Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
(8 customer reviews) 68 of 77 people found the following review helpful
Sony Doesn't Understand Bluegrass!,
December 2, 2004 Todd A. Gracyk (Petaluma, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Can't You Hear Me Callin: Bluegrass 80 Years (Audio CD)
This is a stupid box set given its stated objective. The back cover of the box states, "All the major figures of bluegrass, and a number of the music's most intriguing, if lesser-known, purveyors, are here." Granted, there is some great music here, but what is the point? Any serious fan of bluegrass and old-time country music will have about 60% of these recordings; the remaining 40% or so are mostly a curiosity.
The Byrds never made a bluegrass record, so why does Sony/Columbia include 4 tracks by them but none by Don Reno & Red Smiley (there is some later work here by Reno)? Why include the O'Kanes but ignore the Country Gentlemen? Why present the Dixie Chicks but not Emmylou Harris?
Alas, this box set also features no Jim Eanes, no Earl Taylor (the first bluegrass artist to play Carnegie Hall), no Buzz Busby, no Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, no Lilly Brothers & Don Stover; no Hylo Brown, no Doc Watson, no Mac Martin & The Dixie Travelers; no Charlie Moore, no...Read more
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Nice, far-ranging overview...,
September 29, 2004 DJ Joe Sixpack (...in Middle America) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Can't You Hear Me Callin: Bluegrass 80 Years (Audio CD)
An impressive 4-CD collection that spans eight decades and draws heavily on the Sony vaults, including material from their Columbia/CBS/Epic/Monument/Sony Classical back catalog, as well as a generous helping of tracks from other labels, such as Acoustic Disc, ARC, Bluebird, Capitol, Decca, Dot, E-Squared, OKeh, RCA, King, Mercury, MGM, Monument, Rounder, Sugar Hill, Vocalion and Warner Brothers... Obviously, this is not the "ultimate" bluegrass collection, but that elusive item is probably something best left to individual collectors to assemble in the privacy of their own homes... But for a major-label overview, this is pretty darn cool. Many of the major players and foundational artists are included: The Carter Family, Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, The Stanley Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Carl Story, The Osborne Brothers... And flanking this pantheon on either side are early pre-grass stringband artists such as Roy Acuff, Molly O'Day, Charlie Poole and Gid Tanner, or young'uns who have...Read more
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
You're bound to discover something new about the genre,
January 6, 2005 J. Ross "a-music_fan" (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Can't You Hear Me Callin: Bluegrass 80 Years (Audio CD)
This 4-CD box set with 109 songs captures the American bluegrass music tradition. This is quite an undertaking. Consider their objective to cover 80 years of music. Old-timey seeds planted by Gid Tanner and Charlie Poole in the 1920s are included. Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, and Flatt & Scruggs are well-represented with about 20% of the tracks. But so are the Carter Family, Roy Acuff, Carl Story, Arthur Smith, Osborne Brothers, Jim & Jesse, Jimmy Martin, The Byrds, Herb Pedersen, Ricky Skaggs, Blue Ridge Ramblers, Coon Creek Girls, Bailes Brothers, Molly O'Day, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper, Mac Wiseman, Carl Butler, Louvin Brothers, Joe Maphis, Don Reno, Grandpa Jones, The O'Kanes, Mark O'Connor, Dixie Chicks, and Alison Krauss. What, they're not all bluegrass! I guess it's all in how you define the genre.
Songs from nearly two dozen record labels is included. A 58-page booklet comes with the CDs, and it has some excellent liner notes by Billy Altman and Ralph Stanley. This...Read more
