This is in effect a sampler of Arhoolie's country-related catalog, with cuts from sixteen different releases. It 's country of the old-timey and early honky-tonk flavor, not of the produced country-pop sort, though that's not a drawback. Highlights include
the Maddox Brothers & Rose's
raucous
"George's Playhouse Boogie,"
the Carter Family's
"Hello Stranger" (from a 1939 radio broadcast),
the Strange Creek Singers'
"No Never No" (with
Alice Gerrard
and
Hazel Dickens
duetting on vocals), and
Toni Brown's
"You Turned Your Back," a lost modern hillbilly classic of sorts (and also the rarest cut, previously issued on an Arhoolie 45 single). Otherwise, this may be too old-timey/Appalachian in nature for those with modern country tastes, including selections by
Del McCoury
,
J.E Mainer
the Any Old Time String Band
, and many others. ~ Richie Unterberger