Appalachian music reviews

I try to buy all Bernstein recordings, and this one, his digital remaake of some veyr famous early recordings, is slow, inflated, and jost not anywhere near a match for the hip, Jazzy Bernstein that sprang on the scene and single-handedly revitalized classic music in America. Maybe worth owning as a legacy recording, but missalbe otherwise.

The adagio for strings is performed beautifully - very delicate, with a confidently joyful ending that's very breakable at the same time. This alone is worth the price of the CD, which is a good thing, since I have heard better performances of the two other pieces.

Both "rhapsody" and "spring" are to sterile, to classical to my taste. (And this is just a matter of taste! If you prefer clean/perfect performances, don't read on but buy this now.) Rhapsody is saved by the piano, however, played quite jazzy and with some very interresting tempi. The orchestra misses some swing, unfortunately. (Then again, I've always preferred the version for two pianos.) As for Appalachian Spring, the orchestra sounds a bit like a caged bird - the music (especially the wind sections) never jumps out to soar in freedom, rather being content to perform an image of the real thing.

This CD is a must-have for anyone who (a) loves Leonard Bernstein, (b) loves Gershwin, Barber, or Copland, (c) just loves music in general. Bernstein does, as always, a marvelous job conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The Rhapsody in Blue, one of my favorite pieces, is perfect. It's upbeat, "swingy," and an all around a must-have rendition of a purely "American" work. The Adagio for strings is moving and solemn, as well it should be. The voices of all the strings are clearly brought out and no instrument over-powers another. Finally, Appalachian Spring, another one of my favorite pieces, and yet another "American" masterpiece. Having listened to many renditions of this piece, I have concluded that only Copland himself could have done a better job conducting. Overall, this is a gorgeous CD that anyone who loves music must buy.

Elisabeth Cotten picks the guitar beautifully, and the fact that she plays it left-handed with righthanded stringing (Albert King style) makes the melodies unusual and special. Her guitar technique is spotless.
Problem with the CD is her singing. At age 85, she really has no voice anymore and her singing distracts from the picking. Beautiful as her voice is during storytelling in between songs, she sort of ruins the songs when she sings, especially for high notes. Also she encourages the audience to sing along with the usual subpar stadium-chant-like mumbling as result.
If you look for the Carolina guitar picking tradition without singing, I recommend Etta Baker's album "Railroad Bill", wich is strictly instrumental and also has a beautiful banjo number.

I'm not lying when I said that I weeped when I heard "Freight Train" the first time. Every song on this CD moved me as well as her lovely storytelling. This incredible woman was 85 when it was recorded and she sounds so hip and cool. Her guitar playing was very impressive and very ahead of its time. As a musician myself, I have learned a great deal about "Cotten Picking" and melodies. This album is a must have for Elizabeth fans and for people who have an interest in true blue acoustic music :)

Elizabeth Cotten "Live!" is a must-have experience. Not only does she play and sing many of her best songs, but also she tells the most charming, evocative, and witty stories about her life and art. Her love, kindness, and superb intelligence just shine through. We are so lucky to have these recordings.

This album features material from the Carters' second, third, and fourth Victor sessions, held in 1928 and 1929. It is somewhat unpolished by comparison with later Carter sessions - particularly their Decca period of 1936 through 1938 - but it does contain some classic performances. The title song is well known, as is 'Foggy Mountain Top', but also noteworthy are the railroad disaster ballad 'Engine 143', with its 30 second lead in by Maybelle, and 'Forsaken Love', a duet by Sara and A.P. that was originally issued as the 'A' side to the now legendary 'Wildwood Flower'. Though the Carters tended to adapt and rearrange traditional songs and old Victorian parlor ballads, this album contains at least one item that is a definite A.P. Carter original. 'The Cyclone of Ryecove' centers on a tornado that struck the tiny settlement of Ryecove, in Scott County, Virginia, - just a few miles from A.P. and Sara's home in Maces Springs - on May 2 1929. All in all, an interesting album that showcases the emergence of a legendary Country group. The performances are quite raw, but they exhibit an almost innocent charm, whilst giving an insight into the attitudes towards love, religion and homelife of an age long gone. A must for any dedicated Carter Family collector, and worthy of serious consideration by any sincere student of the Country genre.

