RCA Country Legends: The Bristol Sessions, Vol.1 [Original recording remastered]

Various Artists (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 8, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B00006JYB6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,120 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bristol Sessions, June 18, 2007

By 

Diane E. Hoeksta "howellhoekstras" (Howell MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: RCA Country Legends: The Bristol Sessions, Vol.1 (Audio CD)

This is a hard collection of music to find. I was lucky to come across it. It gives you an introduction to the very start of the real old good country music. It is an excellent collection of the great artists that started this music. I would recommend it to everyone. It shows the different many styles of older and great country music. It should for sure be in everyones collections.

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great collection, June 2, 2011

By 

J. Ford (Toronto) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: RCA Country Legends: The Bristol Sessions, Vol.1 (Audio CD)

There aren't too many places on the planet any more where music this original can be heard . . . true American folk music, when it was being created in (relative) isolation, captured in an uncorrupted state. Includes some Jimmie Rodgers. I don't know of another white country musician who was even covered by a black musician ("Daddy and Home" covered by Leadbelly).

5.0 out of 5 stars *In The Time Of The Coming Down From The Mountains, August 26, 2010

By 

Alfred Johnson (boston, ma) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: RCA Country Legends: The Bristol Sessions, Vol.1 (Audio CD)

The music of The Carter Family, the origin 1920s Carter Family trio, has been reviewed many times in this space and the following from an earlier entry in this space can sum up their place in the American musical pantheon:

"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."

That said there is a genesis to their discovery and recording history, along with other mountain musician in the famous Bristol sessions under review here. RCA in the mid-1920s scoured the country looking for new voices, new roost voices to expand their recording repertoire, and sell their victrolas (phonographs). They sent agents out to the hinterlands looking for blues, mountain music, Tex-Mex and so on. The call out to the mountain folk came in Bristol, Tennessee. Many performers were recorded, some faded, some failed and some like The Carters, whistlin' Jimmie Rodgers, and the Stoneman Family hit gold. Here is the "skinny" though; there is a reason why the three above-mentioned performers are listened to today. They stick out, way out against the other recordings here. Overall though this is a good look at what appealed to mountain folk (and 1960s folk revivalists) and what they would pay their hard scrabble, hard earned cash to listen to on those lonesome mountain wind Saturday nights along the hollows and creeks of Appalachia. A definitive piece of musical history.

Stick outs here are The Carters on "Storms Are On The Ocean" and "Single Girl, Married Girl"; Jimmy Rodger's on "The Soldier's Sweetheart", and Blind Alfred Reed on "You Must Unload".