Bluegrass 80 Years

Sony Doesn't Understand Bluegrass!

Todd A. Gracyk | Petaluma, CA USA | 12/02/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is a stupid box set given its stated objective. The back cover of the box states, "All the major figures of bluegrass, and a number of the music's most intriguing, if lesser-known, purveyors, are here." Granted, there is some great music here, but what is the point? Any serious fan of bluegrass and old-time country music will have about 60% of these recordings; the remaining 40% or so are mostly a curiosity.



The Byrds never made a bluegrass record, so why does Sony/Columbia include 4 tracks by them but none by Don Reno & Red Smiley (there is some later work here by Reno)? Why include the O'Kanes but ignore the Country Gentlemen? Why present the Dixie Chicks but not Emmylou Harris?



Alas, this box set also features no Jim Eanes, no Earl Taylor (the first bluegrass artist to play Carnegie Hall), no Buzz Busby, no Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, no Lilly Brothers & Don Stover; no Hylo Brown, no Doc Watson, no Mac Martin & The Dixie Travelers; no Charlie Moore, no Larry Sparks, no Norman Blake, no Seldom Scene, no Hazel Dickens, no Tony Rice, no Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver; no J.D. Crowe & The New South; no Johnson Mountain Boys, no Gillian Welch, and the list goes on...



Sides by the Carter Family, Charlie Poole, Roy Acuff, and other old-time country music artists are a nice touch but why no Jimmie Rodgers (the source for Bill Monroe's "Mule Skinner Blues," Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs' "I'm Lonesome And Blue," and several other bluegrass warhorses)?



The booklet here is visually way too busy and thus, difficult to read; the graphic designers got carried away. The photos are great, but most of them have been published many times before. Billy Altman's text is fine, providing an overview of bluegrass, folk, and country music at large, but doesn't drill down into the specific tracks presented here.



The Bill Monroe cuts here are questionable, as only 1 of the 9 selections here are from his 40 plus years with Decca/MCA ("Uncle Pen"). The other 8 are from the Columbia label. So we don't hear Monroe at his most lonesome. Same problem with the Stanley Brothers; we get 5 Stanleys Columbias and 1 Starday (no essential Mercurys and Kings). So we don't hear the Stanleys with their best drive. Dumb.



I'm glad to finally have a recording by the obscure duo of Bill & Mary Reid, but why give us their cover a Monroe song rather than one of their originals ("Get Down On Your Knees And Pray")? Too bad that Monroe's incredible 1951 version of that song isn't here, as it was one of only 4 that he recording with the great Carter Stanley playing guitar and singing lead (and, of course, we get none of those 4).



I won't further quibble with the song selection with but one exception. Where is the song "Angel Band?" The Stanley Brothers' 1955 Mercury version is included on the incredibly popular the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack but arguably the finest version of "Angel Band" ever waxed was by Carl Butler & The Webster Brothers for Columbia about a year prior (a version that includes all 3 verses). The exclusion of that recording from this box set is unfortunate.



Hard-core fans of bluegrass and old-time music will still want this set for a the otherwise hard to obtain tracks by the Coon Creek Girls, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper; Carl Story, the Reids, Jack Youngblood, Carl Butler & The Webster Brothers (instead of "Angel Band" we get "Somebody Touched Me"); and the Webster Brothers (the Webster Brothers recorded with Butler and on their own; they're on there own here covering the Louvin Brothers' "Seven Year Blues"). But these dozen or so rare sides pale in comparison, both in terms of importance and listening pleasure, to the best work of Jimmy Martin, Mac Wiseman, Don Reno & Red Smiley, the Country Gentlemen, Charlie Moore, Doc Watson, Jim Eanes, Buzz Busby, the Seldom Scene, and many, many others (Martin and Wiseman are here, but under-represented).



Those looking for a proper introduction to bluegrass music are much better served by Time-Life Music's new CD "Legends Of Bluegrass" or the fine compilations on the Rhino label (2 CDs in the "Appalachian Stomp" series)."

