aliled | Shawnee, Kansas United States | 06/07/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you're the sort of person to pick up an expensive, completist-oriented box like this, you might want to start with the 1948-1959 4xCD box set, also on Bear Family. It's considered by many to by their peak period, and it certainly is classic, beautifully played material - not to mention very well-packaged and mastered.On the other hand, I slightly prefer this box set. It's not drastically different, but in some ways the music seems a little bit more relevant to the time it was made. Rock had taken over a lot of the country audience, and I sense that some of the increased intensity and hot performances contained here were in response to that . . . some of it could almost be interpreted as a challenge thrown back at rock and roll. The boys had been playing together for quite a while by this point and they'd pretty much figured out what worked and what REALLY worked, and decided to concentrate on the latter. I'm a pretty critical person, but I can honestly say that for roughly twenty years they never recorded a sub-par track.Additionally, the songwriting feels fresher here. They revisit some old favorites and there are a lot of new ones, obviously. Of course, the big news during this period was the release (and massive success) of their "Beverly Hillbillies" theme, and frequent appearances on the show. It catapulted Flatt & Scruggs to a level of popularity unimaginable before. Roughly half the music here was made in the wake of that success, and as one might imagine, it's confident, inspired material. This package is followed by a third Bear Family set, which takes the story up to 1969, more or less. It's probably the last of the three to consider buying, but only by the barest of margins. The three sets were designed to complement one another, so the high standards of artwork, annotation and sound are equal between them. It should also be noted that collecting all three sets makes pretty much every other F&S set redundant - it's all on these boxes."
Track Listings (28) - Disc #1
