[ aquarius records — Country Folk Blues ]

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Showing results 1451 through 1500 of 1618.

Did you hear about the new pirate film? It's rated Arrrrrrr!

**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** There's no stopping Mississippi, is there? The vinyl-only archival reissue label specializing in old tymey music from around the globe really hasn't ever put out anything NOT worth buying. At least, if you're into - or want to get into - the blues or gospel or Palm Wine music or country folk or Greek rembetika or whatever species of vintage roots music is being documented on each particular Mississippi lp. In this case, as with the Mississippi compilation highlighted last list, My Intention Is War, it's Trinidadian Calypso music, circa 1928-1947. Seven Skeletons Found In The Yard is a fine companion to My Intention Is War, again highlighting the darker side of Calypso. Beautiful stuff with some serious subject matter. Artists include such greats as Grower, The Lion, Lord Executor, and Lionel Belasco.

'70s folk legend Tim Buckley gets the tribute treatment at the hands of Mojave 3, Mark Lanegan, Tram, Dot Allison, Mike Johnson, Brendan Perry, Lilys, and a bunch of others, filling up two discs with their Buckley-love.

Interesting compilation of recordings from the 20's and 30's which have in common the Hawaiian steel guitar as their backbone. From as early as 1916 Hawaiian music had become an obsession not only in the U.S. but throughout the world, and by the 20's ukuleles and steel guitars were out-selling guitars for many manufacturers. What is documented here are recordings of Hawaiian influenced hokum blues, calypso, country, jazz, as well as straight up Hawaiian music, captured in France, Greece, China, Argentina and the U.S.

The latest compilation from Arthur Magazine's Bastet imprint wears that magazines politics on its sleeve on this collection of obvious and not so obvious protest songs. A lot of familiar names on this one -- Devendra Banhart, Feathers, Diane Cluck, Pajo, Josephine Foster and Matt Valentine. While the less obvious protest songs including Meg Baird's sublime "Western Red Lily" will probably resonate longer over time, there is something extremely exhilarating about the urgency of songs such as Charlie Nothing's "Fuck You and Your Stupid Wars", and Andrew Bar's "Don't Trust That Man". Play this often and loud!

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Another great Dust-To-Digital comp here! This one's actually a reissue of an lp originally released in 1975, and should be welcomed by the same folks who loved such Mississippi-label collections as Life Is A Problem and In The Storm So Long. The subtitle kind of explains the focus here, but to get more specific, all the tracks are recordings dating to between 1965 and 1973, documenting spiritual and gospel songs "performed in informal non-church settings". And in many cases the performers are either "active or former blues artists". Guitar accompaniment is the norm, though there's also at least one fife & drum band on here too. Both the cd and lp formats come with a big booklet of liner notes and b&w photos, with details on each track and artist as well as an essay pertaining to the general thrust of the compilation, to highlight "the important role that religious music plays in the Southern black communities and in the daily lives of individuals", written by ethnomusicologist David Evans of the University of Memphis, who was one of this album's recordists and producers. There's sixteen tracks, from artists including Robert "Nighthawk" Johnson, Ephram Carter and His Fife & Drum Band, Reverend Rubin Lacy, Eddie Lee "Mustright" Jones, Babe Stovall, Willard Artis "Blind Pete" Burrell, Napoleon Strickland, Pattie Rosemon, and more. Beautiful, evocative, moving music for sure.

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**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** Nobody does comps like Mississippi, whether it's blues, gospel, Rembeteka, whatever, every Mississippi comp is like some amazing mixtape made for you by that one guy with the most amazing record collection ever. An older brother, an uncle, somebody's cool mom or dad. Every single one offers up a whole new world of music to explore, and this one is no different. A collection of Georgia bluesman, recordings gathered up in the late seventies by George Mitchell, who was doing field research for the Georgia Grassroots Music Festival, in an attempt to track down actively performing bluesmen, which apparently was no easy feat, but the six artists here all pretty amazing finds. There's John Lee Ziegler who strings his guitar with bass strings, has a gorgeous high clear voice, and who on one track is accompanied by a guy playing the spoons! There's also William Robertson, who has a cool, weird whiny nasal voice, but one that's perfectly suited to his slithery guitar style. Jim Bunkley has a super percussive strumming guitar style which is perfectly matched to his gruff belted vocals. There's also Jimmy Lee Williams who has a rich warm guitar sound, and another distinctive vocal style. And finally, there's James Davis, who plays fierce instrumental electric blues, always accompanied by a drummer, playing just a bass drum and a kettle drum, and folks around those parts still call Davis's music 'drum music'! So cool. Housed in nice thick old school style tip on jackets, the extensive liner notes printed on the back.

Wow, what an amazing artifact! Smithsonian Folkways have just reissued this 1959 release of urban folk song recordings made by six 11 and 12 year-old youths from the Harlem projects. With only bongos and bottles to beat out percussive rhythms, the kids make rhyming songs, chants, and stories that relate to their experiences of rough street life and how they cope with them. An argument can be made that these recordings are the nascent beginnings of what would later become rap, but the song's basic forms sound much more rooted in early blues, call and response rhymes, and tribal African rhythms, in that they still have the feeling of being tied to an older tradition of folk music. That they are being made by kids with such exuberance and charm in the face of real hardship make these recordings truly special.

From far north in Finland, the Fonal label, home to Es, Kiila, and a bunch of other fine bands, has just released a compilation focusing not only on their countryfolk but also likeminded artists from around the world. Psychedelic, experimental, indie, Floating Flower is an Acid Mothers Temple side project, featuring Kawabata Makoto on acoustic guitar, Yuki on vocals and violin, and Kaneko Tetsuya on tabla and electric guitar. A very lovely six minute track indeed. The P.G. Six track is another of his fragile, folk/psych compositions featuring just his voice, acoustic guitar, and piano. Greg Weeks, Janne Laurila, Ring, Ville Leinonen, and, well, quite a few of the artists on here take a much similar approach: sparse, homerecorded songs that are both quiet and melancholy (of course, some are better singers than others...). Fursaxa (who just played here in San Francisco with fellow psychedelic Philadelphians Bardo Pond) combines droning organ and sustained, sad female vocals. Scorces (members of Charalambides and Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast) does something similar, using bells instead of drones to back their extended, wordless vocal duet. Kinda creepy. The disc concludes with Kemialliset Ystavat's beautiful hippy-chant-folk-jam "Milla", which could have been an International Harvester outtake. This comp is very Ptolemaic Terrascope, to say the least! We like.

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Basically, just what the title says. A real nice package, as we'd expect from the Dust To Digital label.

The New Pornographers, Duotang, Neko Case, I Am Spoonbender, Nardwuar The Human Serviette (and his combos Thee Goblins, Thee Skablins and of course, The Evaporators)... sound like an unusual gathering? Hmmm, not really. Y'see, they're all on Vancouver's Mint Records, and a sampling of their songs have been collected together - along with those of sweet-twang Tennessee Twin,

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The new Bay Area label Tell-All Records have hit the ground running with a bunch of new releases from a bunch of new artists. Nicely varied but mostly keeping within the gentle, hazy realm -- evoking pastoral scenes or drifting about in outerspace or an abandoned old concert hall with a forgotten cobwebbed piano -- the label strikes a balance between ambient soundscapes and song-based music. This label sampler compilation, their first official release, clearly shows, it all fits together wonderfully. Twelve songs by Liam Singer (who is one of the young gents running the label), Peter Surla, 28 Degrees Taurus, St. Rosa, One Umbrella, Dave Zohrob, Kallikak Family, Keith Negley, and Carrier (whose dreamy Home Movies cd-r we carried a couple of years ago) for under five bucks! Other releases from this label include a solo full length from Singer, Kallikak Family's May 23rd 2007 album and One Umbrella's 8-song cd Solve.

