Customer Reviews

Untamed Sense of Control

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My wife gave an earlier Holcomb recording several years ago as a birthday gift. After listening to it once or twice (and reading the fascinating and impassioned liner notes), I set it aside as odd, strange, and most peculiar. Although Roscoe Holcomb is a fluid instrumentalist, his voice is so high and unusual that I did not see how his songs could bear repeated listening.

I was wrong, about as wrong as a body could be. A couple of years later, I picked up "High Lonesome Sound" again and listened to it with care. The peculiar and high-pitched voice grew on me, and I found the powerful and honest delivery moving in the most compelling way. I now think that Roscoe Holcomb stands on a par with Blind Willie Johnson (in his time an equally obscure and strange singer) as one of the greatest exponents of American-born and bred music.

Imagine my surprise when this new recording of Holcomb's was released. To my amazement, the leftovers that were not included in Holcomb's earlier ("High Lonesome Sound") album are at least as good. This is a wonderful and astonishing set of recordings. Lovers of American mountain music should be grateful that this legacy of Holcomb's great artistry has been preserved.

A few years back, Smithsonian Folkways released ROSCOE HOLCOMB: HIGH LONESOME SOUND, complete with plugs from Dylan & Clapton to bolster sales. Yet, to the best of my "hillbility" the 9 minutes of keening at the end of the disk proved too much for my metropolitan ears. Call me a whimp or maybe I've been living in the city too long, but I found that record too much for common every day use. Regardless, I was floored by this guy. His voice haunted me in my sleep. Utterly unforgettable. It made the Stanely Bros. sound like top 40 & the crew behind O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU come across as posers. But like the previous release, this is Bluegrass in the raw. Hard-core. Only more listener friendly. Along with the Dock Boggs Reverent issue of COUNTRY BLUES & THE HARRY SMITH FOLK ANTHOLOGY I consider AN UNTAMED SENSE OF CONTROL an indespensible collection for those seeking further assistance in the world of Weird America.

Finally, here's a record that captures Holcomb's wild, unvarnished "high lonesome sound" without overwhelming the casually interested. In fact, the pain & spirituality laid down here is likely to make you seek out the aformentioned.

For starters, his acapella version of "Man Of Constant Sorrow" blows the Stanley Bros. away. The same goes for his startling original take on "Little Maggie". Hear them here & the Stanley's definative versions seem watered down by comparison. That's not to say they're bad, but when played by a man without a recording contract, they defy expectation. When Roscoe takes a knife to his guitar, you won't miss the lack of words. His harp playing is an intense as his singing on "Barbara Allen Blues". His fiddle playing on ROCK ISLAND PRISON is flawed but therein lies it's charm.

Often criticised for not doing more obscure numbers, Holcomb had a talent for a making the standards of his genre personal. He lived through these songs & the result is undeniable.

This is an invaluable collection. Complete rural satisfaction guaranteed(& no money back).

This is a great collection of songs and a great collection of recordings. The dates of the recordings range from the 1950s to the 1970s. Some are recorded on Holcomb's porch in Kentucky, and others live in music halls. Everything you've heard about Roscoe Holcomb is here, with the addition of some raw harmonica and fiddle playing. It is music undiluted by the music industry. The title of the CD (coined by Bob Dylan when talking about Holcomb) is very appropriate.

The CD booklet contains a wealth of information on Holcomb. There are great pictures (the cover is GREAT) and snippets of letters written by Holcomb. On the CD itself is a picture of Holcomb's outstrecthed hands. They look like you would expect them to look (he was basically a laborer, when he was able to find employment, for most of his life).

That said, if you're new to Roscoe Holcomb, this is probably not the disc to start with. "The High Lonesome Sound" (on the same label) has an overall stronger song selection (not to say this one doesn't, but it does pale sightly in comparison, key word being "slightly"). This disc is best if you've heard "High Lonesome Sound" and want more Roscoe Holcomb. In that this disc succeeds incredibly well.

