Customer Reviews

You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I had heard about this set several months before it was released and I expected the typical major label treatment for the very important, but largely ignored, Charlie Poole. This box set has completely reversed my expectations. Not only was the artist well-represented in the set, but the design, the notes, and especially the remastering were topnotch! Previous collections from Sony/Legacy left me cold, particularly the dull, overcompensated and heavyhanded remastering (like the Bluegrass box that came out earlier). Not so with this collection! Most of the material on this set sounds far better than I have ever heard and many of the tracks sound like Charlie, Posey, and Roy are in the room with you. I did check the notes and it was no surprise that this is due, probably in large part, to the efforts of Chris King who has done remastering for County, Old Hat, Bear Family and others. In addition, the notes & selections of the producer, Hank Sapoznik, are really exceptional. He shows a rare interest and insight into both the music of Charlie Poole (and old-time music) and also the musicians from which Poole learned. Add to this the fact that the set itself is extremely well-designed and attractive in a nostalgic sense (it resembles an old cigar box)with cover art by R. Crumb and period-style CD sleeves. This is really one well thought out project and I'm glad I pre-ordered it. I highly recommend this to fans of old-time, bluegrass, and roots music.

Comprised of three generous CDs with a total 72 tracks, this box set compiles music of Charlie Poole. In his book "Classic Country," Charles K. Wolfe relates an anecdote about a group of musicians pulling up to country store in Virginia in the late 1920s. Examining the watermelons, a jug-eared man asked the shopkeeper, "How much are those cucumbers? I'm down from North Carolina, and we have cucumbers bigger than these things." After introducing himself, Charlie Poole introduced himself, grabbed his banjo, and played a few tunes. The shopkeeper went into the back and returned with a half-gallon of prime moonshine. Stories are still told about Charlie today, and his songs are still sung today. Born in a textile mill town in 1892, the rough, unsettled and temperamental hard-living man was a skilled banjo picker, songwriter, and arranger of the old folk songs. Some of his songs are "Take a Drink on Me," "Hungry Hash House," and "Husband and Wife were Angry One Night." Liking a good fight, in "Coon from Tennessee," he sings about wanting to run a cemetery of his own.

Poole recorded 84 songs from 1925-31 for such companies as Columbia, Paramount and Brunswick. Joining him for his earliest New York sessions were fiddler Posey Rorer and guitarist Norman Woodlieff. "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" would become a bluegrass standard. I don't see his other hit, "Can I Sleep in your Barn Tonight, Mister?" included in this compilation. After selling over 100,000 copies of the first disc (about five times the normal sales for a 1925 hit), the band released "The Man That Rode the Mule Around Town" and "The Girl I Left in Sunny Tennessee." Both selections are included on this CD set. Fingerstyle guitarist Roy Harvey replaced Woodlieff, and various hits followed.
Included in this collection are White House Blues, There'll Come a Time, Leavin' Home, Budded Rose, and Hungry Hash House. The Depression hurt record sales, but his legacy remained with songs like "Old and Only in the Way," "If the River was Whiskey," "It's Movin' Day," and "He Rambled" (a New Orleans funeral song).

True to his band's name, North Carolina Ramblers, Charlie Poole would sometimes disappear for weeks. Columbia Records wanted him to stick to older musical styles, but Charlie wanted to explore new ones. He formed The Highlanders with piano and twin fiddles. In this box set, "Lynchburg Town" and "Flop Eared Mule" are two selections from this band. "A Trip to New York" is attributed to The Allegheny Highlanders, a name used when they recorded for Brunswick. Poole's drinking led to a heart attack and his ultimate demise in 1931 at age 39.

Nearly thirty tracks on these CDs feature some other old-timey musicians from Poole's time. Some of the singers and groups he learned from are sampled from old 78s and cylinder recordings. Such artists featured are Floyd County Ramblers, Arthur Colins, Dock Walsh, Uncle Dave Macon, Cal Stewart,Blue Ridge Highballers, Branch & Coleman, Fred Van Eps, Red Fox Chasers, Peerless Quartet, Gid Tanner, Eddie Morton and many others. Transferred by sound engineer Christopher King, these digital transfers have an amazingly high fidelity. "You Ain't Talkin' To Me" was produced by Henry Sapoznik, an old-time (and klezmer) musician himself. He also wrote the informative 6,000-word liner notes that accompany the package.

About 1960 following the folk revival, there was a revival of Charlie Poole's old-timey sound. This 3-CD set will give his music another shot in the arm and ensure he and the North Carolina Ramblers aren't forgotten. The release precedes the annual "Charlie Poole Festival" in May in his hometown of Eden, North Carolina. There is also a documentary film about Poole in the works. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)

This is the best collection of Charlie Poole to have. This was the product of a lot of serious research This collection was put together by a serious old time musician and historian, accompanied by extensive research into Poole's life.