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We're not sure just when we got this Trikont compilation in, but somehow it slipped under our radar and never got listed. That oversight will be redressed presently. For this collection Trikont has assembled an impressive collection of recordings of Bohemians, Moravians and Germans living in South Central Texas playing the music they love most: Polkas, Waltzes and Schottisches.

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Those frisky, fine folks at Bloodshot Records sure aren't the kind to leave anybody out in the cold. The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is this CHILDREN'S album! They've even enlisted the help of non-Bloodshoters like Neko Case's pal and fellow Corn Sister Carolyn Mark to join in the tykes' merriment. Much in the way of storytelling and singalongs abound. I know firsthand that while hanging out with your favorite baby, toddler or child, the music that they usually have, and sadly are programmed to like, sucks. It could drive a well-meaning mom or caregiver nuts! Disney and 'We Sing Silly Songs' and such. This release is a pleasant change in that it is fun for kids and easy to listen to for adults (psst... another choice pick in the kids' category is They Might Be Giants' "No!" from earlier this year). Robbie Fulks' "Godfrey" ("the sickly unemployed amateur children's magician"!) is worth the price in chuckles alone. Plus I think it is our duty as musically tasteful people to introduce our children to music that doesn't suck from early on. Right?

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Bloodshot Records hits you with a double whammy of their anti-death penalty compilation Executioner's Last Songs... Volumes Two and Three! Most of the usual Bloodshot roundup appear here in a variety of combinations -- Sally Timms & Edith Frost, Alejandro Escovedo & Jon Langford with Dave Alvin, Kelly Hogan, Jon Rauhouse, Rico Bell, the Meat Purveyors, but perhaps one of the most expressive and enjoyable of these twenty seven songs is the one by gravelly snarlin' Lu Edmonds called "Gulag Blues". Well worth checking out! Also appearing are American Music Club's Mark Eitzel, Jesus Lizard's David Yow, Old 97s' Rhett Miller, Spinanes' Rebecca Gates, Califone's Tim Rutili and many more! One question though: how many times are we gonna hear "Long Black Veil" covered?

MPEG stream: Gulag Blues
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How many tribute albums can one man have? Ok, what we should be asking is how many good tribute albums can one man have? Ones that don't just have contemporary artists covering their favorite songs merely to add hip factor to an older artist, or ones that don't contain hip artists who are now dubiously rushing to be associated with someone who has had major cultural influence over a current scene. Thankfully, the folks at Table Of the Elements manage to avoid the tribute album pitfalls by selecting a range of artists from the current avant-garde not to perform covers but to create original compositions in the spirit of the Master's most peculiar, eccentric, far-flung and sometimes corn-ball humor. Of course from Table Of The Elements, who championed Fahey's later and most outre work, we are going to hear less of the Takoma-era acoustic guitar compositions (though Jack Rose and Sir Richard Bishop provide the stalwart gate-keeping role for that sound), and hear more of a dark yet celebratory experimentalism from the likes of New Zealand's Pumice, Lichens, R. Keenan Lawler, and No Neck Blues Band, who in the guise of country cousins, Coach Fingers manage to sample some of Fahey's voice (Don't be surprised if you think Jandek was invited to the party). Michael Hurley, Ben Vida, Badgerlore, Greg Malcolm and David Daniell also make some stellar appearances.

