17 classics cut by the original Carters (A.P., Sara and Mother Maybelle) in 1935, plus three more in 1940! Includes the unreleased-as-a-78 Worried Man Blues; Cannon Ball Blues , and Sinking in the Lonesome Sea , plus He Stopped Loving Her Today; Wildwood Flower; Single Girl, Married Girl; The Storms Are on the Ocean; I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes; Keep on the Sunny Side; My Clinch Mountain Home , and more timeless tracks.
18 classics of early Country music from the genre's pre-eminent originators. The Carter's unprecedented repertoire of Anglo-Saxon folk songs helped them secure a unique position in American musical history by helping establish the Country and Hillbilly genres in the immediate pre war years. These recordings made between 1927 and 1934 are the true roots of Country music. Tracks include ""Wildwood Flower"", ""My Clinch Mountain Home"", ""The Foggy Mountain Top"", ""Keep On The Sunnyside"" and ""I'm Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes"".
(12-CD LP-sized box set with 220-page hardcover book, 307 tracks. Playing time approx. 933 minutes) 'The single most important event in the history of country music.' That was how Johnny Cash characterized the first Carter Family session in Bristol, Tennessee in 1927. That epochal first session is here, together with all of the recordings made by the original Carter Family between 1927 and 1941. Here are the Anglo-Celtic ballads, mountain songs, blues, and popular songs that formed the bedrock of country music, rendered as plaintively and hauntingly as only the Carter Family could render them.
'Country people have always been sacred and sentimental people,' declared Carter Family patriarch, A.P., and the 307 songs collected in this unique complete 12-CD edition reflect that judgement. This collection includes all of the Carters' recordings for Victor, ARC, Decca, APS, Columbia and Bluebird complete for the first time. Here are the original versions of country and folk classics like Wildwood Flower, Wabash Cannon Ball, The Storms Are On The Ocean and, of course, Will The Circle Be Unbroken.
Many of these recordings are appearing for the first time on CD, and the sound of these ageless classics has been presented in best possible sound without damaging their integrity or purity. All known photographs of the original Carter Family have been included. Mother Maybelle's personal photo collection has been included as well as all the photos belonging to Janette Carter, some previously unpublished, and there is a full-length newly-researched Carter Family biography by preeminent country music historian Charles Wolfe. 'These recordings are archetypal and timeless,' writes Wolfe. 'They are as elemental as the wind or water, and have the simple beauty of the landscape of (the Carter's home in) Poor Valley. It is hard to underestimate the importance of the Carter Family to country music, and to American music in general'. The set includes a taped interview by Ed Kahn and Mike Seeger with both Maybelle and Sara in 1963. It also includes a written introduction by Johnny Cash.
17 classics cut by the original Carters (A.P., Sara and Mother Maybelle) in 1935, plus three more in 1940! Includes the unreleased-as-a-78 Worried Man Blues; Cannon Ball Blues , and Sinking in the Lonesome Sea , plus He Stopped Loving Her Today; Wildwood Flower; Single Girl, Married Girl; The Storms Are on the Ocean; I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes; Keep on the Sunny Side; My Clinch Mountain Home , and more timeless tracks.
(5-CD LP-size Box-Set with 120-page hardcover book. 124 tracks for a playing time of 385:19)
'The single most important event in the history of country music.' (Johnny Cash, on the 1927 Bristol sessions)
The foundation of country music! An unsurpassed storehouse of traditional American music! Features the first recordings by the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. The legendary sessions issued complete for the first and only time, including the ultra-rare follow-up sessions from 1928!
THE STORY: The recording trip made by VICTOR RECORDS to Bristol, Tennessee in July-August 1927 was a defining moment in country music. Producer Ralph Peer found two acts that acquired national and international fame: Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. But more than a hundred other recordings were made at the Bristol sessions of 1927 and '28. There were ballad singers, street evangelists, string bands, gospel quartets, harmonica virtuosos, Holiness preachers, blues guitarists and rural storytellers. A snapshot of rural American music was caught in an era of rapid change: pictures of a past almost beyond recall, but preserved for ever in these magnificent recordings.
The five CDs in this set gather every surviving recording from these sessions, including alternative takes. The accompanying 120-page, LP-sized hardcover book contains newly researched essays on the background to the sessions and on the individual artists, with many rare and unpublished photographs. Also included are complete song lyrics and a detailed discography, illustrated with reproductions of the original recording sheets.
