Customer Reviews

Complete Recordings 1929-34

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For anyone who wants Patton's complete recorded works, but who doesn't want to spend half a paycheck on the Revenant Box Set, this 5 disc JSP collection is an unbelievable value. I was flabbergasted when I discovered it online the other day; I couldn't believe it was so cheap. It contains everything on the Revenant set except the interviews and the bonus disc of music by Patton's contemporaries. It does, however, contain Son House's overpowering 1930 recordings (everytime I listen to them my stomach drops). What else is there to say? This is glorious, intense, and important music.

The remastering is very good, but not without its drawbacks. I love JSP's Django Reinhardt and Louis Armstrong remasterings. The Patton recordings here have the same full, glowing sound (with more hiss and crackle, of course, because of the atrocious quality of the original Paramount 78s). Patton's voice is remarkably intense; one can gain a sense of what a powerful instrument it must have been live. Turn up the volume, and it will hit you in your gut. You can literally feel his throat's rough vibrations, his subtle bending of pitch. The slide guitar pieces ("Oh Death" and "Spoonful," for example) come through quite well. They are deep and resonant.

At the same time, as with every remastering of old 78s, something is lost in the transfer. These remasterings seem vacuum-packed, as if all the all the air in the room had been sucked out. Patton's voice is brought forward, but as a result, some of his guitar work seems muffled. It is as if the remastering aimed to simulate a modern recording studio, allowing only sound from the the guitar and voice to come through. This eliminates one of the best aspects of 78s: their open, echoing sound. (This problem, however, is not nearly as bad as on the Catfish reissue.)

Compare this with the Yazoo reissues (my favorites). There is more surface noise on the Yazoo albums, but this also allows more room for the sound to breathe. One can hear the full range of the sound. There is also a more vivid, lifelike tone on the Yazoo Patton, even if he seems a little distant at times. It is easier hear the wistful echoes that Patton built into his work. By contrast, the JSP recordings are much more intense; Patton's growl is right at the surface. In short, the intensity of Patton's voice on JSP is a revelation, but the set does not convey the full, sparkling range of sound found on Yazoo.

JSP has always come through in the realm of remastering essential
music from the pre-war era. This fact had me champing at the bit when I saw that they were preparing a release of The Complete Charley Patton. This set contains essentially the same music as is found on the first five discs of the Revenant Set.
All songs recorded that Cholly appears on are found in this set. The BIG difference is that "The Masked Marvel"(probably John R.T. Davies or Ted Kendall) has finally done justice remastering the existing records and has succeeded in squeezing blood from the turnip that is known as Paramount Records.(infamous for manufacturing records that sounded like sandpaper when they were brand new!) At first I was very skeptical but after listening to just a few tracks my jaw dropped. None of the ear bleeding stridency of the Revenant masters and none of that blanket over the speakers masking that I heard on the Catfish Box. The music is alive and Cholly's voice is PRESENT. Obviously, there is no cure for the physical damage that is found on some of these relics but on the remaining sides there is pure enjoyment. Along with the best Patton remastering yet, you'll get to hear Son House, Louise Johnson, and Willie Brown's historic contributions to the legendary 1930 Paramount sessions at their best too. I can't stop raving. Enjoy!!!!

Unlike all the other reviewers I have actually made real time A-B sound comparisons between five different sets of Charlie Patton CDs.... and yes, I actually do own the Revenant set. Below are the results from my review of Yazoo, Revenant, Document, Catfish and JSP. I was primarily interested in a realistic soundstage and natural realistic vocals and guitar. I compared several tracks from each of these sets to each other by hooking up two CD players and switching back and forth in real time as the CDs were playing the same track from two different labels. After about seven or eight tracks a definite and consistent pattern emerged....