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Oh wow. It's here, though not for long. You may have seen it announced on our blog or elsewhere, and really should have preordered one... we've already sold most of the copies we got (which was a lot, as many as we could afford, really). But at the moment we still have, like, a dozen. And possibly will be able to restock a few again next week, though we don't know that for sure. The label only pressed 1000 copies, and we know they're going fast. So perhaps listing it here is just for posterity's sake. So, what's all the excitement about you ask? If you're a fan of San Francisco's acclaimed Jewelled Antler collective of psychedelic/drone/improv/nature folks you should know, some years back (2003), they decided to release a series of 3" cd-r eps, once a month or so, with entries from JA regulars like Thuja, likeminded folks such as Dead Raven Choir and Antony Milton, and also odd, one-off quirky projects like Loren Chasse's frog-sounds disc dubbed Green Laughter. The idea was to release stuff that stood alone in twenty-minute doses and didn't need to be padded out to full-cd length. These cute lil' 3"s proved quite popular here at AQ, and of course are now long, long out of print like all Jewelled Antler cd-rs. Apparently a set will put you back about $100-120 on eBay nowadays, or until recently anyway... Well there'd been talk for some years now of these wonderful eps getting reissued on cd, in a box set or something, and lo it has finally come to pass thanks to the enthusiasm (and deep pockets) of Porter Records. The Jewelled Antler Library box contains 4 discs in cardboard sleeves, Books One to Four, comprising all 12 original entries in the approximately-monthly 3" cd-r ep series plus some extra bonus material! 59 tracks, four hours and forty minutes in all. It breaks down like this... Book One: Loren Chasse/Tomes/The Ivytree/Hala Strana, Book Two: Dead Raven Choir/The Famous Boating Party/Uton, Book Three: Claypipe/The Muons/Thuja, Book Four: Fursaxa/Kemialliset Ystavat/The Ways Of God To Man. And interspersed between each of the thirteen volumes are twelve "Footpath" tracks of brand new field recordings by Loren Chasse, up-close-and-personal documents of rain and wind and other evocative textural cracklings and rustlings from the natural environment. The box also contains individual, full-color cards with the cover art and credits from each ep. We reviewed all of them when they originally came out (or almost all of 'em, not sure what happened to the last few). Waste not, want not, so what follows is a conglomeration of our reviews of each library installment, slightly edited for clarity and to eliminate redundancies. Note how several of the entries in the series may have been the very first time we'd heard from a particular artist, such as Finland's Uton for instance, now well known to us and AQ customers... Volume 1: Frogs!!! Can AQ-customers resist frog recordings? We think not. Certainly we can't. Green Laughter is primarily frog field recordings made and edited by Loren Chasse (Thuja, Id Battery, Of, Blithe Sons, etc.). It's twenty minutes of the call of the wild (featuring frogs, cicadas, and perhaps birds), starting off as a fairly straight documentary and then blending into a computer-processed drone-wash constructed by Chasse from his original recordings. It's like wandering in a dense creature-inhabited forest back East somewhere in the summertime, your ears overwhelmed by the natural sounds, you getting dizzy and almost passing out, the ribbitting and chirping and buzzing and tweeting taking over your mind. But it eventually dissolves back into a blissful background ambience. Real nice. And many of the sounds on here that sound insect-like or electronic Loren assures us are in fact frogs. It's nature's electronic music, the sound of a laptop computer overwhelmed by heat and long grasses and the green laughter. Just the thing for when I (Allan) get homesick for Pennsylvania. Volume 2 is the debut recording from a group called Tomes, who are, as it turns out, basically Jewelled Antler flagship group Thuja (Rob Reger, Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson, absent Steven R. Smith), letting themselves get a little bit louder and noisier than they usually do in Thuja, harking back a bit to precursor band Mirza in fact. Probably the main reason this wasn't put out as a Thuja release is because Tomes' title and artwork are in fact the Jewelled Antler collective's knowing nod to a black metal aesthetic (which has fascinated Glenn particularly of late). But while intended as a tribute of sorts to black metal, the psychedelic drone music found here only holds subtle echoes of dark Nordic woodlands and burning churches. The twenty minutes of abstract heavy improv of The Dreadful Gift is darn good stuff regardless of the tangential conceptual framework. With noisy phantoms clanking chains, groaning drones, tell-tale heartbeats and and distorted freeform guitar feedback, this does achieve a dark n' dirgey but beautiful atmosphere. Too beautiful perhaps to leave the black metal hordes quaking in their corpsepaint, it still could be a Jewelled Antler Halloween soundtrack of sorts - I wonder why didn't they wait 'til the October Library installment for this? Definitely recommended. Volume 3 comes from The Ivytree, a solo project of one of the Jewelled Antler's chief protagonists, Glenn Donaldson (who can also be found in Thuja, The Blithe Sons, Knit Separates, The Birdtree, etc). Donaldson has publicly announced an affinity for creating different monikers to accompany the innumerable variations of his musical productions, so The Ivytree may be just one in a number of upcoming 'tree' projects from Donaldson. Certainly this 18 minute ep has a lot in common with his previous 'tree disc, The Birdtree album, which garnered high praise from us. Centered around a plaintive, elliptical finger-picking guitar technique which renders every note full of melancholia, The Sun Is The Lamp weaves in and out of harmonium drones, field recordings of birds, and Donaldson's evocative vocals. As strong as the best Richard Youngs projects that might be the closest comparison we can make, this is another fantastic recording from Jewelled Antler! Volume 4 is by Thuja's Steven R. Smith, who has taken up the Hala Strana moniker for his Eastern European-folk music inspired meditations. Karst continues down the path of his previous Jewelled Antler production Kohl, with a more ramshackle production for his dense acoustic arrangements for guitar and scratchy violin, which often hints at Eastern European timbres but as played by Nikki Sudden. In fact two of Smith's tracks are versions of traditional Polish and Romanian folk songs. Often beginning with a clutter of loose sounds, Smith coaxes his orchestrations into melancholic melodies and has smothered everything with an unusual patina of crunchy vinyl static, giving these 18 minutes a distinctly antiquated feel. A great entry in a great series... Volume 5 is by Dead Raven Choir, the Texas-by-way-of-Poland based folk/improv one man project that the Jewelled Antler powers-that-be seem to be totally in love with of late - this was their 3rd DRC release of 2003! As with his previous Jewelled Antler cd-rs, DRC here conjures up some eccentric vocal theatrics and sparse, haunted acoustic guitar playing, like some sort of Eastern European Jandek. And his black metal obsession with wolves continues in the title here as well. Scarily beautiful, with atmospheric piano and unknown other sounds providing a hissing soundscape for his vocal, all three tracks here featuring macabre poetry by Paul Verlaine. Volume 6 is something a bit different, yet familiar too to Jewelled Antler aficionados. It features the Blithe Sons (Glenn Donaldson and Loren Chasse, both also of Thuja and much else besides) joined by Eleanor Harwood on vocals. This trio's music is totally inspired by '70s art rock ensemble Slapp Happy, it's actually an intentional tribute of sorts. Eleanor is the heart of this, and we must say that for an untrained vocalist in an improvised setting, she's very impressive! Singing lyrics taken from a book of Kenneth Patchen poetry that was near to hand, "The Famous Boating Party", she totally inhabits the Dagmar Krause role, her vocals all wonderfully warbly and birdlike and lovely. She reminds us of Bjork at times too, no bad thing! Backing her up/leading her on, Glenn strums melodically on his 6 & 12 string guitars and adds comforting keyboard coloration, while Loren's "percussion & noises" both provide a steady beat and contribute the usual detailed, natural Jewelled Antler ambiance. It's very hazy and folky and fairytale like, a summer's afternoon encapsulated in a magical music box. Maybe not to everyone's taste (Slapp Happy certainly isn't either) but for some this will be a highlight in the Library series. Volume 7 is also from outside the immediate ranks of Thuja and company. Although they've had a couple of cd-r releases popping up from tiny labels around the globe, this was our introduction to Uton. This anonymous, acoustic-noise-drone band hails from Finland, although they seem far more at home within the New Zealand community of Birchville Cat Motel, Anthony Milton, and Handful of Dust. Zwuiji is a bit more grating than most entries in the Jewelled Antler Library series, which typically opiate themselves with hazy improvised psychedelia and obtuse folk renderings. Rather Uton revels in mistreating their electric gear in order to fill up the audio spectrum with buzzing drones that swarm out of their amplifiers like angry wasps. Scratchy violins and atonally shifting wind instruments hover behind these gritty walls of vibrating feedback which comes across more as a misaligned engine block rattling all of those tones inside your head than as a typical trick with a couple of effects boxes. Certainly the fans of cd-r labels Celebrate Psi Phenomenon or PseudoArcana will like this. Volume 8 hails from New Zealand's Claypipe. It seems Jewelled Antler have found some kindred souls Down Under, no not Gandalf and Frodo but in this case Antony Milton (who runs a cd-r label himself, Pseudoarcana) and Clayton Noone (C.J.A., Armpit) who together are known as Claypipe. Repetition and drone and field recording grit coexist with lovely acoustic guitar - it's real nice. With wistful, earnest vocals, some distorted and layered, this is neither indie-pop nor environmental ambient, but a hybrid that totally fits with Jewelled Antler 'groups' like the Blithe Sons and Child Readers, while possessing that special New Zealand magic we all adore. Seven tracks, 20 minutes, and you're left wishing it were longer. Volume 9 is a disc from SF's Muons, not a Jewelled Antler band per se, but in those guys' orbit. There's five songs here, just under twenty minutes of fragile, psychedelic folk recorded live, where they really shine. Inspired by traditional British folk music, but made soooo minimal and spacey that they've been called the "Bernhard Gunter of space-folk", the Muons make forlorn lullabys for adults. For this performance, the Muons were just the duo of Greg Bianchini and Rickey Reneau. Greg, who has played with Jewelled Antler acts Franciscan Hobbies, Thuja and Blithe Sons, is an gifted instrument maker, and on this recording plays a home-built 14-string electric lute as well as sings. Rickey plays an electric dulcimer, probably also built by Greg. Greg's languid strumming and melancholic vocals seem to drift out of the smoke and mist of another era, and could be from a lost UK psych-folk comp, although this is so slow and sad and desolate that no hippy could have made it - they'd be too bummed out. We're also reminded of some Galaxie 500, or old NZ stuff like the Chills. Certainly this is a bit different than much else in the Library series - it's got to be the most 'composed' set of songs found on any of these 3" discs. But we think JA fans will like it, a lot. It has a 'flowers in the rain' vibe that's just lovely. And the loveliness extends to the paintings Greg did for the 3" cover. Very nice. Volume 10 is from Thuja. With the series getting close to the end, it's about time for these guys to finally make an appearance (unless you count the almost-Thuja entry by black metal inspired alter ego Tomes). 20 or so minutes, 2 tracks. Again, the Thujans (Loren Chasse, Rob Reger, Steven R. Smith, and Glenn Donaldson) make some of the most beautiful and mysterious abstract instrumental improv we've heard. All we're told is that Fable was "recorded at night in the Garden of Kains, August 30, 2003". There could have been weird old hippies sitting in, or magical woodland beasts (of the past), or academic dronologists gone a bit strange on natural pharmacueticals...but probably it was just Thuja, and their music is conjuring these imaginary visitors not the other way around. All those above reviews from our archives get us up to book/disc four, volumes 11, 12, and the previously unheard by us quasi-volume 13 in the Library series. We'll briefly describe 'em here (as if you needed us to...): Volume 11 is from Fursaxa, and consists of one haunting track, "Harbinger of Spring". Nearly 18 minutes of wordless vocal drone, tumbling tribal drums, and other mysterious atmospheres. Good music for the next time you're trapped inside a Wicker Man. Volume 12 comes from Finnish freaky forest folks Kemialliset Ystavat, who always seemed like Jewelled Antler soulmates. Five tracks here of their moody, magical improvs. Primitive, krauty jams we love. And then the "bonus" Volume 13 is by Jewelled Antler act Ways Of God To Man (Christine Boepple, Kerry McLaughlin, Loren Chasse and Glenn Donaldson). It was originally released in a very limited edition on a NZ cd-r label in 2004. Despite featuring 2 former AQ employees, we never even got any... Three tracks ("Nothing", "Everything", and "Anything") of dark psychedelic throb and abstract, distorted melodic murk, over 28 minutes total. It sounds to us like Jewelled Antler's tribute to Ya Ho Wa 13! Even if you already have the other 12 volumes of the library on the original 3"s cd-rs, and getting them again on the more durable medium of actual compact disc isn't a compelling enough reason to buy this box, we'd imagine that getting to hear the Ways Of God To Man could sweeten the deal considerably. All right, considering we KNOW we're gonna run out of these right away, this review is quite long enough! Just one more paragraph to go... Need we say, pretty darn recommended. But do we have any complaints? Well, musically, not really, of course some volumes will appeal more that others but that's the deal, and you can't get 'em individually anymore anyway. Also, just in terms of physical production, any ambitious, unique project like this is bound to have a few flaws. Will the metallic foil debossing of the Jewelled Antler logo on the box top IS quite handsome, the box itself is a bit of a disappointment. It just a bit flimsier than we were expecting ("heavy chip board stock" it's not), apparently due to the difficulty of debossing on heavier cardboard. Also it's bigger than it needs to be, leaving empty space inside for the cds and cards to rattle around. Had each one been stuffed (in true Jewelled Antler style) with twigs and moss and suchlike, that would have solved the problem, unfortunately that probably proved to be impractical, but you could do it yourself once you get this! There's also just a couple of proofing errors we noticed, nothing serious (Hala Strana got left off the back of the box, alas) but it's still too bad. However, the overall presentation is still pretty nice and of course it's the music that matters. So, that said, we can only reiterate: pretty darn recommended!

