American Primitive - Volume 2 - Pre-war Revenants 1897-1939

Purchased used at a premium to obtain one song and was repaid several times over. Listening to this makes one wish that vampires were real and simply hoarding their collections of early recorded music, and that perhaps "they" will allow some of us to rediscover another Geeshie Wiley or make an anonymous donation of other recordings from 1897 once they've digitized their back catalogs. (Jack White, we're on to you.)

If you liked the Anthology of American Folk compiled by Harry Smith, you'll love this compilation by John Fahey! It's the real stuff, with crazy authentic music from the early 20th century, including musical radio commercials. Get your Ice Cold Nugrape!

For any complainers out there, or more importantly any interested listeners who are concerned about the sound quality herein, don't be.

The remastering is wonderful, and if this type of music had no tape defects, hiss or background distortion, well then it would be a much different experience altogether - one you wouldn't recognize as the rugged and nocturnal sound of music coming from the era of the Great Depression.

Revenant consistently gives us an honest and pure sound, and while it isn't always perfect, it is when compared to the alternative - not having these recordings to listen to at all.

John Fahey's second excellent volume of outstanding blues and gospel tracks from the 20s and 30s.

Read about this release in Pulp Head, by John Jeremiah Sullivan. It doesn't get much older than this and many of the tracks are down right spooky.

FANTASTIC acoustic blues...the best period of all in Blues history.

American Primitive is definitely a collection of work that reflects the passions and obsessions of John Fahey. Thank God it got done.

To be honest, I almost passed on buying this set. A great deal of the material here is available elsewhere -- in several other places. Buyers of Yazoo's ambitious three-disc "Before The Blues" discs of 1997, or anyone half-familiar with other CDs by Document and Yazoo, will recognize a good half of the 50 tracks here.

As well, Revenant Records is devoted to replicating the experience of listening to one of these original, battered shellac discs. They're the polar opposite of John Davies and JSP Records. I think that, were it possible, Revenant would import MORE pops, scrapes and thunks into the music.

The surface damage adds something divine to the listening experience. This set, which spotlights performers and performances that defy the conventions of professionalism and "good taste," bare the cold, windy soul of American life in the 1920s and '30s. These night-soaked, doom-ridden performances pack quite a punch. Some of them are actually quite funny and light-hearted, but the Grim Reaper is still peering over the listener's shoulders on each and every selection here.

The Nugrape Twins are the most haunting, moving performers here. It's hard to imagine where they were coming from, exactly, but their music has the perfect blend of the creepy and the divine.

Homer Quincy Smith's two spirituals, from 1926, are perhaps the eeriest, even most frightening recordings I've ever heard. With an organ to his accompaniment, Smith bares his soul via two minor-keyed, chill-making religious songs. To paraphrase the set's liner notes, these two songs are a private, highly personal dialogue with The Creator, from a mortal voice who seems to doubt his faith while clinging desperately to its tenets.

The scary mood of many of the performances here probably wasn't intended by the artists. It just comes oozing out of their musical pores. In high contrast to the white music of the Jazz Age, these recordings suggest what a threatening, unfulfilling and grim place 1920s America must have been, especially to the disenfranchised and downtrodden who created and purchased these records.

Some other endearing-haunting performers/songs are Elizabeth Johnson's two entries, "Be My Kid Blues" and "Sobbin' Woman Blues," with their cartoon woodblock percussion and muted fiesta cornet. The style of these two tracks does not exist anywhere else in recorded music. It barely hangs together, and its flirtation with failure makes the performances moving and even troubling.

Pigmeat Terry's curious off-key, wordless emanations, sounding like a mistreated alto sax, make her two pieces delights. And new to my ears is the sublime "Ballin' The Jack" by The Salty Dog Four. The set's thick liner-note booklet describes this music as "scorched-earth freek jazz." I can add nothing more to that perfect description.

Old-time music fans know all about Geeshie Wiley, The Two Poor Boys, Blues Birdhead, John Hammond, Moses Mason and Bayless Rose, to name some oft-anthologized performers represented here. As said earlier, the inclusion of so many tracks long-familiar to me almost persuaded me against the purchase of this set. The miracle of this collection is that, by its careful jutxaposition of moods and themes in the music, it makes these workhorses fresh once again.

If you are fortunate to be new to some or all of this music, do not hesitate to purchase "American Primitive, Vol. 2." And even if, like me, you're not new to most of it, it will give you a new perspective on many of these done-to-death staples of P.D. old time music comps.