Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia - Jimmie Rodgers
2. Sail Away Ladies - Uncle Dave Macon
3. Wildwood Flower - The Carter Family
4. Trail to Mexico - The Blue Sky Boys
5. Runaway Train - Vernon Dalhart
6. When the Saints Go Marching In - Fiddlin' John Carson, Moonshine Kate
7. All Night Long
8. Red Wing - Riley Puckett
9. I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes - The Carter Family
10. Goin' to the Barn Dance Tonight - Carl Robinson & His Pioneers
11. Go Long Mule - Uncle Dave Macon
12. Frankie and Johnny - Jimmie Rodgers
13. Three Men Went a Huntin' - Byrd Moore & His Hot Shots
14. My Man's a Jolly Railroad Man - Moonshine Kate
15. Waiting for a Train - Jimmie Rodgers
16. Georgia's Three-Dollar Tag - Fiddlin' John Carson
17. Jamestown Exhibition - Bayless Rose
18. Lay Down Baby, Take Your Rest
19. Backwater Blues - Uncle Dave Macon
20. Wreck of the Old '97 - Vernon Dalhart
21. Little Old Sod Shanty on My Claim - Marc Williams, Marc Williams
22. Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow - The Carter Family
23. In the Hills of Tennessee - Jimmie Rodgers
24. Ida Red - The Blue Sky Boys, Curley Parker
25. Alto Waltz - Darby, Tarlton Walker

Disc 2:

1. John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man - The Carter Family
2. Gambling Bar Room Blues - Jimmie Rodgers
3. Little Bessie - Alabama Barnstormers
4. Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms - Buster Carter, Preston Young
5. I'm Goin' Away in the Morn - Uncle Dave Macon
6. Papa's Billy Goat - Fiddlin' John Carson
7. Hackberry Trot - Hackberry Ramblers
8. Abbeville Breakdown - Alley Boys of Abbeville
9. Tiger Rag Blues - The Breaux Fr�res
10. Louisiana Mazurka - The Breaux Fr�res
11. Step It Fast - Am�d� Breaux
12. High Steppin' Mama Blues - Gene Autry
13. T for Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1) - Jimmie Rodgers
14. Anchored in Love - The Carter Family
15. Jimmie Rodgers Visits the Carter Family - The Carter Family
16. Hard for to Love - The Carter Family
17. Yellow Rose of Texas - Gene Autry, Jimmy Long
18. Brave Engineer - The Carver Boys
19. Taxes on the Farmer Feeds Them All - Fiddlin' John Carson, Moonshine Kate
20. Hold the Woodpile Down - Uncle Dave Macon
21. Man of Constant Sorrow - Emry Arthur
22. Rambling Boy - Jimmie Rodgers
23. My Little Lady - Jimmie Rodgers
24. Two Italians...Red Bird - Monroe Gevedon and Family

Disc 3:

1. Orange Blossom Special - Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys
2. Brown's Ferry Blues - The Delmore Brothers
3. Row Us over the Tide - The Blue Sky Boys
4. Big Rock Candy Mountain - Burl Ives
5. Oklahoma Hills - Jack Guthrie
6. Nine Pound Hammer - Merle Travis
7. Cannonball Rag - Merle Travis
8. Red River Valley - Gene Autry
9. Mule Skinner Blues - Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys
10. Great Speckled Bird - Roy Acuff & His Smokey Mountain Boys
11. Take It to the Captain - The Delmore Brothers
12. Garden in the Sky - The Blue Sky Boys
13. Ain't That a Cryin' Shame - Merle Travis
14. Milk Cow Blues - Johnnie Lee Wills
15. When My Blue Moon Turns Gold Agian - Gene Sullivan, Wiley Walker
16. Footprints in the Snow - Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys
17. You Can't Do Wrong and Get By - The Delmore Brothers
18. Why Should It End This Way? - The Blue Sky Boys
19. Cotton-Eyed Joe - Tommy Duncan, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
20. Night Train to Memphis - Roy Acuff & His Smokey Mountain Boys
21. You Are My Sunshine - Rice Brothers
22. Rounder's Blues - The Delmore Brothers
23. Rocky Road Blues - Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys
24. Wabash Cannonball - Roy Acuff & His Smokey Mountain Boys
25. It Makes No Difference Now - Gene Autry
26. Pig Meat Strut - Merle Travis
27. No Letter in the Mail - Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys