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**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** Yet another incredible compilation of blues, country and gospel from the fine folks at Mississippi, this one functioning as a sort-of sequel to the all time fave Last Kind Words (which is sadly out of print), focusing on pre-war country blues and gospel, and like all Mississippi collections, featuring a good balance of familiar faves and new (for us, and maybe you) discoveries. The Rain Don't Fall On Me offers up a few tracks from folks like Blind Willie Johnson, Bukka White, Memphis Minnie and a few other names we knew, but fills the record out with rarities from unsung blues greats like Willie May Williams, Lulu Jackson, Texas Alexander, Sonny Boy & His Pals, Garfield Akers, Bayless Rose and more. Unlike other Mississippi comps, there's virtually no information with this one, no liner notes, no history, nothing about the artists or the songs, so instead of a well researched archival collection, it's more like a mixtape from a friend with possibly the greatest country and blues record collection EVER. Obviously there's a whole legion of Mississippi Records obsessives out there who will buy anything they put out, and we definitely count ourselves among them, but even beyond all the hype, these guys know their stuff, and they prove it every time, with every release. The Rain Don't Fall On Me is no exception, from Gary Davis's gorgeously grizzled super emotive vocals on "You Got To Go Down", to the almost fifties sounding croon and fantastic guitar playing of Sam Hopkins on "Needed Time", to the fluttery flute intro on "Bull Doze Blues" (borrowed/stolen/covered later by Canned Heat), to the frenzied fiery "Don't Want To Go There" by Willie Mae Williams, with its kick ass slide guitar and intense vocals, to the slithery soulful gospel of Texas Alexander's "Levee Camp Moan", to the woozy backporch boy girl harmonies of the title track, every jam here a total gem. And as with pretty much everything Mississippi puts out, absolutely recommended.

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Second volume of Yazoo's The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of series, 'The Return Of' as it says on the cover, another collection of fantastic and fantastically rare music from the twenties, blues, folk, bluegrass, all manner of American traditional music, in all their crackly glory. Unlike the first volume, which was literally a compilation of THEE rarest records that collector dreams are made of, the second volume focuses more on iconic performances and more famous recordings, tons of amazing stuff, including legendary tracks from performers like Charley Patton, Bukka White, Ernest Stoneman, Furry Lewis, Blind Blake, and loads more. But it's the unknowns (unknown to us that is) that are the most fascinating, including awesomely named groups like the Fruit Jar Guzzlers, or the Mississippi Possum Hunters, or George Edgin's Corn Dodgers. We could go track by track, but odds are if you dig cool collections of 78's, and old timey compilations, these Stuff That Dreams Are Made of collections are tough to beat. Two discs, 46 tracks, all housed in an oversized six panel dvd sized digibook, with a hilarious cover drawing by Drew Friedman, demonstrating the plight of the record collector, which is explored in great detail in the massive booklet, with liner notes detailing the trials and travails of searching out these rare records, from the folks who actually did, it's super fascinating, especially considering how different record collecting is today, and the relative availability of pretty much EVERYthing in the modern world. There's also notes on the music and the performers, as well as some cool photos of said performers, as well as a few super cool shots of old record stores!

