LF recommendations 20s-30s roots music.

[mikelz777]

I know that the board members here have broad music interests that run the spectrum so I was looking for recommendations on CDs featuring American roots music from the 78 era of recording, i.e. pre-war recordings from the 20's and 30's. By roots music I'm thinking of almost anything from that era that could encompass country, blues, folk, gospel, cajun, zydeco, string bands, etc., etc..

I'd probably prefer compilations of various artists over a single group or an individuals recording(s) unless the latter is particularly compelling. I've been drawn to this kind of music lately and would like to explore it further. What are some "can't miss" recommendations?

[jazzbo]

This is an excellent series of releases:

http://www.yazoorecords.com/comps.htm

[John L]

This is an excellent series of releases:

http://www.yazoorecords.com/comps.htm

Absolutely. Yazoo presents the music with the best sound, excellent liner notes, and highly listenable sequencing.

A cheaper alternative would be the various box sets of this music that have been released on JSP. But better to give Yazoo the business. They really need it right now. A cheap road to the Yazoo catalog is through emusic downloads.

Yazoo doesn't do that much with early religious/gospel music. That problem is easily rectified by picking the the Goodbye, Babylon box set from Dust-to-Digital

[Big Beat Steve]

By all means check out the catalog of the KRAZY KAT label (INTERSTATE) from the UK too.

http://www.interstate-music.co.uk/krazykat/krazykatindex.htm

Even if you limit yourself to pre-war recordings only, you will find very nice "Hot string band"/Western Swing stuff there that would be very hard to find elsewhere. And have a look at their Heritage and other subsidiary labels too.

Enjoy!

[Neal Pomea]

Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s 1926-1937

The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of

American Primitive Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (on Revenant)

all good releases from the past few years.

[jostber]

These labels have very fine releases in that category, with packages with extensive liner notes and great sound:

Old Hat Records

http://www.oldhatrecords.com

Dust-To-Digital

http://dust-to-digital.com

This Tompkins Square compilation - People Take Warning:

http://www.tompkinssq.com/people_take.html

And Yazoo and Revenant are also great labels as mentioned above.

A Yazoo recommendation:

Their "Before The Blues" sets are also great. And this gospel compilation:

The greatest of early blues:

[WorldB3]

A friend made me a compilation from the Goodbye Babylon box, expensive but amazing stuff.

A great starter set would be the Yazoo comp "The Best There Ever Was"

Get either on disc or through emusic:

http://www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artist...d/10798671.html

[mikelz777]

Thank you to everyone for your excellent recommendations so far. I'm certain I could put a pretty nice dent in the old bank account exploring these recordings. I checked out the offerings from the Old Hat Records site and I would be happy owning all five of their current releases, they sound excellent. The Yazoo site also has a lot of stuff I'd love to check out. "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" and their "Times Ain't Like They Used To Be" series look especially interesting. That "Goodbye, Babylon" set from Dust To Digital looks gorgeous. That one's a bit out of my reach right now. I came across some Mississippi John Hurt in my initial listening searches and I really like his soft/gentle voice and his wonderful/lyrical guitar picking. I think he's definitely going to be among my first buys.

[Neal Pomea]

For Cajun music visit my Web site at http://www.npmusic.org/artists.html

See the areas on 1920s-30s and Joseph Falcon

For the Cajun string band music of the 1930s go to Arhoolie for Cajun Breakdown at http://www.arhoolie.com/titles/7014.shtml

[Chuck Nessa]

Some really interesting music, excellently transferred and documented in a Bluebird series titled "When the Sun Goes Down".

[BruceH]

Was going to recommend "all things Yazoo," especially their older releases, but as usual I'm late to party.

One in particlular: Don't miss Charlie Patton: Founder of the Delta Blues. (Yazoo 2010)

Edited April 9, 2008 by BruceH

[seeline]

Another good label for this: Arhoolie.

http://www.arhoolie.com/

There are some great releases in Rounder Records' back catalog, too.

http://www.rounderarchive.com/

Edited April 9, 2008 by seeline

[John L]

Thank you to everyone for your excellent recommendations so far. I'm certain I could put a pretty nice dent in the old bank account exploring these recordings. I checked out the offerings from the Old Hat Records site and I would be happy owning all five of their current releases, they sound excellent. The Yazoo site also has a lot of stuff I'd love to check out. "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" and their "Times Ain't Like They Used To Be" series look especially interesting. That "Goodbye, Babylon" set from Dust To Digital looks gorgeous. That one's a bit out of my reach right now. I came across some Mississippi John Hurt in my initial listening searches and I really like his soft/gentle voice and his wonderful/lyrical guitar picking. I think he's definitely going to be among my first buys.

"The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" is a fascinating collection, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first purchase. It was put together mostly for hard core collectors based more on the rarity of the 78s than the quality of the music. Even the liner notes are more about the anal-retentive pleasures of 78 collecting, as opposed to the music. The "dreams" in question are the dreams of collectors about acquiring rare 78s. It was a major event at the time of release due to the inclusion of a previously unheard newly-discovered 78 of Son House.

Mississippi John Hurt is one of the only early blues artists for whom I actually prefer the later recordings that he made in the 1960s before his death. "Mississippi John Hurt Today" on Vanguard is my favorite.

Edited April 9, 2008 by John L

[danasgoodstuff]

Are there any good sets documenting 'northern roots music' or the relation between the stuff collectors have typically thought of as 'square'/'corny' and the stuff they usually collect?

I liked the Bluebird 'secret history of R 'n R' series pictured above, even though I don't think the musics worth is measured by it's relation to rock oer anything else that came after...

Harry smith's Anthology of American Folk Music had a huge impact, not all of it good, and has lots of good music but isn't the most cost effective way to build a collection...

