Customer Reviews

The Singing Brakeman

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

..., this set is certainly amazing & worth every bit of it.

These are the complete known recordings of Jimmie Rodgers & Bear Family should be applauded.

I know many are thinking what big difference is there between this set and the 8 CD's out by Rounder? Dependent upon your perspective, it could be a little or a lot. Now, this set is not for everybody-the casual fan should probably stick with a single disc compilation and then spring for a couple of the Rounder issues to see if they like more, but for those serious about their Rodgers, this set is indispenable.

First of all, you get several alternate takes not presented on the Rounder releases. There is an outtake of "T.B. Blues" that, while similar to the "official" release, differs greatly in some respects. Rodgers varies it melodically and changes the wording a slight bit. There are the additional alternate takes of "Travelin' Blues" and "Let Me Be Your Side Track" that didn't find their way onto the Rounder set.

Of fascination, though, is the inclusion of the soundtrack to the movie short Jimmie Rodgers made. Sound quality is not good on the two cuts, but they are still revelatory nonetheless.

Also not on the Rounder set are the posthumous overdbuds done by the Rainbow Ranch Boys (actually Chet Atkins and a group of session musicians) in 1955. For those with memories of the horrible overdubs done by MGM on Hank Williams, you have a pleasant surprise here. These are actually quite tastefully done. Possibly the best cut is "Muleskinner Blues". I've always felt that there should've been additional instrumentation when Rodgers took an instrumental, but here the problem is solved. Rodgers goes solo with full band backup. His sound was updated with these handful of cuts without losing their original flavor.

I will voice again the complaint made by the former reviewer-the box is way too big-LP size and very annoying. But, that's the Bear Family way of doing things and that's a minor thing at best.

In short, if you like Rodgers more than just casually, this is the set for you. In the long run, you're better off buying this because the Rounder sets leave you longing for more!

Anyone who thinks they know country music should listen to these recordings-the entire known complete output of Jimmie Rodgers. These works, along with the entire output of Hank Williams, Sr., define what true country music is! You get to hear the style that influenced so many such as Hank & Merle Haggard, Lefty Frizzell, etc. Think Garth Brooks and all of his little radio sound alike country wanna-be's are true country? Take a listen to this one time and you'll know what true country music really is. These are the roots Mr. Brooks only wished he had! You'll find no pop and rock influences here (well, maybe some older pop). No, you'll find the man who is well named "The Father of Country Music" and nothing else. You'll find no overly slick production; just raw, country music at it's best!

I believe the previous reviewer, who gave this set a one-star rating, must have been listening to the last c.d. in this set. In 1955, at Hank Snow's behest, and as a result of MGM's overdubbing of Hank Williams' demos, RCA overdubbed eight of Rodgers' tunes with a country band. Actually, they're good, and I wish several dozen had been overdubbed. Otherwise, all of Rodgers' historical recordings have been faithfully preserved.

This is a great set, but, unless you're a Jimmie Rodgers fanatic (as I am am with Hank Williams), you probably will not need all of the alternate takes that have been included here. Rodgers recorded 111 original songs during his career, but, with the alternate takes and the eight overdubs, Bear has stretched the number to about 150.

The blue yodels are dated and grate on your nerves after awhile, but there's plenty more great stuff to listen to: "Gamblin' Polka Dot Blues," "My Blue-Eyed Jane," "In the Hills of Tennessee," "Roll Along, Kentucky Moon," etc.

Unfortunately for Bear Records, the 5-c.d. set, "Jimmie Rodgers 1927-1933," is now available for about $25 and has all but one of Rodgers' original songs (they apparently forgot "My Time Ain't Long"). If you could get a used Bear set for $69-79 (dream on!), jump at it. Otherwise, go for the $25 set. But do something, for you need Rodgers in your collection. This guy had the impact on country music that Frank Sinatra had on popular music. Both were giants!

I acutally purchased this Jimmy Roger's "The Singing Brakeman" for a friend. He plays it to everyone he knows. I can't get him to shut up about it.

Don

This 6-disc set from the Bear Family is a must for any lover of classic country. Jimmie Rodgers, long known as "the father of country music" was the first and the best of the early country crooners.

The tracks with the Carter Family are amazing - reportedly, Rodgers was too weak to play the guitar and Maybelle Carter played for him, imitating his guitar style perfectly. The overdub tracks are superfluous as far as I'm concerned, but a nice inclusion, nonetheless.