For those of you who might buy the CD because it's heavily advertised as including Holcomb's version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" (the "hit" song from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") don't buy it for that reason. Holcomb's version is a very raw a capella piece which is great but is not something you would dance to or play at a party. His version fits the song's lyrics far better than the popular movie version.

In short, this is a great companion disc to "High Lonesome Sound" for those of you who cannot get enough of the unpolished and happily unproduced sound of Roscoe Holcomb. I am happily among that crowd.

John's long essay on Roscoe Holcomb the person that comes in the booklet with the CD is worth the price of the CD. Cohen describes the contrast between Holcomb's recognition as a folk musician on a national level while he struggled to make a living in his home in Kentucky where the only result of his national fame was that he was cut from the public assistance he received.There are some sections of letters Roscoe sent Cohen that speak to Holcomb's struggle with life.

If anyone wants to see this illustrated, pick up the film John Cohen made called High Lonesome Sound (make sure you get John's film not the several copy cats later made about bluegrass using similar names). You see the contrast between Roscoe's old time music that seemed to be left behind by all the people around him for Nashville drivel or rock and roll. You see a determined hard working man proud to stick out like a hard horny thumb with his music in a world going another direction.

We get reminded here of the multiple sources of Holcomb's music. Rather than being the product of some prestine tradition, Holcomb's tunes and his ways of playing them show the profound mixture of cultures and influences that marked him and the mountain communities. We old English ballads played on blues harmonica, traditional unaccompanied sounding songs learned from 1950s Bluegrass records, and, of course, the blues blues blues played on guitar, banjo, and harp. We even have Roscoe Fiddling.

There are some nice versions of songs we're accustomed to hear in other people's versions like Darling Corey, Little Maggie, I Ain't Got no Sugar Baby Now.

Holcomb's music is a good antidote to current trends in revivalist old time music that tend to want to reduce fiddling and banjo playing to one or two regional styles--not real even regional but narrow local or even family styles-as doctrinally reinterpreted and "taught" by one or two virtuosi. Other variations, or having your own individual styles tends to be frowned on.

Yet, Roscoe Holcomb's unique style and fascinating music speak to that fact that traditional music in this country encompassed thousands of styles, regional styles, personal styles, left such great room for the personal expression of a true artist like Holcomb who could make each tune his own tune, not just a representative of some general type. It speaks to all the opportunities for ideas about music to flow to someone from old traditions, the radio, records, and people of all kinds coming up and down the mountains.

Likewise contemporary old time music focuses almost exclusively on fiddle tunes and banjo versions of them, without much recognition or orientation to songs sung for their content and expression. Yet, such songs are at the heart of Roscoe's work on both of the CDs. He uses his music fundamentally not only to move dancers around floors, which I am sure Roscoe could do and do well, but to concentrate the utter meaning of the songs to his life into his performances.

Finally, much contemporary old time music seems to follow the white flight middle class population that produces it and their fantasies about a less diverse past and the white purity of the music. Holcomb's music is so infused with blues and African American influence that when Cohen met Holcomb the first time and asked what he did, Roscoe Holcomb said he was a "blues singer!"

His playing is like a briar thicket of notes, his voice like the wind in the holler. This album actually tops his High Lonesome release. The closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat. These are fulltilt performances, but the art is impeccable. Listen to the subtlety of "Coney Isle," and compare it to the reckless headlong flight of "Across the Rocky Mountain." And let's make Holcomb's a capella version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" our national anthem. When he sings it, I believe this song. Finally. This is a National Treasure.

I mentioned in an earlier review of the music of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash that what really rekindled my, admittedly, marginal youthful interest in that pair and in the mountain music that drove my father's youth, was viewing their performances (via DVD series) on an old black and white Pete Seeger television folk show, "Rainbow Quest" from the mid-1960s when Johnny and June showed their stuff. As fate would have it one majestic mountain banjo player, Roscoe Holcomb, was featured on that same DVD.

