Various Artists "KANSAS CITY BLUES: 1944-1949" (Capitol Vintage, 1997)
A big city tucked away in the sticks, right between the backwoods Ozarks and the wide open plains, Kansas City farmed out numerous stars on the early jazz and swing scenes, artists who generally fled Missouri for the more cosmopolitan confines of New York, Chicago, New Orleans or Los Angeles... It also fielded some of the more raunchy, rugged blues recordings of the postwar era, as heard in this 3-CD set featuring the likes of Jay McShann, Julia Lee, Bus Moten and Tommy Douglas. Judging from the lyrics, the Kansas City crew drank a lot of liquor, smoked a lot of weed, and had a lot of sex... It's possible the drugs had an influence on their musicianship -- other than Lee and McShann's recordings, many of these tracks have a notably lax, ragged feel to them, and if you're not still enamoured of finding naughty old recordings, the dirty, dirty themes -- which the main thing that are meant to keep your interest -- may wear thin quickly. Julia Lee is the real star here, and the razor-sharp briskness of her band helps the still-shocking frankness of her coded sexual lyrics leap out at listeners, even after all these years. You might be better served just getting one of her records instead, instead of having her tracks all broken up, but it's nice to hear her in the historical context of her hometown scene... But I have to confess, after having spent years delighting in playing this kind of salacious entertainment on the air, sitting down at home to listen to three discs worth of it was a bit tiresome... Perhaps this is a young person's game, after all.

Various Artists "HARRY SMITH ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC" (Smithsonian Folkways, 1952/1998)
Oddball record collecting mystic-savant Harry Smith was one of the first eggheady bohemian types to take stock of the vast ocean of hauntingly evocative, genuinely odd, music recorded by rural blues and country artists during the Great Depression. While living in New York during the early '50s, Smith assembled a three-volume compilation of albums that acted as a Rosetta Stone for the nascent folk scene, moving many artists to earnestly take up the song-collecting banner, and later inspired others such as Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs to create a whole new folk canon of equal power. This widely-praised, Grammy-winning Smithsonian-Folkways box set reissues four discs worth of material originally assembled in the early 1950s by an oddball record-collecting savant who became the guru of the 'Sixties folk scene. And it's pretty awesome. (Note: legend has it that these albums represented only a fraction of his collection of rare 78s; the rest of them were pawned to the New York City Library, which musicians such as John Cohen and Mike Seeger -- of the New Lost City Ramblers -- later used as their creative wellspring during the folk revival).

Various Artists "HARRY SMITH'S ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN FOLK MUSIC, Vol. 4" (Revenant, 2000)
Another absolutely gorgeous release on this John Fahey-related label. This 2-CD set of primal folk and old-timey recordings follows in the wake of the Smithsonian-Folkways box set and has fewer unknown artists -- there are several tracks from way out in left field, but mainly it's heavily populated with well-known acts such as the Carter Family, Leadbelly, Memphis Minnie and the Blue Sky Boys. What is specially compelling about this set, though, is its excellent sequencing, in which each song -- even those by the well-known artists -- is set into a larger context, and sounds new, fresh, and mysterious. The collection opts for melody rather than the quirky starkness associated with old-timey music. The effect is lulling and trance-inducing, making this set much more accessible than many similar collections. In addition, the lavishly-designed booklet, which includes amused, laudatory essays by acoustic music veterans such as John Cohen (of the New Lost City Ramblers), Ed Sanders (of the Fugs) and John Fahey (who owns Revenant) is both aesthetically beautiful and wildly informative... a fitting tribute to one of the most charismatic cultural eccentrics of the Beat era. For accuracies sake, I have to point out that the provenance of this collection is a little up in the air, since the erratic Smith had assembled a precise playlist for Volume Four, but lost it during one of his down phases. Still, with the input of so many folks who knew him personally, I think it's safe to say that this collection is pretty much the real deal.

Old-Timey compilations -- yes, there is some overlap, but also a few special surprises.

Various Artists "THE STUFF THAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF" (Shanachie/Yazoo, 2006)
A cool set of blues, gospel, and proto-country rarities from the early days of the record industry, harvested from the 78 RPM libraries of several of the world's old-school uber-collectors, folks who spent their youth in the 1950s and '60s canvassing the South, going door to door asking people if they had any old 78s they'd care to part with... This 2-CD set includes rare material that went unreleased over seventy years ago, and several songs that only exist today in one or two known copies, Holy Grail material found only on precious, whispered-about, highly prized solitary shellac and vinyl copies. Oh, I admit, I was suckered into buying this just because of the R. Crumb cover art -- that, plus the tagline about how this is "The Rosetta Stone Of Record Collecting" made me think this might be like the keeno Crumb-curated That's What I Call Sweet Music jazz collection from a couple of years ago... Other than the artwork, though, I'm not sure how much involvement Crumb has with this project... The provenance of this collection is a little fuzzy, but the dozen or so ubercollectors that contributed include folks like Dave Freeman, Dick Spottswood and Joe Brussard, who have been at this kind of thing for a while. And, boy, do they have some fun stuff! If you like old-timey music and rugged country blues, then this collection will definitely float your boat. It's great stuff. The liner notes are a hoot, too, full of plenty of knowing, self-deprecating jibes at the world of obsesso collector nerds, including a scary article about the Collyer Brothers, a pair of New York nutjob packrats who filled every cubic centimeter of their sprawling, four-story house with tons and tons of crap, bric-a-brac and junk, and actually died inside the labyrinth... That could never happen to me, say all the collector nerds who'll pick this set up... Oh, no. Of course not.

Various Artists "WHITE COUNTRY BLUES 1926-1938: A LIGHTER SHADE OF BLUE" (Columbia Legacy, 1993)
The hazy line between old-time hill music and blues-influenced proto-country is mighty fine... This set falls well into the blues camp, but it's such a great collection that if you're poking around the edges of antique twangcore, then this album might also run a shiver down your spine. Recommended!

• More bluegrass reviews... the Letter "A"

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