Appalachian Stomp: Bluegrass Classics

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 28, 1995)
• Original Release Date: February 28, 1995
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino
• ASIN: B0000033GO
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,773 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #1 in Music > Country > Classic Country > Old-Time Country
  • #4 in Music > Pop > By Decade > 1950s
  • #5 in Music > World Music > North America > Appalachian

Track Listings

1. Uncle Pen

2. Foggy Mountain Breakdown

3. This Weary Heart You Stole Away (Wake Up, Sweetheart)

4. Are You Missing Me?

5. You Don't Know My Mind

6. Rocky Top

7. Blue Moon of Kentucky

8. Orange Blossom Special

9. The Ballad of Jed Clampett

10. Dooley

11. Nine Pound Hammer

12. Roving Gambler

13. Roll In My Sweet Baby's Arms

14. Dueling Banjos

15. Will the Circle Be Unbroken

16. Old Home Place

17. Little Cabin Home On the Hill

18. Love You In Vain

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Appalachian Stomp is an ideal starter disc for those just beginning to explore bluegrass. Mostly this is because its 18 selections are so immediately accessible. The "classics" here, in other words, are usually those infrequent bluegrass cuts to have gained radio recognition beyond a core bluegrass audience. That explains why along with timeless standards such as Flatt & Scruggs' "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and the Osborne Brothers' "Rocky Top" we also get "Dueling Banjos" from the film Deliverance, a cut that is to classic bluegrass what Walter Murphy is to Beethoven. There are less immediately obvious choices too, though. If your previous exposure to bluegrass doesn't go beyond the Holy Trinity of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers--for example, if you've never heard J.D. Crowe & the New South's stellar example of progressive bluegrass, "Old Home Place," or experienced Jimmy Martin lay down the law on his rousing "You Don't Know My Mind"--then you're in for a high-lonesome surprise. --David Cantwell

Product Description

Never before have so many of bluegrass' original, greatest hits appeared in one place! Includes Uncle Pen Bill Monroe; Foggy Mountain Breakdown Flatt & Scruggs; Rocky Top Osborne Bros.; Are You Missing Me? Jim & Jesse; Orange Blossom Special Stanley Bros.; Dueling Banjos Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell; You Don't Know My Mind Jimmy Martin; Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms Del McCoury; Dooley Dillards, and more, 18 high, lonesome cuts on the CD, 12 on the cassette!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to traditional bluegrass, February 23, 2003

By 

Peter Durward Harris "Pete the music fan" (Leicester England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Appalachian Stomp: Bluegrass Classics (Audio CD)

Bluegrass music has seen an upsurge in popularity recently. Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, Steve Earle, the O brother soundtrack and the various O sister compilations have all contributed. However, while some of that music is traditional, much of it is a modernised form of the music. Nothing wrong with that, of course - bluegrass, like every other form of music, must modernise or die, and some of it is pure magic - but this compilation draws on the roots of bluegrass, containing many old classics, especially from the fifties, sixties and seventies.

Bill Monroe invented bluegrass and his original version of Uncle Pen opens this set. It was later covered by Ricky Skaggs, himself represented by Little cabin home on the hill, a cover of another Bill Monroe song. Bill puts in another appearance here with his version of Blue moon of Kentucky - a song that was covered by Elvis.

Foggy mountain breakdown became famous after its use in the 1968 movie, Bonnie and Clyde. Flatt and Scruggs originally recorded it in 1949 and it is that original version that is on this set.

The Ballad of Jed Clampett was used as the theme for a TV series, The Beverly hillbillies. When released as a single, it topped the country charts.

Rocky top was written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, famous as songwriters for the Everly brothers (who eventually recorded the song for their Pass the chicken and listen album). It was a country hit for both Lynn Anderson and the Osborne brothers. Lynn's version was the more successful, but it is the Osborne version that is included here - rightly, as this is a bluegrass collection.

Duelling banjos was a huge American pop hit after its use in the movie Deliverance. Other bluegrass classics here include Orange blossom special and Roll in my sweet baby's arms.

This is an excellent collection of bluegrass music, ideal as a sampler of what bluegrass used to be like. If you enjoy modern bluegrass and you're not familiar with the oldies, this is the best way to find out. And just to provide you with something familiar, an early Alison Krauss track is included right at the end.

48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The grass is always bluer on the sunny side of the hill, June 5, 2003

By 

Kevin Cook "Darlin' Boy" (McDonough, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Appalachian Stomp: Bluegrass Classics (Audio CD)

To my way of thinking, bluegrass music is doing its job when it gets your hands and feet to moving and puts your mind on simple, bygone things you recollect, if you're lucky, or must pine for in vain, if you were born too late (like me). Leave it to Rhino Records to come out with a bluegrass sampler that fits the bill to a Model T, mixing bluegrass tunes that have found a fond place in our collective psyche with less familiar (to newbies, anyway) archetypes of the form. Unlike another bluegrass sampler I own, the dreary and redundant "Bluegrass Essentials," "Appalachian Stomp" is as happy and carefree as your best-ever barefoot-summer day. I mean, only a person that's six feet under wouldn't be beguiled by The Osborne Brothers' catchier than poison ivy "Rocky Top" and Sonny Osborne's astounding, mile-high vocal.

"Stomp's" appetizer tray of songs familiar from movies ("Foggy Mountain Breakdown," "Dueling Banjos") and TV ("Dooley," "The Ballad of Jed Clampett") will prime your palate for the main meal, a heaping helping of hard-core high lonesomeness by bluegrass immortals Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, The Stanley Brothers, Del McCoury, et al. All the old-timey stuff is plumb dee-licious. Sampling more recent vintages, J.D. Crowe and The New South's cover of The Dillards' "Old Home Place" is pretty good (although the original is superior), but I'm still trying to puzzle out the appeal of bluegrass darling Alison Krauss ("Love You in Vain"). She's cute as a button and sure-fire talented, I'll give her that, and she sounds an awful lot like Dolly Parton. You can work that last observation into a compliment, too, if you'd like.

The collection's most (in)famous cut may well be "Dueling Banjos," by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, from the 1972 film "Deliverance." For better or worse, Weissberg and Mandell's calculatedly commercial, radio-friendly guitar vs. banjo arrangement remains the best known one in the song's storied history. The tune has been around, in various forms, since 1889, when it was known as "Banjo Reel." By the 1950s, the tune had metamorphosed into "Feudin' Banjos" (a dual banjo duel between Don Reno and Arthur Smith) and Carl Story's "Mockin' Banjo." An exceptional banjo vs. MANDOLIN version of the song, "Duelin' Banjo," appeared on 1963's "Back Porch Bluegrass," The Dillards' debut album, and later became the basis of a frivolous lawsuit by Arthur Smith, who claimed the band had ripped off "his" song.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I could give it more stars, I would!, August 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Appalachian Stomp: Bluegrass Classics (Audio CD)

This is a great collection of Bluegrass if you want some of the most famous pieces. It has a good collection of artists, and is just simply wonderful! I also recommend the second CD in the series, which does not have as many of the "famous" pieces, but includes some real classics for folks who have listened to a good deal of bluegrass. I grew up listening to this music, and had not had many CDs of it, just records-so I was ecstatic to stumble across this. Buy it if you can, it is an excellent price and an outstanding CD!!