MPEG stream: L And N Rag
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It's hard to complain about another killer collection of super rare, crackly old blues, country and bluegrass 78's. Especially when the theme of the collection is the ridiculous obsessive behavior of record collectors. We're not saying that we can relate, but heck, we can -totally- relate, as we bet most of you can too. There's a huge booklet, tons of liner notes as well as photos and assorted newspaper stories about, you guessed it, crazy collectors, but before we get to that... First the collection, an amazing array of SUPER rare tracks from an amazing array of musical legends as well as tons of folks we'd never heard of, from wild and jaunty campfire hoedowns, all sawing fiddles and knee slapping and hand clapping, to dark and soulful blues: check out one of the greatest blues tracks EVER, Son House's "Mississippi County Farm Blues", a dark minor key vamp, amazing guitar playing, and those vocals, so intense and haunting, the whole thing thick with crackle and fuzz, definitely up there with Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" And then there's Dock Boggs' "Old Rub Alcohol Blues", another crackly gem, with Boggs' weird whiny vocals, sad and strained, and some beautiful banjo. There's Jaybird Coleman, just singing and playing harmonica, so lonely and bittersweet, he's got the most amazing croon, slipping almost to a falsetto, with that perfect crack that great singers master without even trying, and an incredible vibrato. We could go on and on, needless to say, out of 64 tracks spread out over two discs, there ain't nary a clunker! But back to the record nerd angle, these discs come packaged in an oversized book style double digipak, with really funny, perfect R. Crumb cover art, as well as a comic strip inside the booklet, appropriately titled "Why I'm Neurotic About My Record Collection." The liner notes are by Richard Nevins, who over the course of a few thousand words, definitely demonstrates his collector mettle, with tales of his own cringeworthy exploits and obsessions as well as tons of amazing anecdotes about other collectors. There are a bunch of old newspaper clippings detailing the lives of folks who collect stuff like wishbones, hairs from the tails of elephants, 4 leaf clovers and even water from all over the world! There's also the sad tale of perhaps the most (in)famous collectors of all time, the Collyer Brothers. The two never left their building for over 40 years (except late at night to collect junk), filling it with tons and tons of random stuff, rusted bicycles, doors, kerosene stoves, old Christmas trees, 12 grand pianos and 30 years of EVERY daily newspaper! One brother was blind, and the other brother was attempting to cure him by feeding him 100 oranges a week, and figured that once he could see he would need to catch up on all that had happened. Woah! In 1942 the brothers were almost evicted for not paying rent for 11 years (one brother claimed it had slipped their minds). 5 years later the police were called after it was reported that there was a dead man in the house. Unfortunately the police could not get into the house there was so much junk, so they went up ladders and chopped a hole in the side of the building. They did find one brother who had apparently died of starvation. It took another whole week before they found the other brother who had been crushed by collapsing piles of junk. It turns out the other brother was paralyzed as well as blind, and died of starvation not long after his brother was killed and was unable to bring him food. Lordy! Let that be a word of warning for all you obsessive record collectors out there! Such great reading for liner notes, and such great listening too. A completely essential compilation for sure! Word of warning: be very careful removing the discs, they are incredibly difficult to get off the spindles, it requires some very careful, but very firm pulling, to get it out without damaging the discs!

MPEG stream: Mississippi County Farm Blues
MPEG stream: Up Jumped The Rabbit
MPEG stream: I'm Going Back Home
MPEG stream: Fightin' In The War With Spain

Another fantastic compilation from the seemingly infallible Omni Recording Corporation, this one focusing on hillbilly music, specifically from the vaults of Columbia Records, between 1948 and 1959, and all focused around a Dallas recording studio run by a man named Jim Beck, and had the winds of fortune blown a little bit differently, and had Beck not died prematurely, then perhaps the recording industry in Nashville would have actually ended up based in Dallas. It's an interesting story, told in great detail in the copious liner notes, as are the stories of all the artists and their songs, and oh, what an awesome collection of singers and players, most of which we'd never before heard or even heard of. A selection of some of the best hillbilly sides recorded for Columbia in the forties and fifties, lots of songs about drinking, and about women, and of course drinking AND women: "Beer Bottle Momma", "Drinking All My Troubles Away", "Red Hot Momma And An Ice Cold Beer", "There's A Bottle Where She Used To Be", "The Barroom Girl", "I'm The Devil Who Made Her That Way", and like all Omni comps, there's plenty of weirdness, howsabout "Ugly And Slouchy", a track about the joys of having a less than attractive lady friend cuz there'll "never be no fear of her loving someone else", or the darkly creepy cabaret of the title track, with it's refrain "The world is a monster, its food is man's heart". And then of course there's just a stunning array of incredible unsung country classics, from heartfelt tales of loneliness, to bittersweet ballads, super rambunctious bluegrass hoedowns, rife with wild fiddling, earnest crooning, boasting and bragging, begging for forgiveness, wondering where it all went wrong, even some yodeling, fantastic stuff. And as with all Omni stuff, there's a massive booklet with tons of rare photos and ephemera, and extensive liner notes.

MPEG stream: The World Is A Monster
MPEG stream: I'm Playing It Cool
MPEG stream: I'm The Devil Who Made Her That Way
MPEG stream: Red Hot Mama And An Ice Cold Beer
MPEG stream: There's A Bottle Where She Used To Be

Reason #954,765,841 to compile a compilation: A photo was taken of the musician by a fellow musician. Okay, granted there's more to this than meets the eye, but when an album is sub-subtitled "Recordings Of Musicians Photographed By John Cohen", you have to

RealAudio clip: Have You Ever Been Mistreated
RealAudio clip: So Long: Go
RealAudio clip: Buck Creek Girls

Volume Five of this excellent early American roots music series on the very reliable Yazoo Records dusts off another wonderful selection of rare 78 records from the '20s and '30s. It features many notable and influential folk and blues figures such as Skip

RealAudio clip: Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues
RealAudio clip: Pistol Blues

Volume Six of this excellent early American roots music series on the very reliable Yazoo record label continues on where Volume Five left off. Dusting off another wonderful array of rare 78 records, it features many notable and influential folk and blues figures from the '20s and '30s such as Skip James and Charley Patton as well as many more obscure artists. Through the hiss and scratchiness of these historical musical documents, hear the rich, reeling sounds of banjo, fiddle, guitar and voice. Oh the voices! Beautiful, distinct, passionate and often mournful, they regale tales of romance, religion and war time. 23 tracks in all.

RealAudio clip: It's Cold In China
RealAudio clip: Cheat 'Em
RealAudio clip: Caroline

If you've already got some or all of volumes 1 through 6 in Yazoo's fine Times Ain't Like They Used To Be series of early 20th century American rural roots music compilations, then your reaction to the release of volumes 7 and 8 will either be "I want more! gimme!" or "Cool, but I'm happy with what I've got for now." (We tend towards the fomer of course.) If you're new to the series, there's no reason not to start with volumes 7 and/or 8 other than being anal about getting 'em in order. These two new installments provide more fantastic old timey blues, rags and gospel music from the '20s and '30s lovingly transferred from scratchy 78s to the digital medium. Artists include Skip James, Bo Weavil Jackson, "Gitfiddle Jim", Son House, East Texas Serenaders, Dock Boggs, Red Headed Fiddler, Dilly & His Dill Pickles, and a host of others. Both Vol. 7 and 8 have thick booklets that, aside from their covers and the track lists, contain the exact same photos and informative text...which makes us wonder why Yazoo doesn't just release these as double cd sets. No matter. Yazoo, keep 'em coming!

MPEG stream: Times Has Done Got Hard
MPEG stream: Christ Arose

MPEG stream: The Steeley Rag
MPEG stream: The Train That Carried My Girl From Town

Another incredible collection from Honest Jon's, this one a compilation of early music from Istanbul, all recorded in the early part of the twentieth century, and strangely enough, according to the liner notes, all captured out of a culturally ignorant quest to gather up as much 'popular' music as possible, with various representatives of European labels and companies, the foremost being the Gramophone & Typewriter Company, doing everything in their power to record as much music as possible, eventually looking to local contacts, with some of the most prominent musicians of the day being recorded in hotel rooms or whatever space could quickly be converted into a makeshift recording studio. The liner notes explain in great detail the trials and tribulations of competing companies, the musical scene at the time, and the various musicians and their music, and while most of these names are probably unfamiliar, many of the performers here were considered, at the time to be the foremost performers / entertainers / musicians in Istanbul. Which is obvious listening to this music, even close to 100 years later, the sounds and songs here are so intense and dramatic, so passionate and utterly lovely, moving and inspired, all of the music here non religious, more folk and classical influenced, but still imbued with the same sort of spirituality, the same sense of inspiration, gorgeous flurries of Eastern sounding classical guitar, sweeping soaring vocals over almost American sounding blues, weeping strings, unfurling lush minor key melodies, incredibly complex vocals wrapped around equally intricate folk music, classical piano, gorgeous almost liturgical sounding crooning, the breadth of sounds, of instrumentation, the varied voices, the sound ranging from impossibly high fidelity, to scratchy, barely audible crackly wax cylinders, all the music linked by a common tradition, a sprawling sonic history in music, a glimpse into the past, and like all the most amazing music throughout history, a sound both timeless and of its time, so moving, so inspirational, and so utterly lovely. The cd comes in an incredible hardcover booklike packaging, the lp is quite swank as well, both with extensive liner notes and loads of amazing photos.

