This is the tenth volume in
Bluebird Records
' superb
When the Sun Goes Down: The Secret History of Rock & Roll
series. Drawing on the extensive
Bluebird
and
Victor
back catalog of vintage 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s 78s, this installment, subtitled
East Virginia Blues
, traces the roots of
honky tonk
through the Appalachians, where modal European song forms collided head on with the Africanized rhythms of the
blues
, creating the springboard for contemporary
country
rock & roll
. What keeps this collection from simply being an archival project is the careful and deliberate sequencing, which turns variety into a virtue and keeps the pace of things fresh and interesting. Highlights include an early version of
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken"
by
the Monroe Brothers
,
Wade Mainer
's
"Down in the Willow,"
and the original version of the vicious murder
ballad
"Tom Dooley"
G.B. Grayson
Henry Whitter
. The first two megahits of
are here,
"The Prisoner's Song"
"The Wreck of the Old '97,"
Vernon Dalhart
, both of which turn on massive doses of deliberate melancholy.
Dick Burnett
"Constant Sorrow"
is here in an early version by
the Hall Brothers
, recorded a full decade before
Ralph Stanley
took a shot at it. The historical and musical roots that fed into the creation of modern
folk
, and
rock
are all present, and like the other titles in this series,
does an admirable job of showing that the contemporary music listened to nowadays didn't show up fully formed out of thin air. ~ Steve Leggett