Listening to The Carter Family on this album was like a trip back in time to an era when country music came from the country. No fancy electric instruments here; no fancy backing tracks and synthesizers. Just plain, pure, down-to-earth country. The Carter Family sing about down home things, like lost loves and lonliness, families and tragedies. A P Carter's homely voice (a little out of tune) blends with the sweet sounds of his wife and sister-in-law in a combination that can only be described as "rustic". Be warned, this is hard-core country - light years away from what's called "country" today. But if you want to hear where Country came from - if you are interested in the beginings of country music, and you want to travel back to a time where living was simple, you'll do well to have a listen to this album - and you'll love it.

Excellent songs. Best-known are "Foggy Mountain Top", the title masterpiece and everybody's perenniel, "I'm Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes", but what I wrote under the "Longing For Old Virginia" collection applies even more so here; several of the other pieces are just as tuneful and imaginative and worth re-doing. Wish I could play a guitar, or at least carry a tune; I can't, so all I can do is be an appreciative listener and hope that somebody else who can will check these out and revision them into their own. (Paging Dolly Parton or the Cox Family...)

If you're interested in Black History, then you'll love this CD.

If you ever need an emotional and spiritual pick-up, then this CD is for you. So much unknownn talent here. The Birmingham Freedom Choir would certainly give Kirk Franklin and Walter Hawkins a run for the money and the Montgomery Movement Singers have a singing style that's haunting in its simplicity. Like Brother Stack (BTW, I'm also a native of Spartanburg, SC, let's hang out and chat about this CD when I'm in town again), I've used this CD in my classes and my students have been moved by MLK's brief address ("If you can't run-WALK, and if you can't run-CRAWL, just KEEP MOVING ON!"). Raplh Abernathy's address is also surprisingly good and while the martyred legend Medgar Evers was not a spellbinding speaker, his sincerity comes through. The beauty of this CD is the courage the speakers and singers had in the danger of what they faced. This will inspire listeners to similar courage in the problems they may face today.

I simple love this CD and all of the 26 songs. There is not one throw away song or segment on the CD recording. The CD chronicles the modern day civil rights movement through song from 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, to 1960 and the student lead demonstrations in Nashville, Tenn. to the 1963 Birmingham Mass Meetings. The artist are regional and have a wonderful quality to the singing. A must have...... I play this CD to my high school students every year and they are mesmerized. I play the CD in the teacher's lounge and they all want copies. I used some of the songs on the CD in a talk at my local Unitarian Universalist Church and got a standing ovation. I never tire of listening to the richness of the songs.

My son goes to sleep with this album at least 3 nights a week. It goes on car trips with us and is one of the few that you don't want to throw out the window after 50 miles. It contains many wonderful folk songs that kids and adults love to sing along with.

This is one of my very favorite collection of kids songs! My two children love it dearly. It is listened to and sung along with nearly every day. I highly advise to anyone with or without kids!

A wonderful CD with fun songs that kids and parents will love

My son goes to sleep with this album at least 3 nights a week. It goes on car trips with us and is one of the few that you don't want to throw out the window after 50 miles. It contains many wonderful folk songs that kids and adults love to sing along with.

This is one of my very favorite collection of kids songs! My two children love it dearly. It is listened to and sung along with nearly every day. I highly advise to anyone with or without kids!

A wonderful CD with fun songs that kids and parents will love

Citico's recording seems to spend a lot of time in my CD player. I didn't plan it that way. It's just my thirst for authentic, real, America folk and country music.

So much music purporting to be real Americana is just copied licks and arrangements. Citico grabs the flavor and feel of the old songs they sing but they sing them with their own flair. It is a spiritual experience for me to hear them. ~Dalton Roberts, Singer-Songwriter

The musical climate of Chattanooga has been for 100 years one of those hotbeds of old-time music. Here the balladeers of Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee, the wild fiddling from North Georgia, and the white blues of Alabama all came together, producing greats like The Allen Brothers, Bob Douglas, Eldia Barbee, and Blaine Smith. The younger musicians of the area were lucky to learn from many of these legends first hand, and the best of these are here to play for you in a new band called CITICO. Ain't no Berklee graduates here, nor none of them fuzzy-talking northerners who learned their licks outta those funny-smelling Mel Bay books. These gents know what do with a biscuit and a plate of sorghum. They also know how to sing a murder song without getting all teared up. And best of all, they know the right way to honor their music.

In 1975, Ron Williams, a 23 year-old Chattanooga schoolteacher, thought it would be neat to have his students do field recordings of traditional fiddlers and ballad singers from the area. For the next six years, Williams released eight acclaimed LP recordings and in the process, befriended generations of families. Eventually future Citico band member Ken Parr, who learned the songs from these recordings, hunted down Williams for more material. As happens when most musicians gather, a jam session ensued and with the addition of Frank Dawson, Citico was born.

