Beyond Nashville: the Twisted Heart of Country Music
Beyond Nashville: the Twisted Heart of Country Music
Nashville is the centre of the country music industry, but the driving roots of “real” country extend far beyond its boundaries, from Memphis and San Antonio to NYC. Beyond Nashville, an exploration of this “real” country music, features copious sleeve notes and tracks by key artists from the hillbilly 1920s to the present. There are rich pickings: from the bluesy yodelling of consumptive pre-war star Jimmie Rodgers, to Woody Guthrie’s fiery harmonica and social realism (forefather of Bob Dylan), to Carl Perkins’ joint-jumpin’ rock & roll take on country. Also here are 1970s groundbreakers such as Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and the Flying Burrito Brothers–who fused country with rock–and current young turks such as Alejandro Escovedo and Jim White who play a cowpunk groove. In fact, this 42-track double CD has too many artists to mention, making this a highly recommended sterling collection. –Lucy O’Brien
Customer Review: Beyond belief
This is an exceedingly good introduction to all those of us who thought that country music was restricted to blankets on the ground and D.I.V.O.R.C.E. The chronological approach clearly demonstrates that there has always been ‘alt-country’. Indeed, the royal familay of country music, The Carter Family have been peddling high quality music from at least the thirties.
The first CD is very good, but the second is excellent. I’d not heard of many of these artists before, but I sought them out and am now happy to have albums by ‘The Handsome Family’ in particular in my collection.
There is so much heart in nearly all these tracks, but the soul of some of them is dark, to say the least.
This is what country music is all about, the inclusion of a less well known Johnny Cash track exemplifies the depth of variation that is possible under the umbrella description of country. There is life outside of Nashville, but not as we know it, and nary a sign of a rhinestone or dodgy stetson.
Treat yourself to something different, you won’t be dissappointed.
Customer Review: The whole doggone’ history…on 2 CDs
I got into Bluegrass while living inTexas (returned to UK recently for a couple of years before going back). this CD explains it all, without any books…..great historical insight into origins of genre. recommended
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The Best Country Album in the World…Ever
The Best Country Album in the World…Ever
Customer Review: (Hardly) The Best Country Album In The World Ever (Sadly)
It was inevitable that those lovely people at Virgin Records would include a “Country” collection into their ever-so popular “Best…….Album In The World Ever!” series. However, this compilation from 1994 - a time when Virgin were churning out “Best…….Ever!” albums on what seemed like a weekly basis - is a rather lame attempt to make “Country” music appealing. The biggest letdown for this reviewer is that actual title of the album itself. Without the insertion of tracks by genuine country legends such as Hank Williams Sr, George Jones and Loretta Lynn (to name but a few), this collection can never hope to be any sort of definitive “Best Country Album….Ever” compilation.
The majority of the 40 tracks on this double CD collection are taken from the late 1960s and the 1970s when country music crossed over into the mainstream charts on both sides of the Atlantic (and most other countries for that matter). It’s hard to choose the most popular tracks here as the individual records sold millions upon millions worldwide. Yet it’s unlikely you won’t recognise such ‘classics’ as Stand By Your Man, Rhinestone Cowboy, Jolene, Blanket On The Ground (etc). Although this compilation is filled with hit after hit (thankfully, it’s hard to find a ‘filler’ on these 2 CD’s) my only gripe is these songs are more ‘Pop’ (Dr Hook, Bobby Gentry) than ‘Country’ (Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves). Still, that only reflects the direction country music took during that time period.
Some of the tracks used are not the definitive versions. Roy Orbison’s version of “Cryin’” was more country and more of a hit than Don McLean’s version featured here, and Elvis’ take on “The Promised Land” stood head and shoulders above Johnnie Allan’s interpretation. And if the majority of the songs here are taken from the aforementioned time period, there’s an awful lot of classic songs overlooked here: D.I.V.O.R.C.E, Take Me Home Country Roads, Harper Valley PTA, Ruby Don’t Take Your Love To Town and Talking In Your Sleep to mention a few best sellers from the time the majority of this album focuses on.
