19. The Original Carter Family – The Carter Family 1927-1934 (Disc A)
May 3, 2010
Okay! There are 5 discs in this little collection. Like I said before, I’m going to be doing this set one disc at a time since it appears to be very lengthy.
Made up of A.P., his wife Sara, and her cousin Maybelle, they traveled to Tennessee from Virginia in 1927 to audition for a talent scout. Their recording career began almost immediately. Johnny Cash refers to the audition of the Carter family in 1927 as the single most important event in country music history. A.P. learned songs on his travelers, jotting down notes and making small revisions. It was enough to get him composers credit, and the Carter family were among the first to get their songs copyrighted, whether they wrote it or not. I’m not a huge fan of country, but I do enjoy “old” country on occasion, and I’m honestly looking forward to listening to this. I think because, Tom Moon describes this a trip through our country’s history.
Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow – Okay, given the song title, I shouldn’t have cracked a smile when I initially heard this, but I couldn’t help it. It was exactly what I expected it to be. For those of you may not know what type of music this is, it would have fit in nicely on the soundtrack to the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” Its an expected start.
Keep On The Sunny Side – Probably one of the first “catchy” songs ever recorded. This was recorded in 1928 before the Great Depression, but a year later I bet this song would give a little hope to a lot of hurting people.
Forsaken Love – This song sounds just a bit different from the others. My problem through this album hasn’t been the lyrics or the vocals, but most of the songs have about the same tempo and the same “sound”.
Sweet Fern – This song is my favorite so far…one word: yodeling.
My Clinch Mountain Home – one of the few songs that A.P. wrote himself. He needs to sing more often, he has such an authentic sound in his voice.
Well, it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping it would be. The music was pretty much the same over the 25 tracks. I’m hoping the other CD’s are different, because if not, by the time I get to the last one, I’m not going to be liking this even a little bit.
Thanks to Tom Moon, and to Cactus Music in Houston for ordering this box set for me.
REgarding the songs sounding the same, well, I guess the thing to remember is that in 1928, there weren’t albums per se (I’m guessing here). Songs were probably recorded and sold individually, if that’s how it was done, and there wasn’t consideration to how they would sound next to each other.