Search - Various Artists :: Richer Tradition Country Blues & String Band

A Richer Tradition: Country Blues and String Music 1923-1942

Frank Matheis | New York | 02/21/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This collection is not for the weak-hearted and includes a hundred sides on 4 CDs and there are few (literally and figuratively very few) real gems among them. Undoubtedly, you will find some sweet songs among the pile, any lover of the genre will find enough to be satisfied. However, more than fifty years into the blues revival one can say that most "good" stuff from this genre had made earlier reissues and this collection, sadly, features leftovers, rejects and material nobody chose to include in the past. What's left is not always cream of the crop material, and indeed, this collection seems like they scraped the deep bottom of the barrel to find these rarities. Unless you are an ethnomusicologist or folklorist interested in historical preservation for its own sake, much of this material will sound rough hewn, if not outright unlistenable, not only from an expectedly primitive recording standpoint but from basic musical skills. It seems like they pulled together anyone and anything, regardless of fundamental quality. Even the biggest aficionados of old-time deep-roots & blues, such as me, will find the bulk of this material a stretch. If you are looking for entertainment value with that old music, stick to the mainstay of the genre."

Richer Tradition Indeed! Essential Collection!

Gerard Masters | Soggy Seattle, Wa | 03/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a budding Paramount Records Man, I have to somewhat agree with the previous review....But that being said, you have to take 'Pre War' Recordings with a grain of salt to begin with. And if your already in that frame of mind, then John Stedman and JSP has once again given us on helluva box set at a great price to listen to! What we have here, and again, if your into the "Paramount Records" thing then you know what I'm talking about, is a bunch of "one off" or "Two Off" country and rural Blues that, unless you were in a 20 mile radius of the artist, you never heard these 78's before. No!, their NOT Charlie Patton or Blind Blake or Blind Lemmon Jefferson, these were the guys and gals that were way below that scale of success, but that's the beauty of these sides....these get even more 'real' than the more popular pre-war artists! I could imagine sitting in someones livingroom listening to these songs while they were playing them! It's THAT intimate! And once again JSP comes up with a collection that is definitely NOT boring. Again, is it Charlie Or Blind Blake...NO...But these folks are real, pretty damned good at their playing and again, this is like being invited to a down home fish fry on a Sunday afternoon in Chicago, or Indiana or any Southern small town back in the pre war days...... I suggest you compare this collection with anything on the Document label, which does a very good job at 'Documenting' Old 78 artists, but for the most part makes for a very boring 'Listen', unless your a scholar. On the other hand, these are real people like you and me who, at least were worthy enough for someone to make a record of them, and JSP deserves Kudo's for putting together a 4 cd set that is both listenable (considering the rarity of the 78's involved) and enjoyable! So, when your ready to go beyond the 'Stars' of Pre-War Blues and Country/Rural music, take the plunge on this set, both the remastering and 'coolness' of this music hopefully will bring you much pleasure!

Gerard Masters"

Hard to get out of the CD player once you put it in!

Tony Thomas | SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA | 12/10/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Picture yourself between 1915 and 1935 at a Southern Black juke house or country supper or picnic (both often juke houses at another location with the same amount of dancing, drinking,gambling, drugging, eating, signifying, sexing for free and for money, and generally good vibrations despite the expected shootings, cuttings, or raids by the law if proper payments weren't be made to the plantation owner or the sheriff. Picture yourself ready to eat, drink, and be merry, to PARTY, PARTY HARDY, and exhaust yourself with pleasure or at least the pursuit of please. Be ready to keep partying until what they used to call "broad daylight."



This is the soundtrack.



The string bands here and the solo blues artists would have been what you listened to, although their tunes would not have be confined to the three minutes 78 records limited them to. They would grind on 10 or 20 minutes or longer for dancing often slow and deliciously naughty for the dancers or anyone who wanted to watch.



The music here swings for dancers, rattles for shaking it, and grooves to ease the mind. There is nothing attempting to be anything but funky and Black.



Most of this box set documents the many string bands usually containing fiddles, guitars, tenor or six-string banjos, often including basses, jugs, percussion, mandolins, banjo-mandolins, and banjo ukes, and sometimes including a horn or two, that reflected the taste of young Black musicians and dancers. They played music that mixed Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, popular music, and the old string band repertoire and sustained dance rhythms that had come from Africa as well as new jams created by Africans in America.



The great string band tunes here throw light on the old assumption that Black string bands had died out by the 1920s or that the recording industry did not record them because of racism.



Black musical taste developed beyond the old time fiddle banjo repertoire that reached its peak in the 1890s. As the new Century neared, a wave of new music swept from the African American community through the US and beyond. This music included Ragtime, both the formal composed piano ragtime associated with the great piano composers like Joplin, and all sorts of pop music that called itself Ragtime as well as Black folk derived music that had inspired Ragtime and was in turn influenced by pop music Ragtime. This music also included the Blues and many mixtures between Ragtime and the Blues. The new music was also associated with a wave of new dances many of which went from Black rural juke joints to Broadway and Europe.





Scores of these recordings were made by commercial record companies between 1919 and the 1940s and some of the best of these recordings are on this CD.



Regardless fo this historical importance, this Box Set is sure fun and great to listen to, a bit hard to get out of the CD player once you put it in.

"