Below are my comments on the various Charlie Patton CD sets. Again, my primary concern is for natural sound quality - noise reduction was secondary to that goal:

The two latest Yazoo CDs are the best of the lot - I am speaking of the Yazoos that came out most recently - "Best of Charlie Patton" and "Primeval Blues, Rags, and Gospel Songs". I am NOT referring to the earlier Yazoo CDs that were replaced by these latest remasters, nor am I referring to any of the really old Yazoo LP issues. These newest Yazoo CDs retain the natural sound of Charlie's vocals and guitar far better than any other collection that I have reviewed here. Yes, some noise and hiss is still there, but it's a more than reasonable trade off - you get some noise, but you also get ALL the music - Charlie is in the room with you. In any direct A-B comparison the latest Yazoos are tough to beat - yes, they really are that good. This is really all you need to know... you can stop reading now.

The expensive Revenant box set - on Revenant the vocals have a slightly sharper edge to them which will often be perceived as "harsher" versus the Yazoo - but, this could come down to personal preference - I just happen to like the vocal EQ on Yazoo a lot better. The Revenant set also has the most noise and hiss out of all the sets I am reviewing here - even so, if you did not have the newer Yazoos to compare to, this Revenant set would sound pretty darned good in terms of natural sounding vocals, guitar and soundstage. You get all the music here, but a lot of noise as well.

The older Document CD set - surprisingly, they did a pretty good job on this way back when (early 90's?). The vocals and guitar on Document retain a very natural sound and for some tracks might be preferred to the Revenant set. This is because the Document vocals sound mellow without the slightly strident sound of sharper vocals that is often a characteristic found on the Revenant set. Document rolled off the highs slightly resulting in far less high end hiss than is found on either Revenant or Yazoo. You still get all the music on Document, but with slightly duller vocals - not quite as sharp sounding as Revenant or Yazoo, but some might say it's also easier on the ears. I should warn you that the Document set does retain a lot more of the mid-range centered crackle and pop that the other labels have managed to tone down. The bottom line is that the newer Yazoos flat out just sound better than the Document set, but Document does benefit from somewhat lower high-end noise and hiss than Yazoo.

Catfish and JSP - if you just want lower "noise" regardless of the consequences, then these might possibly appeal to you, but you should be aware that you are giving up a lot for a little noise reduction. The main problem is that both Catfish and JSP came out before the newer Yazoos were issued. At the time, the noise reduction offered by Catfish and JSP seemed like a reasonable trade-off; Catfish and JSP were ok in their time, but now are hopelessly outclassed by the latest Yazoo CDs. In any case, for Catfish and JSP as more noise reduction and compression is applied the more the "air" around the soundstage fades away, the vocals become slightly harsher and harder sounding, and the guitar can lose room resonance and begin to sound like a dull piano - quite simply, when overdone, all of the life is drained out of the recording - yuk! Why do you think Yazoo never tries to get rid of ALL the noise? Yazoo just does a superior job in pulling out natural sound with, not the most, but the most reasonable application of noise reduction.

Catfish often sounds extremely boxy and constricted in comparison to Yazoo, Revenant or even Document; but I will grant that Catfish does have the least amount of hiss and surface noise out of all the sets reviewed here. Catfish in particular will come in handy on the extremely noisy tracks that Yazoo did not issue - eleven in all. For those eleven, bottom of the barrel, tracks - and they really do sound like sandpaper! - just about ANY noise reduction is going to be preferred to none at all.

And for JSP, it's obvious they started with the Revenant set as their source material and then selectively applied noise reduction (or not) to various tracks.... so, essentially what you are getting with JSP is the Revenant set with more noise reduction. Revenant certainly has the most noise and hiss of all the sets here, so it's not an unreasonable approach for JSP to tackle that. Occasionally the JSP track seems indistinguishable from the same Revenant cut, but most of the time JSP has layered on additional noise reduction - it just depends on which track you listen to. For example, compare "Dry Well Blues" or "Moon Going Down" on JSP versus Revenant and you will note just a very slight reduction in noise, but also correspondingly slightly less "air" around the music on JSP - those tracks sound ever so slightly fuller to me on Revenant and the addition noise reduction offered by JSP hardly seems worth it. So, could the less expensive JSP set could be viewed a sort of poor man's bargain versus the expensive Revenant set? - it really depends on your perspective. My personal take on this is that you are better off with the Revenant set and then YOU DECIDE how much you want to turn down the treble, if at all! - that is really all JSP has really done anyway. With JSP you do get all the additional non-Patton tracks that Revenant originally issued. Both Revenant and JSP give you a lot more songs than any of the other sets reviewed here.

