Complete 1931 Recordings in Chronological Order

With his high, eerie falsetto and haunting guitar tunings, sounds like no other player. Although his lyrics were generally drawn from the floating bag of cliches that showed up in countless songs, his atmospheric recordings, done in 1931 for , gave ' songs the appearance of poignancy, and his sad, lonely vocal style made them all seem heartfelt. When he was rediscovered in the mid-'60s, his skills were still intact, and he made several solid recordings for and other labels, but his reputation really rests on the 18 tracks from the 1930s presented here. and are all one of a kind classics, as are (later covered by ) and both of which contain kinetic acoustic guitar breaks that simply explode out of the verses. was also a pretty interesting piano player, and his playing on sounds again like no other pianist. This collection duplicates what is found on both the releases, and it matters little which one you pick up. All three come from the same sources, and all have the same amount of snaps, cracks, and hailstone hiss in all the same places. Don't let that stop you, though, because these are beautiful and maverick performances, and essential for a good collection. ~ Steve Leggett