American Primitive, Vol. 2

Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues The life of blues legend Robert Johnson becomes the centerpiece for this innovative look at what many consider to be America's deepest and most influential music genre. Pivotal are the questions surrounding why Johnson was ignored by the core black audience of his time yet now ce...	Good For What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows 1926-1937 (Digipak with 72-page booklet) Earning Their White Stripes. "But what I'm listening to most of the time at present is an album called Good For What Ails You, which is an album of songs that people used to listen to at medicine shows all over the States. It's quite an interesting album and I think that people w...	Anthology Of American Folk Music (Edited By Harry Smith) This impressive--and frankly, fun--musical document is still sending out shock waves almost 50 years after its original 1952 vinyl release. The Smithsonian's six-CD reissue is painstakingly researched, annotated, and packaged (even boasting an enhanced disc for the techno-capable...	Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1891-1922 If you believe Robert Johnson was the first to play rock ’n’ roll, listen up. Records made by African-American artists in the 1890s anticipated by decades the essentials of jazz, rhythm and blues, rock ’n’ roll—and yes, even Robert Johnson. Unlike the pioneer blues and ja...	In Search of the Blues Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton-we are all familiar with the story of the Delta blues. Fierce, raw voices; tormented drifters; deals with the devil at the crossroads at midnight. In this extraordinary reconstruction of the origins of the Delta blues, historian Marybet...
Down In The Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s 1926-1937 (Jewel Case with 28-page booklet) Declan McManus Pumps It Up. Joe Bussard. "He's an eccentric record collector who's preserved all sorts of magical corners of music - although he says things like, 'There are no good jazz records made after 1927.'" Elvis Costello - Esquire UK October 2005 "This is the music of...	The Unreleased Recordings At the peak of his career in 1951, Hank Williams recorded 143 songs for the Mother's Best Flour Company. Hank sang with his regular studio band and recorded his hits as well as many songs he never recorded commercially anywhere else. From this amazing legacy, Time Life is proud t...	R. Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz, & Country Anyone who knows R. Crumb’s work as an illustrator knows of his passion for music. And all those who collect his work prize the Heroes of the Blues, Early Jazz Greats, and Pioneers of Country Music trading card sets he created in the early to- mid-1980s. Now they are packaged ...	Little Honey Lucinda Williams has always been adept at painting landscapes of the soul, illuminating the spirit's shadowy nooks and shimmering crannies -- but she's never captured the sun breaking through the clouds as purely as on her new Lost Highway release, Little Honey The album feature...	Goodbye, Babylon Goodbye Babylon is a 6 CD gospel reissue collection. 5 CDs contain 135 songs from 1902-1960 and the 6th disc is comprised of 25 sermons recorded between 1926-1941. Also included is a 200 page book complete with Bible verses, lyric transcriptions, and notes for each recording, plu...

PURE ETHER
I can't get enough of these two discs - I really can't! I'd say why don't they make music like this anymore but truth is the America that this music was made in vanished a long, long time ago. Grab your kazoo and get ready to be transported to the ancient future! This music is completely and absolutely HIGH GRADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU SENOR FAHEY!

An eclectic collection of old time music
From the Captain Beefheart and Albert Ayler box sets, to the Doc Boggs cd release, I've been hard pressed to find a cd by Revenant that I don't love. That said, while I do have a few minor complaints, this two disc set is no exception: It features a wide range of rare and very eclectic old time American music, featuring songs that run the gamut from amusing to astounding listening experiences. Anyone with an interest in music from this era should have no reason not to like this collection, that is unless they already have most of these songs. But, as someone who fancies himself a collector of old time music (on cd, at least) I only had three or four of these songs prior to my purchase. Now for the complaints, minor though they may be: The elements of mystery and primitivism have been emphasized, sometimes at the expense of valid and readily available information. Though we have little info pertaining to most of these performers, some vital facts have been omitted in the interest of conceptual continuity. Even the oldest and perhaps most mysterious song present, "Poor Mourner" is described in a much more elaborate manner in the "Lost Sounds" collection, including biographical information on the "revenants" who apparently appeared to record the song and then vanished. Moreover, "Lost Sounds" even features another song by the same duo. I wouldn't be bothered otherwise, but this lack of information just makes me wonder what else is missing. My only other complaint is concerning the large gap between "Poor Mourner" (recorded in the 1890's), and the rest of the songs in this collection (picking up in the early 1920's). It would've been nice to have a more balanced sampling without such a huge gulf separating one recording from the rest. As mentioned earlier, these are mere quibbles when one considers just how great the tracks are, and what an invaluable collection this is to any lover of old time music.

