Customer Reviews

Anchored In Love: Their Complete Victor Recordings - 1927-1928

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For all of you who just got turned on to "O Brother" etc., this is a great 2nd step. This album features the earliest records made by Sara, A.P. and Maybelle - before their radio show and before national fame. This is country music before there was country music, hovering somewhere between the twilight of Anglo-Scots balladry and the invention of Country & Western. The family did not write even one of these 16 tracks (although A.P. took credit for several), but they might as well have - no one has ever done them better. Just listen to Maybelle's classic guitar work on "Wildwood Flower," or those harmonies on "River of Jordan" and you'll see why every folk, bluegrass, country and old time musician in the world pays homage to the Carters.

The paradox of these early recordings is the polish of the playing (again, particularly the guitar work) coupled with the rawness and energy of the performances. No record producer had yet had a chance to tinker with the sound and the result is entrancing.

My personal favorites on the disc, aside from the original versions of "Wildwood Flower" & "Keep on the Sunny Side," are "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow" (high and tight harmonies with some dynamite bass string guitar solos) and "John Hardy Was a Deperate Little Man," a period ballad that has been largely forgotten.

For anyone ready to take the plunge into roots music, you'll find no better recording.

This is it, the beginning of time as far as country music is concerned. It's important to remember that this is music from another world and values, long ago and far away; before advanced science and aesthetics and before information overload intruded, accessible now only through these recordings. It's also important to remember that the participants were quite young at the time-Maybelle was still a teenager and her cousins Sara and A.P. were in their mid-twenties and mid-thirties, respectively. Because of all this, the topics available were God, the life-to-come, forsaken love, Mother and Father, my old Clinch Mountain home, and most of the rest of Dixie, in just about that order, but thinking about it, is there really much else in life? Maybelle was already a budding guitar master and Sara's vocals, in a higher register than later years, gradually draw you in and hook you permanently and the primitive recording techniques actually helps the other-worldly quality of the songs and harmonies. I do wish Charles Wolfe would expand his invaluable liner notes for the series into a full-fledged biography, concentrating on the personalities involved, particularly the relationship between Sara and A.P.

The body of this review has been used elsewhere in this space to comment on other The Carter Family CDs.

This information is from a review of a PBS documentary and serves my purpose here by bringing out the main points that are central to the place of The Carter Family in American musical history. The last paragraph will detail the outstanding tracks on this CD.

"I have reviewed the various CDs put out by the Carter Family, that is work of the original grouping of A.P., Sara and Maybelle from the 1920's , elsewhere in this space. Many of the thoughts expressed there apply here, as well. The recent, now somewhat eclipsed, interest in the mountain music of the 1920's and 30's highlighted in such films as "The Song Catcher" and George Clooney's "Brother, Where Art Thou", of necessity, had to create a renewed interest in the Carter Family. Why? Not taking the influence of that family's musical shaping of mountain music is like neglecting the influence of Bob Dylan on the folk music revival of the 1960's. I suppose it can be done but a big hole is left in the landscape.

What this PBS production has done, and done well, is put the music of the Carters in perspective as it relates to their time, their religious sentiments and their roots in the seemingly simple mountain lifestyle. Is there any simpler harmony than the virtually universally known Carter song (or better, variation) "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"? Nevertheless, these gentle mountain folk were as driven to success, especially A.P, as any urbanite of the time. Moreover, they seem, and here again A.P. is the example, to have had as many interpersonal problems (in short, marital difficulties) as us city folk.

I have mentioned elsewhere, and it bears repeating here, that the fundamentalist religious sentiment expressed throughout their work does not have that same razor-edged feel that we find with today's evangelicals. This is a very personal kind of religious expression that drives many of the songs. These evangelical people took their beating during the Scopes Trial era and turned inward. Fair enough. That they also produced some very simple and interesting music to while away their time is a product of that withdrawal. Listen."

So what is good here? Obviously the classic title track "Anchored in Love". The much covered Great Depression classic "Keep On The Sunny Side"," Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow" and "River Of Jordan" also stick out. I would also note that unlike some other early Carter Family anthologies that I could listen to the whole CD at one time. Moreover, the technical quality, for the times, of the Victor label shows here.

The other reviews are accurate in terms of the importance of the music. The music is simple and enjoyable and the Carter Family's earliest recordings set the stage for what came later in both country and folk music. What holds this back from being a five star review is the poor remastering of the music. The process used created a high pitched whine near the end of most tracks, which is very annoying. There are better remastered versions out there, starting with the great Bear Family box. Seek out this music, but go for a different remastering.

The original american folk-sound. Carter Family is timeless

I guess not, but it seems that way. I'm working my way through the whole re-issue series. This is simply timeless, essential music.