In a review of that Holcomb performance I said, in part, the following:

"...Also included on this DVD is a performance by the legendary Kentucky mountain music man Roscoe Holcomb that John Cohen, a previously reviewed performer on this series with the New Lost City Ramblers, did great service to the folk revival by bringing out of the Kentucky hills in the early 1960s to the wilds of ..... Greenwich Village..."

And that only told part of the story. Although I, usually, can only take tinny-voiced mountain musicians in small doses I found that here, as sometimes happens when I listen to jazz, the thing builds up and you don't want to stop it after just a few selections (there are 24 here). Highlights here are the classic "Single Girl (Carter Family)," "Man Of Constant Sorrow," "Sitting On Top Of This World," and `Darling Cory.". Yes, this is all classic stuff. Can't you just feel that Appalachian mountain breeze coming down the line?

High Lonesome Sound, a very accurate description of the extraordinaire musician Roscoe Holcomb, a man gifted with many musical talents, able to master banjo, guitar, slide, violin, harmonica, with a high pitched, untrained, steadily controlled voice that could make the dead roll over. Roscoe possessed an overall sound like no other, here within lies something eerie and unique to be heard, listen and learn to "Swanno Mountain", "The Hills Of Mexico", "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues", "Coney Isle", "Knife Guitar" - some of the best slide you'll ever hear - twenty six appalachian blues/folk songs guaranteed to take you "way out" in the Smokies. Definitely a different listening experience from Smithsonian Folkways, more dynamic and uneasy than Dock Boggs. Roscoe Holcomb - "I come from the country, where nobody bothers us except ourselves". Welcome to the "Holcomb zone".

Excellent. This shows the greatness of the hills music of the time. He does an excellent job on fiddle work, vocal, and resatational work. This is a collection of his home recordings. It puts you in a relaxed and happy mood and sets you back to the times when things were great.

Roscoe Holcomb must be one of America's most under-rated cultural treasures. This collection is consistently haunting, hair-raising and intense, with some of the most chilling banjo and guitar you'll ever hear. A far mountain cry from the slick, soulless pap of modern bluegrass. It all went wrong when we lost sight of Roscoe...

Roscoe Holcomb was one of the greatest Southern folk singers ever recorded, a performer of such intensity that his music defies casual listening. There is nothing polished about it, and it certainly is not bluegrass or anything like it. Its style predates even the hillbilly string bands from whose 1920s recordings folk revivalists have been drawing ever since.

Holcomb's finest performances, once heard, are never forgotten. The opening cut, "Swanno Mountain," conjures up a whole universe of its own, in the inimitable fashion of other immortal folk recordings such as Furry Lewis's "Kassie Jones," Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues," Pete Steele's "Payday at Coal Creek," Dock Boggs's "Sugar Baby," and Bascom Lamar Lunsford's "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground."

Holcomb was adept at a variety of traditional musics, secular and religious, ballads and blues, lyric songs and dance tunes. If some of the titles look familiar, the versions aren't. However many times you may have heard "Little Maggie," you have never heard it done as it is done here. "Barbara Allen Blues," the ancient ballad transformed into a solo harmonica-blues piece, is as stunning as it is utterly original. "Combs Hotel Burned Down" recalls a small-town tragedy in a way that makes it sound like the apocalypse itself.

Toward the end of this long CD, however, a few of the performances stumble. One particularly painful example is "Foggy Mountain Top," played here on knife guitar. The idea should have worked, and it probably did most of the time, but the one version here, which John Cohen happened to catch on Holcomb's front porch one day in 1972, is sadly unlistenable. "Frankie and Johnnie" is such a wretched cliche that it defeats even Holcomb.

Still, An Untamed Sense of Control contains so much fine music -- not to mention the added virtue of Cohen's extraordinary photographs and deeply felt liner notes -- that a small number of miscues are overlookable. It is true in the most literal sense that they don't make music like this anymore. Listen and be grateful that Roscoe Holcomb lived and managed to leave such stirring testimony to that life.