Disc 4:

1. This Land Is Your Land - Woody Guthrie
2. House of the Rising Sun - Woody Guthrie
3. Grand Coulee Dam - Woody Guthrie
4. John Henry - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston
5. All I Want - Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger
6. Talking Union - Pete Seeger
7. Teeroo Teeroo - Pete Seeger
8. I Know an Old Lady - Burl Ives
9. Columbus Stockade - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston
10. Sinking of the Reuben James - Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger
11. Boll Weevil Blues - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston
12. Away Rio - Almanac Singers, Pete Hawes
13. Coast of High Barbary - Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger
14. Jackhammer Blues - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry
15. Liza Jane - Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry
16. Pastures of Plenty - Woody Guthrie
17. Cumberland Gap - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry
18. Casey Jones - Pete Seeger
19. Cumberland Mountain Bear Chase - Pete Seeger
20. So Long (It's Been Good to Know Yuh) - Woody Guthrie
21. Union Maid - Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger
22. Hard, Ain't It Hard - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston
23. Erie Canal - Pete Seeger
24. Pretty Boy Floyd - Woody Guthrie
25. State of Arkansas - Lee Hays
26. Worried Man Blues - Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston
27. Deliver the Goods - Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger
28. Do-Re-Mi - Woody Guthrie

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #387811 in Music
• Released on: 2000-05-23
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Import

Customer Reviews

some of the history of American folk music, anyway
Odd that something with a title and subtitle so grandiose as this collection's has no songs by African-American artists on it. After all, black Americans have played a huge role, from spirituals to blues and all points between, in the creation of our country's folk and vernacular music. Here, as far as I can tell, only two African-Americans appear, and in secondary roles on disc four: Sonny Terry and Josh White. For the sort of racial integration that more truly defines our grassroots music, you'll have to go to Yazoo's splendid ongoing series on Early Rural American Music.

That -- no small consideration -- aside, American Roots is a good deal, financially of course, but also artistically. The no-frills packaging assures the absence of a fat (or even thin) booklet of liner notes, explaining what compiler Tony Watts's selection criteria were. They're certainly unusual, though they shouldn't be; unlike many of his colleagues, Watts apparently has no trouble seeing that Gene Autry, Roy Acuff, and Merle Travis have as legitimate a claim to a place on the folk-music spectrum as do the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, and Fiddlin' John Carson, whose archaic styles are more obviously tied to earlier Southern traditions. Watts documents the debt early country innovators had to the sounds that came before them as well as the creative, personal approach they contributed as they invented a more modern music. And listening to Travis's flat-picking instrumental "Cannonball Rag," you can hear the music coming full circle; Travis pupil Doc Watson would make Travis's jazz-inflected city sound into something most people assume to be organic Appalachiana.

Disc four moves from the South to New York City, where the Communist Party's Popular Front and singing Stalinists Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, Cisco Houston, and Woody Guthrie created the urban folk revival. This disc contains one of American Roots' two genuinely repellant songs (the other is on disc one -- Vernon Dalhart's "The Runaway Train," bearer of what passed for humor in 1931 but seven decades later comes across as crude and stupid racism). In a 1940 reworking of the traditional "Liza Jane" into an anti-war agitprop exercise, we are reminded that during the Hitler-Stalin pact, Seeger, et al., cravenly followed the Soviet line, which was that World War II was all about the machinations of British capitalists and none of America's business. Later, in the same disc, Seeger and the Almanac Singers are performing a vigorous, full-throated, chirrupy anti-Hitler tune, "Deliver the Goods," done in 1942 after Hitler had attacked Russia and it was okay to oppose Hitler again. The hypocrisy is not pretty to hear. Side four also serves to remind us that where sheer talent is concerned, Guthrie was head and shoulders above the rest.

