A real treasure in the songster tradition!
Josh Z. Bonder | Toronto | 11/26/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This 3 cd collection serves to fill a large gap in the availability of some great songster recordings. While some tracks from certain artists have been available in one form or another for some time (Richard Brown's "James Alley Blues", Luke Jordan's "Cocaine Blues", all of Mississippi John Hurt's early output, etc.) this collection offers the fantastic complete recordings of each of these artists. The mere fact that Richard "Rabbit" Brown and Luke Jordan have their complete recorded works included in this set makes it worth the price alone (seeing these artists listed is why I bought it). These discs feature many more incredible songs by even more obscure artists which are all well worth your time and money....
People like Papa Harvey Hull and Long Cleve Reed create some mesmerizing and bizarre blues duets, while Hambone Willie Newbern combines a gruff sounding voice with very unique sounding blues tunes. Big Boy Cleveland performs an excellent blues as well as an incredibly unique and jaw-dropping performance on the syrinx, and Louis Lasky provides some excellent flat-picked tunes with a vaudevillian twinge. There are many more incredible artists to speak of in this collection, each bringing something special and unique to the already diverse songster tradition.
There are many hidden gems to discover on this set, most of them pre-dating the blues, and painting a fascinating picture of African American musical culture before the record industry boom. Each performer has a highly individualistic approach to their sound and subject matter, and the various combinations and instrumentations (singer/guitarists, vocal groups, quill players, harmonica players, etc.) keep this set feeling fresh and interesting on every listen. You can also expect high quality mastering from Document records, which only helps in keeping these performers sounding as prescient as ever. Essential songster recordings."
Haunting, Morbid, and Seemingly Not of this World!
NYC ESQ. | new york, ny | 01/11/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is powerful music, folks. I developed an interest in this genre after reading an online piece about Joe Bussard, the world's greatest 78 rpm record collector.
If you can get past the scratches, pops, and surface noise of these old 78 rpm shellac slabs, you'll be transported to another dimension. This is the world before antibiotics and air conditioning, before commerical radio and chain stores, when polio and diptheria still claimed daily victims, and a simple staph infection was a death sentence. As R. Crumb says in the film bearing his name, as he puts his oringal 78 rpm copy of "Last Kind Word Blues" on the turntable, "when I listen to old music is the only time I have a kind of faith in humanity. On these old records you hear the voice of the common people expressing their connection to eternity or whatever it is out there. People today can't express themselves like that, it isn't possible."
That's a fascinating obersvation by Crumb, and spot-on too. There was no such thing as a 'producer" in the early days of 78s, musicians would merley show up and sing their songs into a primitive microphone, and that would cut the sounds directly on to the shellac itself. No gloss, no overdubs, no electornic trickery, no splices, no equalizers or synsthesizers or drum machines. Just honest sounds, raw sounds, sounds that are black and blue as a Pittsburg rare steak, dark and charred outside with a cold, bloody, center. You can feel these songs creep up your spine like an icy wind, raw and cold. You have to buy this album right now, I am prescribing it to everyone."
Never Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice
Stuart Jefferson | San Diego,Ca | 06/02/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Three discs. 74,77,71 min. each approximately. The sound is good considering the age of these recordings. This set is a real surprise! With all the pre-war blues and pre-blues collections available this comes as quite a revelation. On a smaller scale of comparison,this would have to rate just under The Anthology of American Folk Music and The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of. It's the equal of the various JSP and Yazoo collections that deal with the same era. There are many people here who are unknown,who stepped up to the mic,recorded a few tunes and then disappearred. This is an area of music that deals with the people known as "songsters",people who sang about personal observances or things that happened to them personally. The styles range from hillbilly to "pop" to medicine show and combinations of the above. This collection should be much more well-known than it currently is. This is enjoyable ,informative and joyous music,done by people who wanted not much else than to be recognized as a "songster". The booklet is fairly informative. However,I would have liked a bit more information/background on this era,which hasn't been delved into like it's more well-known cousin-blues."
Track Listings (25) - Disc #1