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Genre: Soul/R&B
Media Format: Compact Disk
Rating:
Release Date: 4-APR-2006
CD Reviews
The Dead Sea Scrolls of Neurotic Obsessives!
Arch Stanton | Bondurant, WY USA | 05/10/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This collection of 78 sides from the 20s and 30s contains rarities from the vaults of a handful of America's most obsessive record collectors. The songs themselves deal with things most Americans still face today - digging ginseng, being terrorized by bulldogs, talking with Jesus, loving chicken, etc. The artists are mostly obscure but you don't need to be a Georgia Potlickers completist to appreciate the music.
Well-recorded with minimal surface noise on most tracks (with a few notable exceptions,) the music is also handsomely packaged. As the liner notes detail, some people diligently collect wishbones and some collect hair from elephant tails. We are fortunate that there are still a few madmen combing estate sales and antique shops, looking for "the stuff that dreams are made of." No surprise that the annotation is non-existent but this is an elegant package filled with music that still sparkles and entertains."
A Truer Title Can't Be Found
Doug Brunell | A little south of Hell | 07/11/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is really the stuff dreams are made of.
I believe there is magic in old blues music. There is something so raw and real about it that today's music can't compete. This two disc collection of old blues and country has the rarest of the rare, and it's worth every cent you'll pay for it.
I haven't taken this off the Bose in weeks. Yes, some of the sound quality suffers because of the source material, but that only adds to the mystique. It's like an AM radio station playing oldies that keeps fading in and out on a rainy night. Kind of comforting. Kind of spooky. Purely supernatural in the most organic of ways.
And let's not even get started on the booklet and R. Crumb art. If you don't understand what makes this collection so good, you'll never be able to comprehend it. You either know or you don't.
Yazoo constantly puts out good stuff ... the kind of stuff they don't make anymore (with the exception of people like Don Haupt, whom I got to see last year and was blown away by). Take this trip into the past. Turn off the lights. Open a window. Let the night in. Listen to that piano sparkle. Hear those lyrics full of jubilant desperation.
If that ain't magic, there is no such thing."
Amazing Set has only one flaw
D. Reichel | KY USA | 07/23/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Too bad a track listing sheet w/ release date or recorded date & label info isn't included for every track. Other than that, this is a real work of art."
Great collection, no discography
Berlioz | San Antonio, Texas USA | 12/31/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Yes, this is a fine collection of rare obscurities. However, as a collector, I find it odd that in a collection so focused on the art of collecting -- the booklet is basically a short essay on obsessive collectors -- the producer chose to exclude any listing of dates, personnel, or matrix numbers for the recordings."
Treasure trove for fanatics
David Wade Smith | Great Barrington, MA | 01/18/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"This collection is marvelous as a broad-strokes portrait of the music Americans were recording and listening to in a time well before the hegemony of the corporate conglomerate recording industry, when anyone with the admittedly cumbersome apparatus of the time could start their own record company. None of these songs were huge hits of their time, but many of them are treasures of American roots music. I've got to say, though, that it was the R. Crumb cover art that pulled me in."
Track Listings (23) - Disc #1