THE SACRED SHAKERS is the work of a Boston-based group of folk, blues, and roots-rock musicians who first started playing old-time traditional gospel tunes at a series of Sunday afternoon gospel brunches at a local club. The 14 tracks on this rollicking album are all traditional gospel tunes, both well-known and fairly obscure, delivered with the energy of early rock & roll and the down-home sentiment of traditional blues. Highlights include a spirited "I'm Gonna Do My Best" and "Titanic," a folk blues based on the sinking of the famed passenger ship.
"American Epic" compilation series is a collection of releases of music associated with the film series "The American Epic", a historical documentaries are a journey back in time to the "Big Bang" of modern popular music. In the 1920s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies were forced to leave their studios in major cities in search of new styles and markets. Ranging the mountains, prairies, rural villages, and urban ghettos of America, they discovered a wealth of unexpected talent. The recordings they made of all the ethnic groups of America democratized the nation and gave a voice to everyone. Country singers in the Appalachians, Blues guitarists in the Mississippi Delta, Gospel preachers across the south, Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana, Tejano groups from the Texas Mexico border, Native American drummers in Arizona, and Hawaiian musicians were all recorded. For the first time, a woman picking cotton in Mississippi, a coalminer in Virginia or a tobacco farmer in Tennessee could have their thoughts and feelings heard on records played in living rooms across the country. It was the first time America heard itself.
This 10-CD set is as good a compendium of the genius of Louis Armstrong as anyone could wish for. It’s all here: the early years with the King Oliver and Fletcher Henderson bands, the glorious period of the Hot Fives and Sevens, the big band recordings of the Thirties, the collaborations with contemporaries such as Ella Fitzgerald. Then there are the later recordings, when Satchmo’s celebrity empowered him to soar over many political and racial divides. There’s also a fascinating unreleased Hollywood Bowl concert from 1956, a CD of “out-takes” from recording sessions, and a revealing interview with Dan Morgenstern.