Nice, far-ranging overview...

Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com | ...in Middle America | 09/29/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"An impressive 4-CD collection that spans eight decades and draws heavily on the Sony vaults, including material from their Columbia/CBS/Epic/Monument/Sony Classical back catalog, as well as a generous helping of tracks from other labels, such as Acoustic Disc, ARC, Bluebird, Capitol, Decca, Dot, E-Squared, OKeh, RCA, King, Mercury, MGM, Monument, Rounder, Sugar Hill, Vocalion and Warner Brothers... Obviously, this is not the "ultimate" bluegrass collection, but that elusive item is probably something best left to individual collectors to assemble in the privacy of their own homes... But for a major-label overview, this is pretty darn cool. Many of the major players and foundational artists are included: The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Carl Story, The Osborne Brothers... And flanking this pantheon on either side are early pre-grass stringband artists such as Roy Acuff, Molly O'Day, Charlie Poole and Gid Tanner, or young'uns who have carried on or modernized the tradition -- The Byrds, The Dixie Chicks, Alison Krauss, Mark O'Connor, et al. The list of omissions and second-guessing about which tracks to have included is, of course, near-endless. I'll leave it to the purists and crabby at heart to rip Sony a new one for their criminal actions, but from where I sit, particularly knowing how hard it is to assemble reissue material in the first place, and how small the audience really is, I'd say: job well done. It's twangy as all hell and diehard fans or newcomers alike should find this a valuable and compelling collection.



(Too bad they couldn't get any Blue Sky Boys songs, though!)"

You're bound to discover something new about the genre

J. Ross | Roseburg, OR USA | 01/07/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This 4-CD box set with 109 songs captures the American bluegrass music tradition. This is quite an undertaking. Consider their objective to cover 80 years of music. Old-timey seeds planted by Gid Tanner and Charlie Poole in the 1920s are included. Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, and Flatt & Scruggs are well-represented with about 20% of the tracks. But so are the Carter Family, Roy Acuff, Carl Story, Arthur Smith, Osborne Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Jimmy Martin, The Byrds, Herb Pedersen, Ricky Skaggs, Blue Ridge Ramblers, Coon Creek Girls, Bailes Brothers, Molly O'Day, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper, Mac Wiseman, Carl Butler, Louvin Brothers, Joe Maphis, Don Reno, Grandpa Jones, The O'Kanes, Mark O'Connor, Dixie Chicks, and Alison Krauss. What, they're not all bluegrass! I guess it's all in how you define the genre.



Songs from nearly two dozen record labels is included. A 58-page booklet comes with the CDs, and it has some excellent liner notes by Billy Altman and Ralph Stanley. This set was chosen by Shoreline Community College instructor Tom Moran for his on-line "History of Bluegrass" distance learning class. The anthology compiled by Gregg Geller is broad and expansive, and it's a major milestone in the promotion of bluegrass music for a large label with the reputation of Columbia/Legacy to support such an endeavor. My hat's off to them. Of course, every person's 100 tracks documenting the "history of bluegrass" would be different. And the main question to ask about "Can't You Hear Me Callin'" is does it adequately cover the main bases? With more than fifty different groups and solo artists sampled, I'd say that it does pretty well, but it certainly would've been exponentially enhanced with even 2-3 more CDs in the set.



Special rare tracks include some by The Coon Creek Girls ("Pretty Polly"), Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper ("On The Banks Of The River," "Sunny Side Of The Mountain," "Stoney, Are You Mad At Your Gal"), Carl Story & the Rambling Mountaineers, Don Reno.

Three previously unreleased songs include Carl Story's "Don't You Hear Jerusalem Mourn," Roy Hall & His Blue Ridge Entertainers'1938 version of "Orange Blossom Special," and Sara & Maybelle Carter's "No More Goodbyes" from 1966.



This is a fascinating and erudite collection that every bluegrass music lover could study for months. You're bound to discover something new about the genre that you didn't know before. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)

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