Non-homogenized peoples' music: Get it here
Hard to describe the kick I got out of the record American Primitive Vol. 2. It's up there with Harry Smith's Anthology for sure. This predates homogenized America. The idea that there was a unique mysterious wisdom, or just misterioso, floating around on the foggy marshlands of America - well for my money it goes back to Poe, maybe Irving. But it was out and about outside of literature, in song Americana immemorial no doubt. No matter what I think: this foggy mist of an idea gained a big shot in the arm with Greil Marcus's Invisible Republic in 1997. I take it that Revenant's archive is a John Fahey archive. He was the central figure/performer at the label running up to his death. Over the years, Fahey's fantastic blues scholarship and collecting was overshadowed by his mystical and precise guitar work. A monograph on Charlie Patton was one of his greatest contributions to blues studies. This American Primitives series pay homage to the barnstorming musicians of the southern past , but also to Fahey. Fahey appears in the liner notes to American Primitive Volume 2 as writer Scott Blackwood describes meeting up with him in Chicago. In Chicago for a gig, a scant Fahey is staying in a hotel near where Blind Lemon Jefferson died. We know that give or take a few years Fahey, who is just returning from a long skid row slide, doesn't have long for terra firma. Blackwell couches the conversation - they stop at a Salvation Army to, like guerillas, insert some recent Fahey 78 recordings in record bins - with reference to Borges and mystery for the sake of amazement. Odd, I know I found Fahey's Blind Joe Death in a Salvation Army record bin. NuGrape transubstantiatin' "Revenant" it seems, means `a spirit who returns after a long absence. "Crucial to the Revenant ethos is the notion of the neglected gem." And so, American Primitive forgoes Blind Willie McTell, Memphis Jug Band, or Scrapper Blackwell, because they have been covered in previous prospecting. So on this Vol 2 we have the Salty Dog Four, Pigmeat Terry, and Two Poor Boys doing Ballin the Jack, Black Sheep Blues and Two White Horses. Alfred Lewis doing what I called BlueFrog Blues. Clarinets over imagined pie-stealing hobo soft foot shuffles. You got the hiss, the high-droning banjos, kazoos, juke joint pianos and harmonica combs moaning low, haunting violins. Did you ever hear churchbell tone? The voices are not trained. They come as messages from beyond. You sense the location of the recording could be a hotel of the `30s, or a crossroads dessert radio station ala Oh Brother. The harmonies are one-ofs. Could not be reproduced in commercial Nashville studio day without significant economic disruption.

Note on sound quality
For any complainers out there, or more importantly any interested listeners who are concerned about the sound quality herein, don't be. The remastering is wonderful, and if this type of music had no tape defects, hiss or background distortion, well then it would be a much different experience altogether - one you wouldn't recognize as the rugged and nocturnal sound of music coming from the era of the Great Depression. Revenant consistently gives us an honest and pure sound, and while it isn't always perfect, it is when compared to the alternative - not having these recordings to listen to at all.

Manic hillbilly jam sessions... drunken ragtime jamborees... backcountry kazoo virtuosos... droning banjo ragas...
I feel like I should clarify a few things right away here... 1. I haven't heard American Primitive Vol. I 2. I am far from an expert or even really a fan of Americana / roots / blues / folk / old-timey jazz / etc. 3. There are many things I'd rather do than listen to a bunch of digitally remastered scratchy old 78rpm records 4. I love this album... Billed as "John Fahey's final curated work for Revenant," American Primitive Vol. II inspires a very rare and exciting sense of wonder and discovery in each of its 50 tracks. You feel as if you've been granted exclusive access to a secret, forgotten, and neglected library of old recordings that have been buried in dusty attics and rickety storage sheds for decades. Of course, Revenant Records seems to specialize in sonic revelation, previously lavishing upon us two of the greatest CD box sets of all time -- Charlie Patton: Screamin' and Hollerin the Blues and Albert Ayler: Holy Ghost. It would be pointless to attempt a track-by-track description of this two disc set -- just dive in head first and enjoy the ride... You'll hear spooky gospel dirges... manic hillbilly jam sessions... yelping bluesmen... drunken ragtime jamborees... freewheeling Appalachian shape note singing... backcountry kazoo virtuosos... droning banjo ragas... barely coherent harmonica solos... barroom jazz-folk-blues ballads... scary sung/spoken fire-and-brimstone sermons... For a few precious minutes, each track transports you to some kind of strange yet very vivid alternative early American universe. The sound quality is surprisingly clear and clean throughout, especially considering the age (and likely condition) of some of the source recordings... in fact, some of this music sounds so "modern" (or "post-modern?") that you almost wonder if it's all some kind of elaborate Fahey-esque prank (some of the liner notes make you wonder too...) Perhaps my jaded ears can hardly believe that there was once a time when a recording could be so raw, sincere, unpretentious, unproduced, and defiantly "unmarketable." While these records were all apparently "professionally" recorded and produced in one way or another, they have more of the unaffected sound and spirit of "amateur" home recordings. John Fahey and Revenant should be saluted as American heroes for preserving and sharing these forgotten treasures for all of us to hear. American Primitive Vol. II is evidence of an American musical past far more varied, eccentric, exciting, and just plain fun than you've ever imagined. As an added bonus (just as you'd expect from this label), the artwork, packaging, and extensive liner notes are a total class act. Vol. I, here I come...