⬇️ AMERICAN EPIC ⬇️
COLLECTION (19CD/DVD)
REVIEW
"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 is not "remastering", in the normal sense, but something closer to
fine art restoration. The intent is not for people to marvel at the
antiquity of these discs, but rather to experience them as vital, immediate
performances that speak to us as directly as they did on the day they were
recorded—not simply great art for their time, but great art for all times.
Engineer Nicholas Bergh has reassembled this recording system from original
parts and it is now the only one left in the world. The system consists of a
single microphone, a towering six-foot amplifier rack, and a live
record-cutting lathe, powered by a weight-driven pulley system of clockwork
gears. The musicians have roughly three minutes to record their song direct
to disc before the weight hits the floor. In the 1920s, they called this
"catching lightning in a bottle".
Texas slide guitarist and gospel bluesman Blind Willie Johnson recorded
only 30 songs over the course of his life as a preacher and street
performer. Even so, the savvy combination of his gritty and powerful "chest
voice" singing style coupled with his mastery of slide guitar (some report
he regularly used a knife as a slide) has given him a notably influential
legacy, specifically with later bluesmen Howlin' Wolf and Robert Johnson.
His tune "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was selected for Carl
Sagan's Voyager probe Golden Record, the Library of Congress as well as the
National Recording.
NEW!
Music From The American Epic Sessions (2CD-Deluxe)