MPEG stream: Setaraban Taksim
MPEG stream: Sende Acep
MPEG stream: Kenarinda
MPEG stream: Evc Ara Taksim
MPEG stream: Feryat
MPEG stream: Ateslik Eder

Ah, tribute albums -- an inherently questionable genre. Here we have a tribute to the inimitable Lee Hazlewood, as interpreted by a British press fave (past and present) selection of artists: Tindersticks, Jarvis Cocker, Erland Oye (of Kings of Convenience), St Etienne, Calexico and Lambchop bringing the Americana to the party, Kid Loco, Calvin Johnson, also Stephen Jones and Luke Scott of Babybird (this is Windy's favorite track and now she has to go hunt down some Babybird records), and Evan Dando (UK music press motto: once relevant, always relevant) among others. Absent, of course, are all the covers of Lee Hazlewood songs that have been recorded over the years by artists motivated not by a label putting together a comp but by their love of the songs -- Roland S. Howard and Lydia Lunch's lovely version of "Some Velvet Morning" comes to mind. The best tracks come from artists who are great on their own, and whose sound allows for a seamless translation of Hazlewood's unique take on drifter pop: the Tindersticks doing "My Autumn's Done Come," Calexico with Valerie Leulliiot's "Sundown, Sundown." At worst, the groups' attempts at Hazlewood classics serve as a reminder that you could be spending your time listening to "Cowboy in Sweden" or "Nancy & Lee" instead of, say, sitting through Evan Dando's brilliant idea to put a phaser on his weak ass voice in what I guess is some kind of attempt to live up to Hazlewood's trademark whiskey soaked baritone for "Summer Wine." The most interesting part of this collection comes from the liner notes -- they are comments on what the man himself has to say while listening to these covers. A few times he questions the choice of songs: "it's just the intro to an album.. It's another unfinished song...They chose all the moody things, didn't they?" About the Tindersticks: "Is English his first language?" Overall, he seems pretty pleased with the results and intrigued by what the bands chose to do with the songs: "They all put something interesting into these songs, which I like," even if sometimes he is just being polite: "Yeah, allright, it's interesting. That trumpet sound makes it... interesting," and several times he comments that specific tracks are superior to his own recordings. And well, who's opinion is most important here, anyway? Added bonus: the booklet contains choice photos of Hazlewood flanked by faux mustache sporting children.

RealAudio clip: we all make the little flowers grow
RealAudio clip: some velvet morning

The always awesome Sutro Park label strikes again with another impeccable reissue, this one focusing on a type of music that, sadly, too often slips through the cracks of history when discussing blues or early modern styles. Not because it isn't awesome - oh, it is - but because the stuff on this platter resists easy categorization. As indicated by the title, the focus here is on "Negro Fife And Drum Music From The Deep South". This unique hybrid style brought together African polyrhythms and syncopation with fife and drum routines from the American and British militaries, resulting in a sound that wasn't quite modern OR antiquated. Rather, it was both... or maybe neither. The liner notes bring up the fact that most of the songs "conform roughly to the 'Bo Diddley' beat", which is apt for music that seems both primal and ready to stomp through the twentieth century. One thing is certain, the heavy rhythms presented here can be seen as a spiritual and literal precursor not only to blues and eventually rock n roll, but also jazz, disco, and hip hop just to name a few. And we certainly couldn't neglect to mention the priceless reaction of one customer who came in and wondered if we were listening to Einsturzende Neubauten! Which, actually does make sense if you were just wandering into a record store with incessant militaristic marching rhythms blasting out of the speakers. The fifes (and some Sonny Terry-styled vocal whoops) are generally the only accompaniment to the rhythms, adding a vocal quality that carries the majority of the melodies, though the drumming itself is also strangely melodic and enveloping. Some of the earliest songs here were recorded in 1942 while the majority are from 1970, and it's interesting to note a strict adherence to the form with very little, maybe even nothing changing in those years. A few of the names here are familiar to us - Otha Turner, R.L. Boyce, and the legendary Sid Hemphill - and the recording sessions took place locally in Mississippi and Georgia, though some of the musicians made their home in Tennessee, making this a uniquely regional phenomenon. The music represents a distinct fusion of African and African-American cultures, with the emphasis obviously on rhythm, even when handling traditional folk songs. As many of the musicians were old enough to remember life in the late 1800s, they were basically the lone adherents of what might have been perceived as a lost or dying art which had never been recorded commercially, having been performed mostly at picnics, dances, and parties. The notes make mention of how the younger drummers preferred playing instrumental pieces as they allowed for greater improvisation than the older minstrel pieces with their fairly rigid patterns, which in a way sounds like the beginnings of modern music as we know it, where tradition and style are used as a springboard to something else entirely. The results are not only interesting from a historical standpoint, but also a pleasure to listen to and an excellent tutorial on the progression of rhythmic music in the twentieth century.

Collection of archived recordings, many of them never before released, of Delta area blues musicians recorded between 1947 and 1953 by Joe Bihari for Modern Records. Accompanied by Ike Turner, then a talent scout for his label (who was responsible for

An almost note-by-note, word-by-word, clap-by-clap re-enactment of the soundtrack to Robert Altman's 1975 masterpiece 'Nashville'. If you're a fan of the movie, then you'll know exactly what this is all about! Paying tribute to this film's music is Ms Carolyn

RealAudio clip: Memphis
RealAudio clip: Rolling Stone

There's no shortage of incredible reissue labels, and depending on our mood, or what record just came out, we could go any way if forced to pick, but honestly, we find ourselves always coming back to Omni, not only are their reissues incredibly and meticulously researched and curated, with extensive liner notes, rare photos, all that jazz, but the sounds are bizarre and beautiful, balancing precariously between unsung country classics, and the demented dark underbelly of country music, we love both, but definitely lean toward the latter, and thankfully, so does Omni it seems. As if to prove that point, along comes Troubled Troubadours, another collection of sick twisted country sounds, which on the surface, aren't so obviously twisted, but dig a little deeper and these songs blossom into far out tales of misery and woe, murder and mayhem, even one about shooting God! Weird indeed. There are some musical moments of madness, the bizarre looped vocal / Theremin sounding main melody on Homer And Jethro's "Monster Mash" sounding "A Crept Into The Crypt And Cried" for example, but then there's intense dark musical gems like Waylon Jennings' "Delia's Gone", a brooding dark creep complete with haunting sitar buzz. Dolly Parton contributes two tracks, one a haunting tale of an abandoned mother, the other, a harrowing tale of a women committed, and longing for her Daddy to come set her free. And then there's the aforementioned "Are They Gonna Shoot God", a weepy melodramatic soft focus hippy country ballad, where a little boy asks his daddy if they're gonna shoot God, while an angelic chorus echoes the question. Weird. Porter Wagoner is present of course, Omni has already done two Wagoner collections, and here Wagoner tells the tale of "Waldo The Weirdo". Cargill Henson makes an appearance too, after two of his own Omni collections, with the reverbed jangle of "Daddy, What's A Tree?". There's Bobby Bare's "Your Credit Card Won't Get You Into Heaven", a cautionary tale, all gospel organ and baritone croon, and Lester Flatt's "I Can't Tell The Boys From The Girls", another cautionary tale of sorts, about dating in the big city, and so it goes. Every song, no matter how traditional sounding on the surface, hiding something sick or sinister, hilarious or goofy underneath. If you dug any of the other Omni records, Porter Wagoner, Dee Mullins, Johnny Paycheck, Lorne Greene or the Plantation Gold collection, which was a former Record Of The Week, then odds are you're gonna dig this too. And most definitely recommended to any fans of incredibly strange music. Country or otherwise...

