Customer Reviews

Music Of Kentucky: Early American Rural Classics 1927-1937

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

The previous negative review highlights an interesting point.
This music may not be suitable for people who don't listen to much "pre-Elvis" music. Shania Twain fans may be disturbed by the rawness of the music. "Terribly played, Terribly sang?"
Oh please, don't be silly. I play guitar, banjo, mandolin and fiddle, and this music, while raw and at times rudimentary, is entirely credible, impressive and has depth and emotional resonance that will be lost only on the souless. A related point to this, is that this CD should appeal to vintage blues fans. The musical interaction between black and white styles is immediately evident, and fans of powerful artists such as Charley Patton and Skip James should enjoy this CD, as it is mercifully free of much of the pathetic hokey white novelty aspects that have turned you off this music in the past. B.F Shelton, like his close contemporary Dock Boggs, has a dark savage power that will appeal to fans of the "hard stuff" and not family strummalong kumbaya singing kingston trio wannabes.

Alright, ya gotta hear this. This is truly great raw, beautiful American music, much of it sacred, all of it sublimely primitive (in the best possible meaning for primitive, that is "...work marked by directness and naivete...typically rough or simple...handmade and anitique...a work of art produced by a ("self-taught") artist", paraphrased, Langenscheidt's New College Merriam-Webster ENGLISH Dictionary,pg.926). Dig: BF Shelton's Hypnotic Banjo-playin'and far-off vocalizin', Alfred Karnes' maudlin otherworldliness, WM Stepp's vigourous, virtouosity on th' Viddle, and the saintly syncopations of the often almost crazed Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Quartet/Singers. Trust me, kats, this is the real deal, astonishing stuff. Buy it, make the head honchos at YAZOO the rich bastards they deserve to be. AMEN.

This is a really great record. Sometimes old-timey collections can be a little bit of a chore to get through, but this one is really fun, a record you can have on in the background and be delighted by. Especially nice are the robust, almost rowdy, gospel recordings made by the gruff-sounding Alfred G. Karnes and Ernest Phipps during the legendary Bristol recording sessions of 1927-28.

Contrary to the grouchy comments of the guy from Pennsyvania (below), the sound quality on many of these tracks is actually quite good, and the music is great. Besides, dude, what do you think Bill Monroe and all his buddies were listening to when they created modern bluegrass? This stuff. That's why it's so cool and so important... and if you can get in the right frame of mind, that's also why it's so fun!

The impetus for my review is two-fold. 1: Mike Seeger's death sparked me to write reviews I've meant to get to for ages. 2: I just saw a flawed Aaron Copland documentary. I didn't write the name down but a biographer or historian asserted that Copland probably used "folk" source material as inspiration for some of his work, but we'll never know what. Ptooey! This disc, W.M. Stepp, track 8, Bonaparte's Retreat. This is Copland's Hoe-Down several years before Copland wrote it. I don't mean hey if you listen closely enough you may hear some influence. I mean this is it. Even if you only know it from the tv commercials (The Beef Symphony, one might call it. It's what's for dinner), Copland directly lifted the iconic Hoe-Down movement from W.M. Stepp's solo fiddle Bonaparte's Retreat. I'm not criticizing Copland here, just the guy who was being touted as an expert but was clearly clueless or at the very least, unwilling to give all due credit to a rural musician who wasn't trained in academia. Okay, moving on... oh yeah, W.M. Stepp is a Tone-God! One of the all-time greats, without a doubt.

Though nearly packed to the brim with goodies, in some ways I consider 3 musicians to be the core of this disc. Alfred Karnes, B.F. Shelton and the aforementioned W.M. Stepp. Alfred Karnes sings a hardy brand of music for Jesus. A genuine listen to the lyrics of Called to the Foreign Field reveals much of what is wrong with so many Christians and why they've turned so much of the world into a poverty-stricken toilet in the name of Jesus, yet it's a darn good song. Funny how music works. Every time I hear Where We'll Never Grow Old I wish Garcia/Grisman had done it. Yep it's the tune you may know from The Carter Family: 1927-1934.

B.F. Shelton is quite the murder ballad specialist and particularly on Pretty Polly and Oh Molly Dear his banjo is tense and ringing. It creates a very modern mood. I could picture this used as moody, suspenseful music in a 2009 movie. His Polly is darker than E.C. Ball's on High Atmosphere but not as tortured as on Dock Boggs: His Folkways Years 1963-1968.

In betwixt and between this core is more than I can go into here, but I'll make special note of the Kentucky Ramblers' Unfortunate Brakeman. I remember once reading what a dangerous job that was. I wish I remembered the exact stat and years but at one point in the late 1800s there was a 2 or 3 year period where something like 9,000 brakemen were killed or seriously injured. I think of those poor fellows every time I hear this song.

Though Mike Seeger didn't technically have anything to do with the release of this excellent disc, I know that without the enthusiastic work and influence of he and others, things like this may have never been released for someone of a much later generation (like me) to love. Thanks for everything, (((Mike)))!

This is a rare treat that any traditional bluegrass/folk/Appalachia fan should get right away. Some of the recordings have better sound quality than others, but considering the age of these songs, there's nothing to complain about. Everything sounds great in terms of technical quality, and the music is absolutely superb. It's a time capsule of little-known music in digital form that you'd be hard-pressed to find anything comparable. Listen and you won't be disappointed.

This is a good way to be quickly separated from $.... As I sat listening to this, with banjo in hand, daughters practicing mandolin and guitar in another room and wife practicing dulcimer across the room from me I had to wonder; who in the world would want to listen to this old, scratchy, terribly played and terribly sung material. If you like Flatt & Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Grandpa Jones, Alison Krauss, Bela Flek, or anyone that plays bluegrass like them, then do yourself a favor and do not buy this CD. If you would like I will send you a .wav of my family and me practicing. It will have better sound quality, you will enjoy it more ('cause it will make you laugh) and you will save yourself ... bucks. If you are a stuck up artsy person that thinks you have to listen to the most basic musical caterwauling as old as it can possibly be just as long as it isnt a modern representation of musical possibilities and expression from ordinary country entertainers then buy this drink coaster quickly. Invite your friends over for some $... a cup coffee, while you sit around your $... a month condo and discuss the socio-economic problems of the times when this music was produced and how it affected the music and its creators. As for me I am gonna head up the nearest holler I can find, pull up a rockin chair, cut me a plug o backey, tune up muh banjer and make some purdy sounds with some mountain folks that know how to spend $... on something worthwhile (like greens with fatback and taters, cathead biskits and a poke with something in it to keep a belly warm, or a Bela Flek CD). Now I must go write a review of the other terrible CDs I ordered, due to the artsy reviews I read, while I lament for the death of my $... bill. Looks to me that the head honchos at YAZOO are already rich, cause they sure saved a lot of production money when they made this collection. I have gotten better Kentucky bluegrass for $...from a rack of CDs in a convenience store in New York than this stuff.