[mikelz777]

Thank you to everyone for your excellent recommendations so far. I'm certain I could put a pretty nice dent in the old bank account exploring these recordings. I checked out the offerings from the Old Hat Records site and I would be happy owning all five of their current releases, they sound excellent. The Yazoo site also has a lot of stuff I'd love to check out. "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" and their "Times Ain't Like They Used To Be" series look especially interesting. That "Goodbye, Babylon" set from Dust To Digital looks gorgeous. That one's a bit out of my reach right now. I came across some Mississippi John Hurt in my initial listening searches and I really like his soft/gentle voice and his wonderful/lyrical guitar picking. I think he's definitely going to be among my first buys.

"The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of" is a fascinating collection, but I wouldn't recommend it as a first purchase. It was put together mostly for hard core collectors based more on the rarity of the 78s than the quality of the music. Even the liner notes are more about the anal-retentive pleasures of 78 collecting, as opposed to the music. The "dreams" in question are the dreams of collectors about acquiring rare 78s. It was a major event at the time of release due to the inclusion of a previously unheard newly-discovered 78 of Son House.

Mississippi John Hurt is one of the only early blues artists for whom I actually prefer the later recordings that he made in the 1960s before his death. "Mississippi John Hurt Today" on Vanguard is my favorite.

Thanks for the observations on "The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of". It's that kind of information that really helps out in the buying decisions.

I think I might agree with you on Mississippi John Hurt. I listened to the sound samples of his early work on Okeh and while I liked it a lot, I think I'm more partial to the sound samples I heard of his later stuff on Vanguard. The excellent guitar picking is is present in both but I find his voice warmer on the Vanguard recordings. Right now I have my eye on the 3-CD "The Complete Studio Recordings Of Mississippi John Hurt" from his 3 Vanguard studio albums.

Edited April 9, 2008 by mikelz777

[John L]

That is an excellent choice!

[kenny weir]

I concur with most of the suggestions made so far, but have one important addition to make - one that has shed valuable and enjoyable light for me on my previous and current incarnations as blues fan, R&B fan, country fan and so on:

That Devilin' Tune - all four boxes.

Also: If you're up for a special treat, Amazon has Revenant's Charley Patton box for $170 - which strikes me as something of a bargain given how much I continue to enjoy it and how much it sells for here in Melbourne.

Old Hat is the bees knees as far as reissue labels go these days - I have three of 'em: Good For What Ails You, and the two black/blues/jazz fiddle comps, Folks He Sure Do Pull Some Bow and Violin Sing The Blues For Me. There's some duplication with other stuff I have, but they just hang together really well - in the sense that, yeah, comps are often the way to go with this sort of stuff.

Having just bought all three Papa Charlie Jackson CDs on Document, I am intrigued by that label's, er, documentation of early country. Some really esoteric but enjoyable stuff in there. Another new and expensive byway to explore!

Edited April 9, 2008 by kenny weir

[mikelz777]

My first set of purchases in this area have just come in and this is what I'm starting with:

Good For What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937 (2-CD)

I like the idea of listening to music that was likely to be heard at those traveling medicine shows and I'm intrigued by the mystery and fraud/hucksterism behind it. It reminds me of a time when I was young and my world was a bubble of whatever existed within 2-3 miles of my home in a small town in Minnesota. I remember how exciting it was each year when the wonderful sights, sounds and smells of the county fair would come around and the "outside world" would make its' appearance right there in my home town for a short time.

Down In The Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s 1926-1937

This and "Good For What Ails You" above were put out by Old Hat Records and are both look to have very nice support material. I haven't read either yet but both come with a thick 72-page booklet. I'm looking forward to digging in and listening to both.

The Complete Studio Recordings Mississippi John Hurt (3-CD)

Just listening to a few sound samples and I was immediately attracted to his wonderful guitar picking and the gentle delivery and quality of his voice. Very nice stuff from what I heard in the samples.

American Roots: A History of American Folk Music (4-CD)

I'll confess, the big attraction here was a lot of music for a price close to or better than what I paid for each of the above. I don't know that it will quite live up to its' grand title but there seemed to be a lot of nice stuff on it. It is a Disky Records release from Holland and I was intrigued by what sort of song selections might appear on it from a non-American point of view.

I'm in a backlog of listening right now but I hope to be getting to them soon. They should keep me busy for a while.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Document Records.

http://www.document-records.com/

I think this label's very good for church music and, in particular, singing preachers from before the war.

MG

[Late]

Looks like you have a lot to digest for the meantime, but keep Yazoo on your "list." This is the label that opened my ears up to these amazing artists:

• Blind Lemon Jefferson

• Charlie Patton

• Blind Willie Johnson

• Barbecue Bob

• Blind Blake

Yazoo's single artist comps of these musicians I'd actually say are all "essential" (though some might not add Barbecue Bob to the "essential" list — he's at least a person fave).

JSP's 5-disc set Legends of Country Blues is essential simply for the Tommy Johnson disc — the best transfers I've heard. You also get Son House, Bukka White, and Skip James!

And, for fun (if you haven't already), rent Terry Zweigoff's Ghostworld. Steve Buscemi as one of "those" 78 collectors.

[jostber]

Some great compilations from Document Records:

V.A. - Troubled Hearted Blues, Vintage Guitar Blues 1927-1948

V.A. - Rags, Breakdowns, Stomps & Blues

V.A. - My Babe

[paul secor]

mikelz777 - You might be interested in this audio clip http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/04/28...on_audio_bilger

There's an entire article in the April 28,2008 New Yorker, but it's not posted online yet.

[mikelz777]

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to check it out.

[BruceH]

Bought Down In the Basement yesterday. Some nice stuff on that!

[Late]

All of these are excellent. (Well, I don't have eight of them. But I can vouch for the others!)