Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

More Holes Than Swiss Cheese:

It's very difficult to put out a 4 CD history of Bluegrass music and leave as many gaps as does this compendium. There's some great music here, much of which isn't Bluegrass at all, but old-time Country Music (e.g. Gid Tanner, Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole, etc). But Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, and Flatt & Scruggs account for 50+ cuts. There isn't a single inclusion by Reno & Smiley, The Osborne Brothers, Jim & Jesse, The Country Gentlemen, Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, Jimmy Martin, Mac... more info

What a deal:

Hard to find a better deal than this one--over 100 vintage songs in a four-CD set (lasting about five hours) at a price that doesn't break the bank. The selection of songs is well conceived: a strong emphasis on the Monroe Brothers (a total of about an hour and a half, including the entire second disk, is devoted to them alone), along with well known songs by other classic bluegrass singers (such as Flatt & Scruggs, Stanley Brothers, Delmore Brothers), and a very interesting first disk containing... more info

some of the best music ever made in America:

The 109 cuts in this box set document the evolution of bluegrass from its roots in early 20th-Century mountain string bands. Before the set ends in 1950, Bill Monroe, followed shortly thereafter by the Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs, has formalized a genre -- it had yet to be called "bluegrass" -- from which formula, more than half a century later, performers within the genre depart at their peril. The songs (and occasional instrumentals) are well chosen, and the sound quality is cleaner and... more info

Tracks:

1. Hop Light Ladies - Ernest V. Stoneman & His Dixie Mountaineers
2. Ain't Nobody's Business - Earl Johnson's Clodhoppers
3. Carve That Possum - Uncle Dave Macon
4. Unlucky Road to Washington - Ernest V. Stoneman & His Dixie Mountaineers
5. Hold the Woodpile Down - Uncle Dave Macon
6. Go Long Mule - Uncle Dave Macon
7. I Get My Whiskey from Rockingham - Earl Johnson's Clodhoppers
8. Red Hot Breakdown - Earl Johnson's Clodhoppers
9. Careless Love - Ernest V. Stoneman & His Dixie Mountaineers
10. Buddy Won't You Roll Down the Line - Uncle Dave Macon
11. Sally Goodin - Ernest V. Stoneman & His Dixie Mountaineers
12. Susie Lee - Uncle Dave Macon
13. Western Kentucky Limited
14. Hard to Love
15. Shady Grove - The Prairie Ramblers
16. Hawkins Rag - Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers

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