The 17 tunes featured here not only come from those inspiring musicians, most notably Eldia Barbee, Hamper McBee, Blaine Smith, Florrie Stewart, and Russ Vandergriff, but almost all originated in the area. With their carefully crafted, heartfelt renditions, alternating vocalists, and shifting instrumentation ( Dobro, fiddles, mandolins, clawhammer banjo, and autoharp), Citico must be making its forebears beam proudly through the heavens. The studio-recorded tunes balance nicely with the home-waxed instrumentals, which interestingly, cast a surreal, quasi-time-traveling effect to a more ancient time and place. Additionally, the arrangements' steady-riding pace makes it easy to follow the cleverly subtle and often amusing story lines. On "Bill Malone," the lyrics praise a host's affable nature, only to find out he charges $15 per person to egress, meaning you're in the jailhouse now. The protagonist of "Bury Me Beneath The Willow" hopes his rejecting lover will some day lament his pushing-up-daisies soul. Some, of course, are insightful historical tales, such as "Hickman's Boys," a mournful Civil War ballad. It's estimated that the most rare songs are those by Blaine Smith ("Jeff Davis," "Cincinnati," "Old Chattanooga"), but overall everything here is an armchair folklorist's delight. Worth seeking out.
-----Dan Willging (Denver, CO)

This is indeed an excellent collection of pieces to show off the imminent talents and insights of Leonard Bernstein as a conductor...but also to show some of the limits... If Bernstein is interested -- and ENTHUSIASTIC -- about a composer or a particular piece, he can bring that vitality and interest into a sharp focus and deliver immensely grand and insightful interpretations to the piece...if, however, he is simply "performing" the piece with an orchestra...without the inspiration and the enthusiasm, his interpretations seem hollow and full of affectation or bluster...trying to "force" the piece to be signifcant or worth his time to "have to" fool with it... On this particular album, I believe the Barber "Adagio," the Grofe "On the Trail," the Gershwin "Rhapsody in Blue" excerpt, and the Copland "Simple Gifts" -- excerpt from *Appalachian Spring* qualify for the inspired and interested category...while the Copland "Fanfare for the Common Man" falls into the bluster; the Gershwin "An American in Paris" falls into uninspired...along with the orchestral accompaniment to the Villa-Lobos, the Vaughn-Williams "Greensleeves," and the Rachmaninoff "18th Variation" from "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini"... For truly beautiful, inspired, and virtuoso violin playing, David Nadien in the "Fantasia on Greensleeves" and John Corigliano, Sr., in the "On the Trail" are

incredible...unfortunately Nadien gets the uninspired orchestral context from Bernstein...while Corigliano, Sr., gets the interested, alert, inventive Bernstein...at least that is what my listening sense says to me... perhaps it will be different for you... ...different ears, different tastes, and different points of focus cause aesthetic criticism to be very interesting ...but not always a reliable guide for individual satisfaction...

This is a great CD to have to your collection. Not only is it [a good price], but it's performed by one of the best orchestras out there. Good sound, good selections. And anything conducted by Bernstein has to be good. It's one of my favorites

There's a lot of good music here. My favorite is Stravinsky's Finale from The Firebird Suite...just when it seems it can't build up to any more of a climax, it does! For a more relaxed or contemplative mood there's the lovely Fantasia on Greensleeves. The last track is "Simple Gifts" an excerpt from Copland's fantastic tone poem Appalachian Spring. This CD has something for everyone interested in modern classical music--a fine sampling.

This is simple yet wonderful Appalachian music at its best. No glitz, no glammer, no drum machine...just a lot of fine musicianship and a "real" quality that makes you feel like you're listening to them live. Highly recommended for any fan of mountain music.

This is a wonderful CD. Karen Jones' version of the blues classic "Trouble in Mind" is worth the price of the album. The traditional instrumental version of "Old Grey Coat" is great. The banjo and fiddle are lively throughout. The last track "Peace and Harmony" is beautiful.

I have three of the Dinner Classics. "Dinner For Two" "Romance"
and "A Cocktail Party" All are wonderful cd's and I would like to find more, other than what is listed here. "An American Picnic" is good but I like "Dinner For Two" the best.

This album is one of the "must haves" in the great "Masterworks Dinner Classics" series. Beautiful!