Roscoe Holcomb - Untamed Sense of Control
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CD Details
Artist: Roscoe HolcombBrand: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Edition: Music CD
Format: CD
CD Release Date: 2003-03-25
Model: SFW40144
Music Label: Smithsonian Folkways
Soundtracks:
- Swanno Mountain
- Across The Rocky Mountain
- Graveyard Blues
- Single Girl
- Little Maggie
- Born And Raised In Covington
- Barbara Allen Blues
- Coal Creek
- Rock Island Prison
- I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow
- Combs Hotel Burned Down
- The Hills Of Mexico
- Knife Guitar
- Mississippi Heavy Water Blues
- Coney Isle
- Train That Carried My Girl From Town
- Milk Cow Blues
- Black Eye Susie
- Darling Cory
- I Ain't Got No Sugar Baby Now
- Sitting On Top Of This World
- Frankie And Johnnie
- Foggy Mountain Top
- Fair Miss In The Garden
- Willow Garden
- True Love
Music reviews of Untamed Sense of Control
Music Review: A real gem, Thank You John Cohen
Rating: 5 Stars
John's long essay on Roscoe Holcomb the person that comes in the booklet with the CD is worth the price of the CD. Cohen describes the contrast between Holcomb's recognition as a folk musician on a national level while he struggled to make a living in his home in Kentucky where the only result of his national fame was that he was cut from the public assistance he received.There are some sections of letters Roscoe sent Cohen that speak to Holcomb's struggle with life.
If anyone wants to see this illustrated, pick up the film John Cohen made called High Lonesome Sound (make sure you get John's film not the several copy cats later made about bluegrass using similar names). You see the contrast between Roscoe's old time music that seemed to be left behind by all the people around him for Nashville drivel or rock and roll. You see a determined hard working man proud to stick out like a hard horny thumb with his music in a world going another direction.
We get reminded here of the multiple sources of Holcomb's music. Rather than being the product of some prestine tradition, Holcomb's tunes and his ways of playing them show the profound mixture of cultures and influences that marked him and the mountain communities. We old English ballads played on blues harmonica, traditional unaccompanied sounding songs learned from 1950s Bluegrass records, and, of course, the blues blues blues played on guitar, banjo, and harp. We even have Roscoe Fiddling.
There are some nice versions of songs we're accustomed to hear in other people's versions like Darling Corey, Little Maggie, I Ain't Got no Sugar Baby Now.
Holcomb's music is a good antidote to current trends in revivalist old time music that tend to want to reduce fiddling and banjo playing to one or two regional styles--not real even regional but narrow local or even family styles-as doctrinally reinterpreted and "taught" by one or two virtuosi. Other variations, or having your own individual styles tends to be frowned on.
Yet, Roscoe Holcomb's unique style and fascinating music speak to that fact that traditional music in this country encompassed thousands of styles, regional styles, personal styles, left such great room for the personal expression of a true artist like Holcomb who could make each tune his own tune, not just a representative of some general type. It speaks to all the opportunities for ideas about music to flow to someone from old traditions, the radio, records, and people of all kinds coming up and down the mountains.
Likewise contemporary old time music focuses almost exclusively on fiddle tunes and banjo versions of them, without much recognition or orientation to songs sung for their content and expression. Yet, such songs are at the heart of Roscoe's work on both of the CDs. He uses his music fundamentally not only to move dancers around floors, which I am sure Roscoe could do and do well, but to concentrate the utter meaning of the songs to his life into his performances.
Finally, much contemporary old time music seems to follow the white flight middle class population that produces it and their fantasies about a less diverse past and the white purity of the music. Holcomb's music is so infused with blues and African American influence that when Cohen met Holcomb the first time and asked what he did, Roscoe Holcomb said he was a "blues singer!"
Description of Untamed Sense of Control
Bob Dylan stated, "Roscoe Holcomb has a certain untamed sense of control, which makes him one of the best." Eric Clapton called Holcomb "my favorite [country] musician." Holcomb's white-knuckle performances reflect a time before radio told musicians how to play, and these recordings make other music seem watered-down in comparison. His high, tense voice inspired the term "high lonesome sound." Self-accompanied on banjo, fiddle, guitar, or harmonica, these songs express the hard life he lived and the tradition in which he was raised. Includes his vintage 1961 "Man of Constant Sorrow."Blues CDs
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