Despite my criticism, this isn’t a bad compilation…….it’s just not “The Best Country Album In The World Ever”. What it is, is a collection of “radio favourite” songs that could’ve easily been packaged together as “The Best Easy Listening Album Of The Seventies” and sold under that pretence. For those who wish to be introduced to what country music SHOULD sound like, opt for the compilation entitled “Q COUNTRY” which was released around the same time.
Customer Review: What can I say? - wonderful!!!
Since I first heard this album when I was just eleven years old I’ve wanted to get my hands on a copy. There just isn’t a better album around for me. Now I know what your thinking, “What a sad bloke! He listens to country music, I’m not listening to him!” But think again. I never bought, or even listened to, a country album in my life except this one and I still love it. With the likes of “I will always love you” and “Wind beneath my wings,” even the most hardcore country-hater will enjoy this album, and for those of you who can even get into a bit of that thigh slappin’, yee-hawing stuff you’ll just love the classics such as “Achy-Breaky Heart” and “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Fun, fast, slow and easy….if you want it, you’ll find it somewhere in this album. Superb.
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Country Ballads: the Greatest Country Love Songs in the World… Ever
Country Ballads: the Greatest Country Love Songs in the World… Ever
Customer Review: A wide-ranging compilation with diverse styles
This double CD of pop-country music includes songs from the fifties to the nineties. Brooks and Dunn (Long goodbye), LeAnn Rimes (How do I live), Shania Twain (You’re still the one), Shelby Lynne (Lonesome), Eva Cassidy (It Doesn’t Matter Anymore) and Lonestar (Amazed) represent the modern era.
Elvis Costello (Good year for the roses), Lee Greenwood (Wind beneath my wings), Kenny Rogers (Lady) and Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton (We’ve got tonight) are represented by songs that became UK pop hits during the eighties, a decade that country records were are rarity in the UK pop charts. The Judds wrote and first recorded Love Can Build A Bridge (included here) in the late eighties. It later topped the UK charts when a cover was recorded for charity by a group of singers including Cher. Also included from the eighties is Willie Nelson’s superb cover of Always on my mind.
Lynn Anderson (Rose garden), Johnny Cash (A thing called love), Dr Hook (If not you, A little bit more), Olivia Newton John (If not for you), Crystal Gayle (Talking in your sleep), Ray Stevens (Misty), Bellamy brothers (If I said you have a beautiful body) and Faron Young (It’s four in the morning), Charlie Rich (The Most Beautiful Girl), Tammy Wynette (Stand By Your Man), Billie Jo Spears (What I’ve Got In Mind) and Kenny Rogers (Lucille) all had UK top ten hits in the seventies with those songs although Tammy had actually recorded Stand by your man in the sixties, seven years before it became a UK hit. Dolly Parton (I will always love you) and Kris Kristofferson (Help me make it through the night) did not have hits with those songs, but covers of them became huge hits for other singers.
From the sixties, you will find Glen Campbell (Wichita lineman, Honey come back, Gentle on my mind), Bobbie Gentry (I’ll never fall in love again), Jim Reeves (I love you because), Jeannie C Riley (Harper valley PTA), Bob Dylan (Lay lady lay), Patsy Cline (Crazy), Leroy van Dyke (Walk on by), Kenny Rogers (Ruby don’t take your love to town), Hank Locklin (Please Help Me, I’m Falling), Eddy Arnold (Make The World Go Away), and Roy Orbison (Dream baby). Green green grass of home became a number one hit for Tom Jones but here you get the chance to hear Bobby Bare’s country version.
The oldest tracks are, of course, the two Everly brothers songs (All I have to do is dream, Bye bye love), the only fifties songs included here.
For anybody who does not have any country music in their collection, this is a great introduction to it. For country fans, this gathers together a lot of great songs in one handy package.