Hank Sopoznick who put this together worked together with Kenny Rorrer and other descendants of the North Carolina Ramblers not only to issue this collection, but to organize a serious academic conference on Poole at UNC, to organize the republication of Rorrers book on Poole, and even to see that
Gibson would come out with a Charlie Poole memorial banjo. This collection has a lot more meaning than a bunch of the pirated collections issued with no concern for the heritage of this music.

Here, we not only have Poole's key recordings but also recordings of musicians who influenced him as well as of musicians who followed Poole's lead.

Poole's music was unique in that it was highly arranged, and showed strong influneces of ragtime and early jazz swing. While he did many traditional songs, and played square dance music in local shows, he included many songs out of the pop music of his times. He also had a unique sense of humor and fun in his times.

Poole was quite popular with the original old time music players of the late 1950s and early 1960s led by the New Lost City Ramblers who did a number of Poole songs. If you are like me, and got used to the sound of the NC Ramblers from the New Lost City Ramblers, you will find hearing the same songs by Poole much better, more swinging, and more fun.

The banjo playing here is unique and interesting. Poole plays a ragtimey finger picking style which anticipates bluegrass in its syncopation and in Poole's use of barred chords. Of course, Poole's style of banjo owed much to classic banjo, which Pool also played, whereas Bluegrass banjo played by Snuffy Jenkins and Earl Scruggs really came from North Carolina finger picking styles that descend from clawhammer.

Yet, Poole's idea of a tight band with the guitar playing runs, the banjo chording with runs, and the fiddle playing a semijazzy lead, contributes much more to the way Bluegrass bands would function. Both Poole's music and Bluegrass had in comon, a desire to take string band music to places offered by Black-influenced popular music (ragtime and classic Jazz in Poole's time, Swing in Monroe and Scruggs's time)/

Sadly, Poole's popularity among contemporary fans of old time music faded as the music became more focused on playing dance music, on fiddle and banjo tunes, and less on songs and singing. Let's hope these recordings will help bring the fun of Charlie Poole to more ears.

This collection is an absolute treasure for music buffs interested in exploring original talent and the music that deeply influenced bluegrass, folk and country. In many of the song selections, I heard the Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Jimmy Rogers, Leon Redbone, Flatt & Scruggs, Johnny Cash and many other modern day country artists. I heard banjo riffs that I had never heard before and could only have been created by truly innovative musicians. We all owe a debt of gratitude to those who had the vision to produce this masterpiece.

We're not talking "Dueling Banjos" here - and at times the music seems thin to the modern ear. But listen a while -- the early days of country, of minstrel singing, even the occasional awful vaudeville joke is front and center.
Very early records have been wonderfully cleaned, Charlie Poole and the Ramblers have been thoroughly researched - and packaged with like musicians in a 3 CD group that's a tribute to early country entertainment. This is for the real afficionado of the genre. You Ain't Talkin' to Me should really Talk to YOU!

The first volume of this 3 disc set contains some wonderful selections. The second and third volumes perform a laudable job of attempting to present influential or similar works by other artists that were reworked by Poole. However, it takes only a few examples to realize what an exceptional innovator Poole was. I quickly lost interest in hearing the extraneous works and found myself wanting more of Poole's performances. I already have a substantial collection of music from this era and found the presentation of the Poole material to be first rate, despite my lack of enthusiasm for CDs in general. In summary, this collection is a stretch for 3 CDs and I think only the first disc is truly worth purchasing for most people.

Dispite the quality look, I found this collection to be rather cheap. The CDs are packed in paper sleaves, and the cardboard "cigar box" is nothing but a gimmick. An interesting "book" is included which gives a good history.
Be warned that this is not a 3 CD collection of Charlie Poole songs, infact the second and third CD's are only about half Poole. The other half is other versions of songs covered by Poole performed by Poole's contemporaries. So what you end up paying for is someone's intellectual study into the influence of Poole, and a cardboard cigar box. The JSP box set provides much more bang for much less buck. But Atleast Sony is putting Poole's music out.

I love the CDs, although I end up only listening to the first one, since it's all Charlie. I wish the other ones had less of the other musicians and more of Charlie. So many of his songs that I was looking forward to aren't there. I'd much rather have all of his music and less of someone else's. Even if they had put all of his together and then included another CD of the other musicians would have been great. But I'm thrilled with the book and the Charlie music. Fell in love with him all over again!

This is one of those must have boxed sets. House nicely in a old cigar box with a great booklet to boot.
Not only do you get all of Pooles releases but you get a great host of others such as Uncle Dave Macon. His version of "I'm The Man Who Rode The Mule Around The World" makes the box set worthy. A must have!

In this dissection and distillation of the roots of Charlie Poole's music, the early incidence of the folk mutation from commercial phonograph records is clearly and meticulously demonstrated by the erudition of the Hank Sapoznik selections. The most originally conceived anthology since the alchemical song-matching of Harry Smith. An education in sound, and very rewarding.