The sound quality on all four discs is decent on the whole. Inexplicably, however, there is annoying surface noise on Burl Ives's "The Big Rock Candy Mountain," hardly a rare recording. But for the price, I guess it's churlish to demand perfection. Anyone who loves American folk music, or at least that part of it sung by European Americans with (mostly) Southern accents, should have this worthwhile and entertaining anthology in his or her CD collection.

Oh, I wish for more from Disky--hurrah, hurrah!
This wonderful, very low-priced collection from Holland's Disky label features 104 tracks of country and pop-folk music from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s. The unusually good sound quality on the earliest tracks, to say nothing of the radio-style intros on several numbers, lead me to suspect that much of this was recorded for, or from, radio broadcasts. For example, one of the Carter Family tracks is entitled "Jimmie Rodgers Visits" and features classically hokey Opry-style banter. Unfortunately, there are no liner notes, though at least recording years are listed on the inserts. Contrast the casual nature of this European "roots" collection with the pretentious hoopla that normally accompanies domestic issues of the same type. Strange and, in a way, refreshing.

The best material is the earliest, and this includes tracks by Uncle Dave Macon, the meter-challenged Fiddlin' John Carson, the elegantly-named Earl Johnson's Clodhoppers, The Carter Family, and Gene Autry, among others. Early Bluegrass abounds, and long before it is alleged to have existed--check out Byrd Moore and his Hot Shots from 1930, Hayes Shepherd's 1927 bluegrass banjo playing, and Uncle Dave Macon's "Sail Away Ladies," also from 1927, a call-and-response number in pure Bill Monroe/Carl Story style. Early country crooning is represented by Jimmie Rodgers, Vernon Dalhart, and Gene Autry--the latter sounding atypically downhome on 1931's "High-Steppin' Mama." Elsewhere, Moonshine Kate makes like Bessie Smith on "My Man's a Jolly Railroad Man" ("His engine's number eleven"), and Riley Puckett offers a smooth, cowboy-crooner rendition of "Red Wing," which was an oldie even then (1927, again). These tracks are superbly representative of the earliest recorded country.

The third and fourth CDs feature more commercially familiar string-band styles, 1940s bluegrass, highly nimble Django-Reinhardt-influenced guitar picking by Merle Travis, and the "Crazy Tennesseeans" of Roy Acuff. Of particular interest are Travis' "Pigmeat Strut," which was ineptly lifted, in part, by Scotty Moore on Elvis Presley's "Just Because," and a song called "Oklahoma Hills," the melody better-known as "Cottonfields." Woody Guthrie, Cisco Huston, Peter Seeger and the Almanac Singers, and other pop-folk greats close the collection. The highlights: A lovely, mixolydian-mode melody on Guthrie's 1941 "House of the Rising Sun;" Pete Seeger's energetic banjo workout "Cumberland Bear Chase" (1944), a version of a tune-with-narrative recorded in the 1920s by the Hill Billies; and Seeger's "Talking Union" (1941). "Talking Union" found new life many years later as Dick Feller's apolitical rant against bad customer service, "The Credit Card Song."

Sound quality ranges from acceptable to fabulous. An incredible deal. I wish for more from Disky.

a lot of music for the price, but not much else
Like the first reviewer, I too was struck by the lack of African American representation in a collection titled "American Roots." I can't really imagine how this might have happened, except perhaps because the collection comes from a Dutch record company, though even that explanation seems rather untenable. The lack of any documentation in the box set only exacerbates this oddity.

You sure get a lot of songs here, and the range of material is useful for a collector of old timey music - I particularly appreciated the inclusion of "I'm A Man of Constant Sorrow" and the Pete Seeger repertoire. Again, though, there's zero documentation on the history of these selections, and specific information like recording dates and record labels is really missed.

For the completists in the audience, you'll want this collection. For interested amateurs, you'll probably be better off with either the Harry Smith's AAFM or the many series put together (and well documented) by Yazoo. In fact, there are probably links above this review to at least one Yazoo series.

Bottom line: lots of songs but little explanatory information.