The track with Louis Armstrong and his wife Lillian is amazing for the historical meeting of two legends in two genres - the status of Jimmie Rodgers in the world of country is about equal to that of Louis Armstrong in jazz. For some reason I could never quite figure, many jazz aficionados pretend to be above listening to country, and many country music fans look down on jazz. I say good music is good music; good and bad musicians can be found in all musical genres, and I am always delighted when I find records that cross "taboo" boundaries, musically speaking.

I received this set for Christmas in 1996, and have been playing it to death ever since. The price has come down a bit, and I believe the set is now a real bargain, considering the huge slice of country history this boxed album has to offer.

Anyone who fell in love with the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou" should acquire this taste of real old-timey joy. One of the highlights of that film was Jimmie Rodgers song, "In the Jailhouse Now" and this set contains not one but two different versions of it, both written by the inimitable Jimmie Rodgers.

The oversized book has dozens of photos, complete track and musician listings, and a very well written brief bio of Mr. Rodgers.

And the music! Just a few of my favorites include Blue Yodel #2, My Carolina Sunshine Girl, Waiting For A Train, Any Old Time, Frankie and Johnny, My Rough and Rowdy Ways, My Blue Eyed Jane, Why There's a Tear In My Eye, Peach Pickin' Time In Georgia, Mother Was a Lady and Mississippi Delta Blues. These songs are sure to delight anyone with ears for real country. Turn up the volume a little and let his wonderful sound fill your living room.

[Pricey] for 6 CDs of 70-yr old recordings is no bargain, but the Bear Family will probably put the money to good use. The oversize (LP-size) packaging is a little annoying, but features a nice picture of Mr. Rodgers on the cover. The oversize (that's why they needed that big box) softcover book has some interesting information & more nice pictures. The sound is much cleaner than on my old LPs, and perhaps a little less warm. And the music is priceless. Some cuts are forgettable, but why nitpick? 'Better too much Jimmie Rodgers than not enough! This is great American music for anyone lucky enough to have ears to hear.

Jimmie Rodgers / The Singing Brakeman (Bear Family 6 CD Complete Recordings of Jimmie Rodgers):

Bear Family Records is a company that specialized in making the most fantastic Country Music box sets imaginable. To have a Bear Family release (a box or a single CD) is to have the ultimate version.

Jimmie Rodgers was Country Music long before Hank Williams came on the scene. When Ernest Tubb began his career he was imitating Jimmie Rodgers and when Hank Williams came along, he started by imitated Ernest Tubb's imitation of Jimmie Rodgers. Jimmie's importance is seen in all the tribute songs written to him from every Country artist around at the time of Jimmie's death (those tribute songs are not part of this box).

This box set, which gathers every single song (and every outtake) Jimmie Rodgers ever recorded are, in these Bear Family masters, amazingly clear and utterly fantastic. Jimmie Rodgers is SO important to Country Music, and so thoroughly entertaining, that I strongly urge you to buy this fairly expensive box instead of a simple `hits' CD. Here IS Country Music. This box set deserves a Sixth Star (if not greater).

I do not own this album and frankly I couldn't afford this under any circumstances. $30 a disc for a six-disc set is simply absurd and justifiable. Many reviewers state that it is worth it nonetheless. I doubt it. If someone has more money than they know what to do with then perhaps it is "worth it," but in my world I can't justify this much money for any set of CDs, especially when you get only six. I won two other collections of Jimmie Rodgers, neither as good as this, but luckily I have a friend who has an extensive collection of "roots" music and owns not merely this but just about any other major collection available (including complete sets of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb and Bob Wills). But in borrowing this and listening to it intently I have absolutely no doubts that this is far and away the best Jimmie Rodgers collection, with no serious competition. Whether or not this set is economically "worth it," there is no question about the musical value of it.

There is a competitor set, RECORDINGS 1927-1933, but the sound quality of that set is appreciably less. THE SINGING BRAKEMAN has all of Rodgers's recordings, but its real value lies in the resonance and clarity of the recordings. There is also a fine booklet. But it comes at a very high price.