MPEG stream: Delia's Gone
MPEG stream: Are They Gonna Shoot God?
MPEG stream: Waldo The Weirdo
MPEG stream: Push The Panic Button
MPEG stream: I Crept Into The Crypt And Cried

Presented by the Country Music Hall Of Fame, here's a great collection from what's one of Allan's favorite country western genres, the truck driving song! Songs about truckstop waitresses, black coffee, night runs, little white pills, and dangerous curves (of

RealAudio clip: Diesel Smoke (Dangerous Curves)
RealAudio clip: Six Days On The Road
RealAudio clip: Gear Bustin' Sort of a Feller

No this is not a Loverboy tribute album, though that might be cool... to absolutely no one! No, what we have here is a finely curated collection of rare 78 rpm tunes from obscure little known players, that investigates the fringes of commercial vernacular music. Odd instrumentation including singing saws, raucous Irish drinking songs, fiddle dances, children's tunes, charmingly off-kilter vocals highlight a quality of down-home music that is far from the norm of what most folks expect from American old time music. While maybe not quite as unhinged or bizarre as we usually like our "outsider" music to be, this is still wonderful old timey stuff, a thoroughly researched and highly listenable collection put together by expert Frank Fairfield, one of the most prominent modern practitioners of old time music working today.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. "Cayman has a remarkable fiddle tradition with US country & Scottish roots, and Creole drumming under Tortola's fungii group mix of guitar of mandolin with washtub-bass"-John Storm Roberts / Original Music.

Oh how we love old 78s! The "antique" but still effective analog technology offering a window into the dusty past, the once-lively musical traditions of fading cultures from around the world, the atmospheric patina of surface crackle... Nowadays, thanks to collectors like Robert Millis, Jonathan Ward, Ian Nagoski, and (in this case) Frank Fairfield, there's been some great compilations of 78 rpm treasures released on more modern formats for us all to enjoy, often sourced from 78s the "ethnic" realm where there's still lots of good digging to be done by these dedicated souls. If you loved Victrola Favorites, Excavated Shellac, The Black Mirror, Sprigs Of Time, or other collections we've had along those lines, then the aptly titled Unheard Ofs & Forgotten Abouts is right up your alley! There's a selection of 16 rare gramophone recordings presented here, all culled from the archives of Frank Fairfield, an LA musician whose own efforts are inspired by the sorts of old timey stuff he digs up on 78. This is basically a "mix tape" of a bunch of his faves, bound by no stylistic or geographic restrictions. Amongst these tracks, which range in date from as early as 1916 to as late as 1964 (they were still releasing music on 78s in the sixties, in Africa), you get bagpipes from Scotland and France, blues from the States, festive dance music from Japan, field recording of Hopi hunting song, Indonesian "tembang" singing, Southern (and Midwestern) fiddlin', Byzantine liturgical chant, a Gypsy orchestra from New Jersey, "anonymous Sudanese wandering minstrels", and more. All all wonderful stuff. One of the big highlights for us might be the "exotic" Tahitian groove of George "Tanutu" Archer's rhythmic "Ama Ama" from 1945, which is what's practically rock n' roll played on pahu (Tahitian bass drum) and guitar, with chanted vocals. Surf music starts here! Also, "La Bamba" takes on a whole new character in the version heard here, by Mexican folk harpist Andres Huesca and band. And sinners take note, this disc winds up with the powerful sermonizing and testifyin' of one Reverend Frank Cotton, a not-entirely-spoken word piece entitled "By The Pool Of Siloam" that really stirs up the flock! Compiler Fairfield provides detailed liner notes on each track in the cd booklet, giving learned historical, musicological, and technological perspective on the recordings. It's clearly a labor of love, and comes highly recommended by us.

MPEG stream: Hundred Pipers/Miss Drummond Of Perth/Sleepy Maggie
MPEG stream: Pius Ogola
MPEG stream: Ama Ama

Out of all the American folk musical forms, Sacred Harp singing is arguably the most strangely beautiful. With songs dating back to as early as 1840 and rooted in Northern European 'shape note' singing traditions, Sacred Harp singing is a white gospel musical form developed in the rural south as a means of social gathering and group worship. It was not designed to be performative nor were there really any formal touring groups (though early recordings have been miscredited to "The Alabama Sacred Harp Singers", they were more like rotating singing societies with designated song leaders centered around local church congregations and communities). For these 1959 recordings at the 56th Annual United Sacred Harp Convention in Fyffe, Alabama, singers were farmers, laymen, townsfolk and children who gathered every summer for all day singing functions, and it never mattered if they had good singing voices. The whole group is divided into four harmonic parts in a square formation with a group song leader situated at the hollow center of the square. Song leaders call out the hymn number and sing the tonic note of their section and each group follows suit with their section. Each participant is allowed to add their own embellishments to their designated section and all four parts sing off each other creating a cascading vocal round with astonishing peaks and valleys of harmony. Since each part is singing different lines simultaneously, it's hard to understand the actual words being sung, but the fervent energy brought out by so may singers is incredible to experience, reminding us of what could be the audio equivalent of the beautiful sight of large flocks of starlings flying in complexly shifting formations. This was the second of three times Alan Lomax had tried to capture the strange beauty of Sacred Harp singing, and the first time using stereo equipment. Nice vinyl on Mississippi with liner notes from Alan Lomax's three recording sessions. Incredibly beautiful!