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Vaughan Williams - Complete Symphonies etc
Vaughan Williams - Complete Symphonies etc
Needless to report, Adrian Boult’s credentials in this repertoire are unassailable, and to have nearly all of his stereo Vaughan Williams recordings for EMI so elegantly packaged and enticingly priced will be incentive enough for many a prospective purchaser. There is much to treasure here, not least those gently perceptive accounts of the first three symphonies, as well as the fifth and the ninth. All the same, the fires burned more brightly on Boult’s earlier mono cycle for Decca (Symphonies 1-8 are still available within an unmissable super-budget Belart box) and there is some oddly listless orchestral playing to contend with in both the Sinfonia Antartica and the eighth especially. The fourth and sixth, too, find the New Philharmonia on less than ideally tidy form. The disc of shorter orchestral items and the gorgeous Serenade to Music offers mostly unbridled pleasure (with Hugh Bean a memorably serene soloist in The Lark Ascending), as does Boult’s fourth and final recording of Job, though here, too, tension levels are markedly lower than on either of his mono versions (try hearing Boult’s 1954 LPO version). No matter, for all its ups and downs, the present anthology undoubtedly offers fine value for money. ––Andrew Achenbach
Customer Review: PROBABLY THE BEST ALL-ROUND SET OF VW SYMPHONIES
The VW symphonies have done remarkably well on disc. Complete cycles by Previn, Haitink and Tod Handley all make substantial claims. Individual symphonies from Richard Hickox, Andrew Davis, Vaughan Williams himself and, of course, ‘Glorious John’ Barbirolli (as VW christened him) also demand attention. But, if you’re looking for a complete overview of the Vaughan Williams symphonic canon (plus quite a lot of substantial extras) then this Boult set is probably still the best all-round recommendation.
Even he has a substantial rival in his earlier self on Decca, conducted under the gaze of the composer who delivers a touching speech of thanks to the players at the end of the pianissimo finale of the Sixth Symphony. This earlier Decca version probably has the edge for urgency and thrust in the quicker movements, but the sound on these later discs benefits enormously from the full warm stereo production typical of EMI in the 70’s and also benefits from Sir Adrian’s lifetime experience of these works.
In many ways, it is the earlier symphonies that come off best in this series. A wonderfully full-blooded Sea Symphony with a finely disciplined chorus, excellent soloists in John Carol Case and Sheila Armstrong (though she can’t eclipse the magical Isobel Baillie in the older Boult set), and a rich Kingsway Hall acoustic get the set off to a fine start. The London Symphony was always special with Boult: he managed to achieve an ideal balance of symphonic thought with the touches of Edwardian period colour. The jingles of the hansom cab in the London fog and the cries of the street vendors come off particularly well here. But don’t ignore Hickox’s magnificent recording of the substantially longer original version. The Pastoral, too, is beautifully sustained in Boult’s hands: the succession of slow, mostly quiet movements always glows with Pastoral intensity for him. Maybe his disciple, Vernon Handley, penetrates deeper into the dark echoes of the composer’s experiences as an ambulance driver in the Great War.
The Fourth - “I don’t know if I like it, but it’s what I meant,” in VW’s famous quote - is full of barely restrained power, but perhaps would benefit from a bit more urgency at times. The Fifth, arguably the most symphonic of all the symphonies despite the Pilgrim’s Progress origins of much of its material, gets an authentically profound performance with the LPO. Maybe we are closer to its Pilgrim origins here than to the symphonic arguments behind their transformations. And there is serious competition in this symphony from Barbirolli (his 1st recording), from Haitink and from Handley. Haitink is the most ’symphonic’, Barbirolli the most impassioned, Handley probably the most balanced.
The Sixth is fine, suitably violent and desolate by turns, but doesn’t quite match Boult’s blistering earlier recording. The Antarctica is curiously lack-lustre here - Haitink’s is the revelatory performance of this symphony. TAnd the Eighth has always seemed to be the special domain of its dedicatee, Barbirolli, who had the key to unlocking its mixture of wild and wonderful orchestration (including “all the ‘phones and ’spiels known to the composer”) with its cryptic symphonic argument (exemplified by the Variations without a Theme of the opening movement). The enigmatic Ninth seems to elude most conductors, including Boult here. Handley comes closest to revealing its dark Hardyesque mysteries.
