People Take Warning [Box set]

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 25, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 3
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Tompkins Square
• ASIN: B000ULQV20
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,374 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

Disc: 1

1. Titanic Blues Hi Henry Brown & Charlie Jordan

2. Wreck Of the Old 97 Skillet Lickers

3. Bill Wilson Birmingham Jug Band

4. The Crash Of the Akron Bob Miller

5. The Fate of Talmadge Osborne Ernest Stoneman

6. El Mole Rachmim (Für Titanik) Cantor Joseph Rosenblatt

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Disc: 2

1. The Story of the Mighty Mississippi Ernest Stoneman

2. Mississippi Heavy Water Blues Robert Hicks

3. Dixie Boll Weevil Fiddlin' John Carson

4. Mississippi Boweavil Charlie Patton

5. Ohio Prison Fire Bob Miller

6. Memphis Flu Elder Curry

See all 24 tracks on this disc

Disc: 3

1. Peddler And His Wife Hayes Shepherd

2. The Little Grave in Georgia Earl Johnson

3. Kenney Wagner's Surrender Ernest Stoneman

4. Henry Clay Beattie Kelly Harrell

5. The Murder Of the Lawson Family Carolina Buddies

6. Naomi Wise Clarence Ashley

See all 22 tracks on this disc

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grandpa's Death Metal, November 26, 2007

By 

B. Bruton "brutonb" (The Great Beyond) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: People Take Warning (Audio CD)

Close your eyes and hear the suffering through the ages, as disasters both great and small are relived in song by roving musicians with only a fiddle or a guitar to stake their claim on history.

Close your eyes and see the carnage reenacted. In Frank Hutchison's "Last Scene of the Titanic," see all the pretty ladies in their evening gowns and all of the tuxedoed gentlemen plummet over the deck of the great juggernaut as it collides with a massive iceberg, sending them wailing and flailing and thrashing in a demonic ballet into the icy Atlantic waters.

Open your ears and hear the plaintive cry of a child in the night, who wakes from a portentous dream in which his daddy is trapped in the interminable blackness of the coal mine (Blind Alfred Reed's "Explosion in the Fairmount Mine"), only to discover that dear daddy was indeed trapped in a mine explosion and is one of 200 unrecovered miners never to see the light of day again.

True-life scenes such as these are the subject of this massive 3-cd set, in which seemingly congenial-sounding folk and blues songs from the early twentieth century document disasters and real-life tragedies with a quiet intensity that disturbs the casual listener far more than any contemporary death metal band could. This is not Sturm und Drang, this is real pain and suffering devoid of fantasy or romanticism. These are songs for the legions of anonymous dead, musical coffin markers for the ones who were lost along the way.

Highlights range from the grim to the funny. In "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues," Robert "Barbecue Bob" Hicks complains that the murky brown flood waters have washed all the wimmenfolk away. The original version of "When the Levee Breaks" by Kansas Joe & Memphis Minnie remains a haunting testament to the 1927 Mississippi Flood. Charlie Poole's "Baltimore Fire" is spectral in its account of hundreds consumed by the flames of a raging inferno. Then there's my personal favorite, Bob Miller's "Ohio Prison Fire", in which a distraught mother is asked to identify the charred remains of her late lamented son:

"I'll take my boy back now. The state's finished with him. The state's finished with all of these bodies. These poor, charred bodies!"

Disc Three switches the focus to murder ballads, showcasing songs of cold-blooded homicide that have influenced the work of such hardboiled musical greats as Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, and Tom Waits, the latter providing the eloquent introduction to this set. Early versions of such blood-soaked ballads as "Billy Lyons and Stack O'Lee" (the legend of Stack O'Lee or "Stagger Lee" exists in many forms) and "Darling Cora" (also known as "Darling Corey") stand alongside lesser-known death row oddities like "The Trial of Richard Bruno Hauptmann, Pts. I & II," an ode to the murderer of the Lindbergh baby. True crime buffs may favor this disc as much as musicologists.

Special mention should be made to the impeccable sonic reproduction by Christopher King, who understands the mystical power inherent in the snap, crackle, and pop of old 78 records and faithfully reproduces the elusive sound of the victrola, cranked up and wailing away like a banshee in a tin can. The static of these old grooves perfectly encases the sadness of bygone eras like ancient beetles trapped in amber. Timeless and lifeless.

In today's post-9/11 world, the fear of arbitrary annihilation is almost taken for granted, yet this collection serves as a moving reminder that tragedies of every kind have always lived on in the music of American folk musicians, perhaps to serve as a talisman for future generations.

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As hip and as dark as old time music gets!, October 1, 2007

By 

A Rothchild "Alvin" (nova) - See all my reviews

This review is from: People Take Warning (Audio CD)

This is one really stunning project but for many reasons! I got it initially because I love pre-war blues and Tom Waits but I didn't realize how beautifully put together the whole thing was until I opened it up. When the whole book is opened up, the inside spreads almost 22 inches and there are several fully reproduced panorama photographs of disasters: one of the aftermath of the Baltimore Fire looks like an atom bomb went off and another of a train wreck really captures the devastation of these early disasters. The introduction by Tom Waits is beyond cool. It has the archaic cadence of these songs and yet perfectly describes how these pieces were written and spread throughout communities. Besides the beautiful writings, photographs, and annotations, I am most impressed with both the wide variety of songs (there were many I had never heard before) and the actual sonic clarity of the collection. What is truly a revelation is how great certain songs sound compared to other cd issues. If you like cool eye and ear candy, then this is for you.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Slice of History, November 10, 2007

By 

Daniel J. Peck "Dan Peck" (Ruckersville, VA.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: People Take Warning (Audio CD)

The ballad, a song that tells a story, in the modern world is something of a fading form. But in the age before cable news and internet immediacy, much of the world got their news of important events from song. In this brilliant work, Chris King and Hank Sapoznik have created a remarkable collection of songs that told of disasters, man-made and natural. The stories range from the sinking of the Titanic and famous train wrecks, floods and fires to murders and mine disasters.

The collection, presented in a beautifully packaged 3 CD boxed set, is expertly produced with the sound of the original 78 RPM recordings preserved with a minimum of noise and all of the original musical content. This is typical of King's Grammy Award winning work. Sapoznik's (a noted historian of both old-time American and Yiddish music) excellent notes offer both historical context and a deep musical insight. The introductory essay from Tom Waits is one of the most insightful takes on the ballad I have ever read.

I can't recommend this highly enough. For anyone who wishes to understand American musical history (or just loves the music), this is a serious must-have.