Old Hat seems to be picking up the slack from Yazoo these days when it comes to reissuing American roots music. On the last AQL we got the "Music From the Lost Provinces" disc, which was great, and now comes a pair of great discs showcasing black fiddle players from the 20's and 30's. For while the fiddle was a prominent instrument in black string bands way back when, it's been all but disassociated from blues and jazz in the present. So what happened to the violin's place in black string bands to relegate it from lead instrument at the turn of the 20th century, to being all but unused before the century was half way through? And why isn't the violin used more often in the blues today? Maybe it comes down to ergonomics; the lone singer with a guitar not only has an easier time with singing and playing, but certainly cuts a more striking pose with his ax than a fiddler. While it's generally agreed that guitarists were indeed more popular than fiddlers at the dawn of commercial recording, the editors of these discs argue that recording companies were extraordinarily biased towards recording guitarists for the sole interest of profits from record sales. So what's new? That might explain the blues, but what about jazz? At the birth of jazz during the 1920's there were more violinists in New Orleans' Storyville (according to the local registry of musicians and bands) than the now ubiquitous horn players. That, I suppose, can be chalked up to volume. A loud horn section will always have an edge playing to large audiences in an urban setting such as New Orleans. What Old Hat has collected here are some of the finest examples of fiddle players who were, by some thankful foresight, preserved for our edification and enjoyment. And for what is lacking in quantity of fiddle recordings available from this period is made up for in quality. The majority of tracks here were recorded between 1926 and 1935 (with one straggler taken from a 1948 session). The greatest thing about the music on these discs is that it's not "jazz" and it's not "blues" per-se either. Performers themselves took the liberty of calling their tunes "_________ (insert word here) blues" even when the tunes didn't follow the rigid parameters of the blues chord progression. This in the hopes of capitalizing on the increasing popularity of the new genre. The popular form of the day, ragtime, spawned both blues and jazz. Among many greats included here are the wonderful Mississippi Sheiks (B's personal all-time favorite), a track with Charlie Patton backing up fiddler / vocalist Henry Sims on guitar and the legendary Howard Armstrong (a.k.a. Louie Bluie) & Ted Bogan [be sure to check out the documentary Louie Bluie about Armstrong & Bogan by Terry Zwigoff if you can]. Old Hat has done a fine job with both of these, as with all of their reissues, including excellent liner notes and historic photos. Highly recommended!

MPEG stream: Stop & Listen Blues No. 2
MPEG stream: Ted's Stomp

**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** Okay Mississippi Records obsessives, get ready to blow your tops. Besides the amazing Been Here All My Days comp reviewed on the last list (grab one if you haven't yet, it's fantastic!), there are five, count 'em FIVE other new Mississippi titles this time around: I'll Meet You On That Other Shore, I'm Gonna Live Anyhow Until I Die, I'll Be So Glad When The Sun Goes Down, Worried Now, Won't Be Worried Long and Wave The Ocean, Wave The Sea, all culled from a legendary set of Alan Lomax field recordings, collected during his "Southern Journey, a trip he took through the American South, between the years 1959 and 1960, accompanied by British folk singer Shirley Collins, during which he made the first ever stereo recordings of American Traditional music in the field, capturing in stereo for the first time, music from Southern prison farms, the traditional gospel choral folksong of the Sacred Harp, the Southern Fife And Drum Corps, the debut recordings of blues legend Fred McDowell, not to mention an incredibly varied selection of musics from blues to bluegrass to country to gospel, captured on porches, at dairy farms, in churches, at picnics, state fairs, in prisons, in living rooms and in bars, many of the musicians, many of the folks Lomax had recorded before, and was visiting again, years later, while many were new discoveries. According to the extensive liner notes, Lomax upon returning to the US, after a decade long recording trip in Europe and the UK, was hailed as a hero, responsible for the revival of interest in American folk music, but was quite disappointed by all the young people playing the folk music and traditional American music he helped discover, record and expose to this new audience, an audience that seemed to believe not only were they preserving the music, but also in some strange way "improving" on the originals, which horrified Lomax and spurred him to make the trip that would be later known as his "Southern Journey", not only to capture stereo recordings of all this amazing, still thriving American music, but to also prove those young folks wrong. The results speak for themselves, 5 lps of gorgeous, unique, heartfelt American music, instrumental and vocal, celebratory and sorrowful, ballads and bluegrass hoedowns, gospel spirituals and military marches, call and response prison songs and back porch blues, and so much more. This is classic, timeless music, sounds imbued with the sweat and blood, the lives and deaths, the loves and losses of the American people, past and present, moving and emotional, and totally fantastic... As for which one of the five to buy, it's a tough call, they're all fantastic, and the music is varied on each, they're not divided by theme or style, instead, it's more like a sprawling 5 part compilation, each as good as the next, so yeah, obviously if you can, you should buy all 5, but if that's too much, heck, just pick one, maybe with a title that appeals to you, and dig in. Odds are you'll be back for more. Packed in super heavy jackets, with printed liner notes on the back, each volume containing a big booklet, with photos and more notes on each of the different tracks and all of the various performers.

We haven't had a new solo guitar compilation in awhile. Last couple of years it seems we were inundated with them, marking the new and old waves of what is often called "American Primitive", a dubious term like "Freak folk" that no one likes to use anymore, but a more accurate or useful term to describe this genre has failed to materialize. While past comps focused on the founding touchstones of John Fahey, Robbie Basho, and Leo Kottke, and their modern offspring, Jack Rose, Sir Richard Bishop, and James Blackshaw, there have been plenty of overlooked stop-gaps in between these generations that have failed to garner the same kind of adoration or reverence. Often unfairly relegated to the "New Age" trashbin of recording culture, solo guitarists such as Alex Degrassi, William Ackerman and Michael Hedges focused on a more melodic (and often more technically showy) pastoralism, which represented to some the death-knell of innovation for the genre from its raw and altruistic beginnings. The latest compilation in the Numero Group's Wayfaring Strangers series sets to alter that perception by focusing on 14 private press recordings of solo guitar between 1968 and 1980 that chronicle the fertile and adventurous spectrum between Fahey and Ackerman. While a couple of the names are familiar (Richard Crandell, William Eaton) most of the players we haven't heard of including: Dana Westover, Ted Lucas, Scott White, George Cromarty, Daniel Hecht, Jim Ohlschmidt, Stephen Cohen, Mark Lang, Tom Smith, Dan Lambert, Brad Chequer and Dwayne Cannon. A 40 page booklet chronicles each of the artists with reproductions of all the album covers and biographical information in a beautifully illustrated package. Another milestone in a great series from this always-awesome label!

MPEG stream: Raga In 'd'
MPEG stream: Diagonal
MPEG stream: The Delta Freeze
MPEG stream: Strawberry Man

Could it really be time to take a look at the influence of Joni Mitchell? We never would of thought it before, but then again reissue label Numero Group oftens make strange and surprising choices in their releases. After releasing 3 compilations in a series of eccentric soul from the DeepCity, Capsoul and Bandit labels they do a complete 180 and begin a new series called Wayfaring Strangers. This first one is dedicated to the immediate influence of Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon and the wave of femme folk it inspired throughout the early seventies. Here, they focus on 12 gems from obscure or little known female recording artists. A lot of customers who gave no second thought to immediately buying up all of the Eccentric Soul series, seem to be in a quagmire about this one, and not many people are taking the bait”yet. While Joni haters will probably steer clear of this comp, for those of you on the fence let us assure you that the twelve rare cuts on this disc, culled from mostly private press releases, are not all Joni imitations. While Mitchell's influence is obvious, each artist brings their own unique and varied take to their songs (all originals with the exception of Ellen Shaw's cover of Marianne Faithful's "Sister Morphine"). The Numero Group does an outstanding job with the packaging as always, devoting a full 2 page spread to each artist with full color original album artwork and profiles on each artist. These records are crate digger's dreams, and the visuals and bios only serve to enhance the fragile homemade sincerity and beauty of some of these songs. Highlights include Shira Smalls "Eternal Life", a rumination on math and spirituality recorded at a Quaker boarding school, and Collie Ryan's "Cricket". Like the mighty Ladies of the Canyon itself, this CD may take repeated listening to work its charms. But there is no doubt in our minds that if you saw any one of these original records in a thrift store, bargain bin, or garage sale, you would whisk them away immediately, heart pounding as you brought them home and put them on, thanking your lucky stars that there is still magic in such simple things. Nice!

MPEG stream: Cricket
MPEG stream: Eternal Life
MPEG stream: Wildman