A star-forming explosion of old, weird, cosmic American music
Only a handful of recordings can be called genuinely historical – and then only in retrospect: Robert Johnson at the Gunther Hotel in San Antonio (1936), The Beatles with George Martin at Abbey Road (1962) and, of course, Ralph Peer’s Bristol, Tennessee sessions of 1927 and ’28.
The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers were “discovered” at Peer’s temporary field studio, set up in a hat factory, but anyone listening to this 5-CD collection without the benefit of a cast list would not necessarily pick either out as the “best” (though, it has to be said, the consummate “blue yodeling” was already in place). There’s superbly accomplished playing from the very first track on the first CD, by Ernest V Stoneman and some of his many compadres.