There are two additional discs of extra stuff in this slimline box, all beautifully played. Specially noteworthy are a Serenade to Music that comes close to matching Henry Wood’s original line-up of soloists, Hugh Bean as a magically carolling Lark Ascending, a real rarity in the Double Piano Concerto and a great Job, perhaps the VW work closest to Boult’s heart.
This set is excellent value for money and, for a complete collection of the symphonies, probably the best all-round recommendation - though Tod Handley runs it pretty close. Maybe the bonus items tip the balance Boult’s way.
Customer Review: Boult’s final tributes to Vaughan Williams
“You got the score right into you and through you into the orchestra.”
So wrote Vaughan Williams to the thirty year old conductor Adrian Boult in 1918 after a performance of A London Symphony. Subsequently Boult conducted and championed Vaughan Williams’ works constantly. Many times he recorded and premiered them. This slim-line box, containing all the symphonies and many other items, all recorded in stereo and mostly in the warm Kingsway Hall acoustic between 1967 and 1975, ought therefore to be self-recommending.
It must be said that Vaughan Williams as a composer has tended to polarize listeners. Detractors say that he had neither the architectural vision nor the construction skills necessary for a symphonist. They point to the fact that he himself hesitated to name and number many of his works as symphonies, and that one of them is merely a re-cycled film score. They contain, moreover, many awkward and ungainly rhythmic figures that tend to cheapen them. Champions argue that the music is wonderfully evocative of its time, that many beauties are to be found therein, and that at least three of the works deserve to remain in the international repertoire forever.
Internet browsers, wondering which Vaughan Williams purchases to make, need to balance several factors before selecting this box. The octogenarian conductor, Sir Adrian Boult, directs with authority and knowledge, but nevertheless does not always elicit the very best performances (as in No 7) available or the very best performances of his own recorded versions (as in No 2 and No 6). Against this must be balanced the benefits of relatively modern recording and reprocessing, together with the benefits of low cost and compactness.
Perhaps there are no other internet browsers who, like me, heard Vaughan Williams conduct. At an orchestral concert in London in the early 1950s, devoted to his works, he conducted his own Fourth Symphony. As a young audience member I reckoned that he obviously was not the world’s best conductor. A tall, big-framed figure, he kept his eye on his own score and beat time with the baton. Nowadays, I am happy to recommend and own this box of his works, while ensuring however that other versions of them are in my collection.
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My Kind of Country [US Import]
My Kind of Country [US Import]
Customer Review: Back to the old days
Reba’s last official Mercury album, Behind the scene, was more traditional than its predecessors but her first MCA album, the brilliant but often overlooked Just a little love, had more of a pop-country sound to it. So, this album came as something of a surprise, with its ultra-traditional sound reinforced by the cover picture showing Reba set against a mountainous background – something that pop-country fans would instinctively steer clear of unless they also like traditional country.
The album includes a mix of oldies and originals. The oldies include songs that were originally recorded by Connie Smith, Faron Yong and Ray Price but none of them are all that well known. Before I met you is the one most likely to be recognized by traditional country fans, having been recorded by several country stars including Charley Pride. Porter and Dolly did an excellent duet version of the song.
As with Just a little love, only two singles were released from the album, these being How blue and Somebody should leave. To the delight of all traditional country fans, they both reached number one on the country charts, thus allowing Reba to continue recording this kind of music. Have I got a deal for you, Merry Christmas to you and The last one to know followed in a similar style.
The instruments used include steel guitar, dobro, bass, lead guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards and fiddle - no surprises there, but two drummers are credited. On this album, you have to listen hard to hear either of them.
If you enjoy hearing Reba sing traditional country with plenty of fiddles and steel, this is for you.
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Country Roads
Country Roads
Customer Review: Summer Memories
First heard this tune years ago, done by jonny cash. Recently heard this ver. in the clubs in Greece over the summer, loved it. A must buy for any easy clubber who like a chant-a-long song!
Customer Review: Fantastic, this is going to be a big hit
The first time I heard this song I smiled from start to finish. The more the song went on the more I liked it. I think this is deemed to be a Christmas No 1 and I can see it being really popular at Christmas parties. Anyone who can listen to this song without their feet starting to tap must be made of wood. Brilliant!
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