Old Time Record Review Dock Boggs: "Country Blues - Complete Early Recordings (1927-1929)" Revenant CD RVN 205 Copyright 1997 Contents: Sugar Baby - Down South Blues - Country Blues - Sammy, Where Have You Been So Long? - Danville Girl # Pretty Polly o New Prisoner's Song Hard Luck Blues - Lost Love Blues - Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There? Old Rub Alcohol Blues - False Hearted @ver's Blues - Lost Love Blues (Alt. #]) o Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There? (Alt#]) - Old Rub Alcohol Blues (Alt. #]) - Lost Love Blues (Alt. #2) - Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There? (Alt. #2) - Hayes Shepherd: Peddler and His Wife - Ditto: Hard for to Love - Bill Shepherd: Bound Steel Blues - Ditto: Aunt Jane Blues Liner Notes: Reportedly a 64-page hardcover book (not included with review copy) Pros: Dock Boggs was one of the very best early practitioners of an extremely intense banjo/vocal style typical of the minefields of western Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. These reissues catch him at the height of his vocal powers. Cons: Since the depression cut Dock's recording career short, there's not really a full CD's worth available of his early recordings. The Shepherd cuts, while interesting, are of low audio quality, to put it mildly. Rating: * * * (3 of a possible 4 stars) Dock Boggs (1898-1971), of Norton, VA, was born into hard times, and never got out of them. His haunted voice and his intense approach to hill music reflected that fact. He was a precise representative of the mountain folk of his time, the exact poor white equivalent of the African-American blues that were prevalent then. Like a number of influential white mountaineers, he picked up lots of his songs from that same black wellspring. He traveled to New York in the late 1920s and recorded a number of sides for Brunswick. Shortly after that, he went to Chicago and cut some sides for a label called "The Lonesome Ace by Lyle Lofgren Without A Yodel" (the proprietor did not allow yodeling on his records). Then the depression hit, and Dock's hope for a career as an entertainer sank into forty years of labor in the coal mines of East Kentucky, where he had worked since he. was a child. He would have been completely forgotten, except for two cuts on the "Folkways Anthology of American Folk Music" (recently reissued, fortunately, by Smithsonian/Folkways). Mike Seeger rediscovered him in the 1960s (still living in Norton), brought him on tour through the northern states, and recorded him on several LPs that we may hope will soon be reissued as CDs by Smithsonian/Folkways. The coal dust had attacked his lungs, but he was still able to record several astoundingly great pieces for that series. The present offering of his complete early recordings (produced by John Fahey) is a scholarly effort, in the sense that alternate takes are presented as well as tho6se that were originally released. They will demonstrate to you why the record coi-npanies used the takes that they did. As a result, you will also get the urge to ski p over the less-intense refused recordings. The last four numbers were performed by Dock's neighbors, Hayes and Bill Shepherd, who have vocal styles very much in common with him, but were recorded separately, for Vocalion. Their recordings are very rare - only one copy, for example, has ever been found of "The Peddler and His Wife." Unfortunately, the owner of that record enjoyed it a lot, so it is very scratchy. Still, Dock is an American Treasure, and you should listen to him, both as a young man (represented here) and in his dotage (on the forthcoming? Smithsonian/17olkways releases). This data from the Magazine of the Minnesota Blue Grass & Old Time Music Association. Now can some one provide a few Boggs connections?