I want to disagree passionately with the other reviewers who feel that the songs on this set either get tiring or that they are too long. I find that every disc stands up marvelously to relistenings. What is more, I find it astonishing at how few weak cuts there are on the set. Even Rodgers's very first cuts were decent. The majority are excellent, and more than a handful were superb. And there is more diversity than the previous reviewers would lead you to believe. Although a large number of them are solo performances with him playing only guitar, a large number feature a wide variety of accompaniments. The most famous is, of course, "Standing on the Corner," recorded in Hollywood with Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet as only he could. Many of the other cuts feature weak or average players, but there are the occasional cuts with exceptionally fine players. But in everyone Rodgers dominates.

While there are very few weak musical cuts, because this is a complete set, there is the intensely horrifying "The Pullman Porters," in which two white men, one of them sadly Jimmie Rodgers, parody black Pullman Porters. Even when factoring in that it was humor that was typical of the age, it hardly excuses Rodgers for engaging in painfully racist humor. And "racist" is absolutely the correct word. Most accusations of racism these days involve incidents that can usually be debated. But this comedic skit is vastly more offensive than Michael Richards's celebrated tirade. It isn't just Rodgers mimicking African-Americans or the loose use of the N-word, but the way that the porters, especially the porter that Rodgers is talking to, are presented as complete and abject idiots. The skit is also extremely embarrassing to whites. It pains me that whites might have found this funny. This skit reflects very, very badly on the whites of the period.

Speaking of whites of the period, one thing that I often thing about in listening to Rodgers is my grandfather. After being mustered out of the Army in 1918 at the end of the Great War, my grandfather (who was a photographer for the army) began working for the U.S. Post Office. Specifically, he worked on mail trains. As far as I can tell, he mainly worked runs into Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana from 1919 through the late 1920s. Rodgers finished working on the railroads around 1923 or 1924. There is absolutely no way of telling for sure, but it doesn't seem unlikely that Rodgers and my grandfather might have been on a run together at some point. They certainly inhabited the same worlds. What is more, my grandfather was a fiddle player. It would have been so sweet if my grandfather and Rodgers had had a talk about music. I don't know if they ever met or were even on the same trains, but it certainly isn't impossible.

Of the three Jimmie Rodgers's collections with which I am familiar, I am not sure which I would most recommend. RECORDINGS 1927-33 is nearly as complete as this and can be had for a sixth of the cost, but it definitely is not of the same quality as THE SINGING BRAKEMAN. On the other hand, THE SINGING BRAKEMAN is so absurdly expensive! There is a significant difference in sound quality, but even more of a difference in price. THE ESSENTIAL JIMMIE RODGERS has exceptionally fine sound quality, but it leaves off way, way too many of Rodgers's most important recordings. It lacks such important gems as "Standing on the Corner" (the collaboration with Louis Armstrong), "Home Call," "Peach Picking Time in Georgia," "Long Tall Mama Blues," and "Jimmie's Mean Mama Blues," along with many others. In short, there is no easy recommendation about which direction to go in getting the right Jimmie Rodgers collection. THE ESSENTIAL is too small, 1927-33 is too inferior, and THE SINGING BRAKEMAN is too expensive. But right now, those are our choices.

I would recommend this set for any discriminating Jimmie Rodgers enthusiast. Some of the alternate takes alone make this more worthwhile than a less comprehensive set, especially the February 5, 1932, take of "Mississippi Moon." Also, the fidelity of the August 1932 and May 1933 records is fully captured, and reveals a different timbre to Rodgers' voice. My only slight complaint would be that the same source material from the Rounder set was used here, especially disappointing on "Home Call" (February 1932); "No Hard Times" (August 1932); and "The One Rose" (July 1930). I fully realize that these discs are hard to find, but surely such a project could command optimal discs, as it does for most of the set.
If you want to move on up from your Rounder set, or if you simply wish to have it all--buy this by all means.

It is almost impossible to describe the corruption of Jimmie Rodgers on some of the pieces in this set. The depth of his guitar has been destroyed; background music has been added to produce a sound somewhere between the music of Gene Autry and Bob Wills; there is the unmistakable sound of steel guitar (i.e. distinguishably NOT dobro). It is just awful. I was so disappointed and this is not, I think, typical of Bear Family Records. I have every Bear production of the music of Hank Snow and those are absolutely faithful to the originals. I'm just glad that I did not throw out my vinyls of Jimmie Rodgers, scratchy but faithful. 170 bucks out the window.
Sincerely, George H Cadwell Jr