In conclusion, my advice is to get the latest Yazoo CDs as those are simply head and shoulders above all the rest of these Patton sets - however, just remember that if you only had one of any of these various box sets and could not make comparisons to any of the others your ears would quickly adapt and you would likely be happy with what you had.

So, there you have it.

Blues composer and performer, Sleepy John Estes claimed that you could hear Charley Patton's unamplified voice and guitar at a range of 500 yards. Estes may have exagerated a tad but think about the power of a voice you could hear even at the range of 100 yards. Charley Patton's recordings were made out of the cheapest available vinyl (used to make bowling balls) and were scratchy sounding even when they were released. Paramount felt that their "race records" didn't warrant high quality vinyl. One of my childhood preoccupations was listening to the Yahoo releases of Charley's material and trying to figure out what the guy was signing under the white noise buzz and pop of surface noise. Such a powerful voice and such awful recording technology. Now going on 80 years since their orginal releases, someone has finally made all of Charley's releases listenable. I could go on about Patton's widely imitated guitar playing, his dark allegorical lyrics, his consumate performing style or his carefully crafted image as a rebel, but you still will go back to that powerful voice. And now justice has been done to his awesome legacy of music... and justice has been done to the listener with the release of "The Complete Recordings" which offers this amazing 5 volume CD set at a price only slightly above the cost of a single CD. Maybe there is a Santa Claus, Virginia.

Entire review deleted and retracted.

Once you hear the Patton sides on American Primitive, Vol. 1: Raw Pre-War Gospel (1926-36) or the whole Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton you'll never listen to this JSP Charley Patton box again.

The sound on this one is small, tight and flat in comparison. The sound on those others BREATHES. It's not at all a question of which has more static or more popping. There is more noise on American Primitive and Screamin' & Hollerin' but the sound is so much more open. The music is alive on those in a way it's never close to on this JSP.

The JSP label's blues box sets featuring C-H-A-R-L-I-E Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell and Big Bill Broonzy are among the best-sounding prewar blues compilations on the market, and this is without a doubt the best Patton-collection of all. Just look at the price! All of Charlie Patton's awesome recordings, as well as several sides featuring him as a sideman, and a number of recordings by Patton-associates like Willie Brown, Louise Johnson and Son House (all of House's 1930 Paramount singles are included). Patton's battered old 78s will never sound like the 30s Robert Johnson sides, they still hiss and pop a lot, but they have never sounded better than they do on this exquisitely remastered and well-annotated collection.
Charlie Patton and Son House were the two most important and certainly most influential prewar blues singers, as well as being two of the most impressive. All serious blues lovers should have this fine boxed set in their collection.

I have both the Revenant box set _Screaming and Hollerin the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton_ (an incredible package worthy of all the praise it has been given) and these JSP discs and I can tell you that the remasters seem to be the same. The three big differences between this set and the first five discs of the Revenant box set are 1) the very different prices 2) the JSP third disc does not require the listener to go backward ('rewind' if you will) behind track one to listen to two alternate pressings, and 3) the JSP fifth disc lacks the two tracks where H.C. Speir reads headlines of the day. In addition, with this set you don't get the sixth disc ("Charley's Orbit--Songs") or the historically interesting seventh disc ("Charley's Orbit--Interviews). Nor do you get the excellent liner notes and lyric transcriptions or the reprint of John Fahey's book on Patton. Moreover, you won't get those nifty 78 label stickers either but I doubt many people who have bought the Revenant box are using those anyway though they are a wonderful eccentric touch. The Revenant box set with its loving extras (the CDs are housed on little cardbord holders that are the size of 78s in Paramount record sleeves!) certainly gives the listener a feel for the period, but might hurt in the pocketbook. The JSP box gives all the music of the first five discs of the Revenant set with some sparse but good liner notes of its own. What is most interesting is how there seems to be a conscious effort to rewrite the canon of the country blues and put Charley Patton in that canon's center (read the back of the first CD tray card to see what I mean). This goal of rewriting the canon seemed to be precisely the same goal that the Revenant box set had. Hence, these two sets seem to be 'sister sets', if you will, one giving a feel for the period, the other offering the music at a reduced price. One other thing I must say, the JSP set is much more functional though less lavish. The CDs are easier to get at and to put back. For this reason especially, I'm glad I have both sets. The set I have reviewed is the less lavish, cheaper one, but by no means a low quality set. Highly recommended.

Comments about the treble roll off (see note below) of JSP's edition compared with other editions (I have Yazoo's on vinyl, and Document's & Revenant's on compact disc) are reasonable, but the person who appreciates Charley Patton enough to acquire any edition of his complete recordings should be or become familiar with the quantitative and qualitative limitations of the source recordings: not a lot of copies of any Patton record exist, they're often pretty beaten up, and Paramount's studio where Patton recorded most of them was notoriously primitive. Many of us may be quite willing to accept some sort of sonic compromise in the remastering process. Really it comes down to a matter of how much the listener wants to struggle through varying amounts of surface noise to get to the music--some of Patton's recordings have been, until now, nearly inaudible behind so much surface noise. Give the folks at JSP credit for trying to do something a little clearer than the purists at Yazoo and Document (not to slight them in any way--God bless your souls, Nick Perls and Johnny Parth!) and more economical than the lavish designers at Revenant (God bless you too, John Fahey!).

However, one reviewer's remarks about royalties are NOT irrelevant: Charley Patton's estate actually does exist, and if anyone deserves royalties, it's Patton's descendants, still alive and well in Mississippi. That said, the whole business of reissuing blues and old time music from the twenties and thirties (this business dating back to the fifties) is largely a case study in "bootlegging" by the independent labels and the withholding of royalties by the major labels. Why shouldn't the folks at JSP get their fair share in exchange for making such a crucial set of historical documents available at a reasonable price?

With regard to the payment of royalties, how many of us REALLY care? Intellectual property rights are a legal fiction, and generally serve the interests of the privileged few. You want a company that's likely to pay royalties? Buy overpriced product from the major labels, most of whom wouldn't touch the music JSP sells with a ten foot pole since no mass market audience exists for it and there are, consequently, no big bucks to be made from it. Ideally, of course Patton's estate would get money from the sales of any Charley Patton product. Maybe I'm just really selfish, but if it came down to one or the other--honest business or dissemination of music--I'd take the music every time. I'd like to believe that someone like Charley Patton would agree (though I can imagine he would not!). If we buy JSP's box sets because we love this music, how important is the question of royalties? JSP seems to be about the music, not the money, so let's just be grateful for what we've got!

Now quit reading this rambling drivel and pay attention to something worthwhile: Charley Patton or Blind Lemon Jefferson, also in a wonderfully remastered (and slightly rolled off) box set by JSP.

Note--"Treble roll off" occurs in the remastering process when surface noises are removed: when the frequencies in which surface noise occur are removed so as to clean up the sound of the record, some of the frequencies we associate with the treble qualities of the music are removed too, making the music sound less bright.

First, if you have the money, buy the Revenant set please. As you may know, JSP is an importer who 'borrows' their material from other sources, does a little EQ and sells it without paying royalties (completely legal in Europe). Now, I prefer these remasters to the Yazoo versions available, its just too much hiss for my taste. Charley Patton is one of a handful of artists that are essential in every serious music lover collection along with Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Charlie Parker, Robert Johnson, Billie Holiday, Ellington, among others. Beware: this stuff is old, and not preety, rather scary. Its like drinking straight whiskey for the first time, so be prepared and take a few shots at this. Hopefully you'll find this is as good as the blues gets.

Charley Patton has always been difficult to listen to because the sound quality of the surviving copies of his recordings is so poor. JSP records, famous for its faithful and clear remasterings, has done a fine job of bringing the music out from the static, scratches, and so on, without altering or diminishing it. And the price is remarkable, too.