"Roots & Blues: 20 CD Box Set" by VARIOUS ARTISTS (January 2015 UK/EUROPE Sony Music Box Set - Reissues 16 Individual "Roots 'N Blues" CD Compilations Along With One 4CD Box Set Originally Issued 1990-1996 Into One Box Set) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"…Big Legs, Empty Beds And Moonshiners…"

Entirely made up of tracks dubbed from Twenties, Thirties, Forties and Early Fifties 78"s - the 437 tracks across these 20 fabulous "Roots & Blues" CDs (all now in 5" card repro sleeves) represent an Americana Fest you've probably not heard before. 

Bluegrass, Old Timey Country, Guitar Blues, Washboard Shuffles, Church Music and Gospel, Fiddle Music, Piano Blues, Boogie Woogie, Vocal Blues, Cow Bells and Kazoos - it's all here and more - and neatly repackaged too.

Originally issued in the USA between 1990 and 1996 by Columbia/Legacy as 16 individual CD compilations and one 4CD box set - the riches contained within this mid-priced European 20-disc mini box set reissue bundle are amazing. But a word about the SOUND first - we're not talking audiophile here - and you need to accept that as a given for every disc. 

Across 20 themed-sets the audio varies wildly as you can imagine - most times alarmingly good in its clarity given the vintage and sources - but on other occasions it can be utterly atrocious (included for historical and rarity value). But I find the clicks and pops (which aren't that often really) and ghostly voices and messages from the past are part of the thrill and charm. This is grittily real stuff and very funny too in places. Go with the flow on this one...

Another downside (if you could call it that) is that a 36-page booklet giving you basic track lists/credits and little else has replaced the heavily annotated booklets that accompanied the original individual CD releases. You do at least get some paragraphs on each compilation by liner notes king DEAN RUDLAND and the pictures are nice - but the songs and artists are so obscure and interesting that you long for more info on what's what. This is one of those occasions where you wish Sony would have gone a bit better on the booklet (worth pointing out). Here are the finite details...

UK/Europe released January 2015 - "Roots & Blues: 20 CD Box Set" by VARIOUS ARTISTS on Sony Music 88875043322 (Barcode 888750433220) breaks downs as follows (all compilations Previously Issued in Jewel Cases, here they are individual card sleeves):

Disc 1 "The Retrospective (1925-1950) Vol.1", 25 Tracks, 76:09 minutes

Disc 2 "The Retrospective (1925-1950) Vol.2", 25 Tracks, 77:52 minutes

Disc 3 "The Retrospective (1925-1950) Vol.3", 29 Tracks, 77:52 minutes

Disc 4 "The Retrospective (1925-1950) Vol.4", 28 Tracks, 77:07 minutes

Disc 5 "Legends Of The Blues Volume One", 20 Tracks, 59:00 minutes

Disc 6 "Legends Of The Blues Volume Two", 20 Tracks, 61:21 minutes

Disc 7 "Great Blues Guitarists: String Dazzlers", 20 Tracks, 61:29 minutes

Disc 8 "The Slide Guitar: Bottles, Knives & Steel", 19 Tracks, 57:36 minutes

Disc 9 "The Slide Guitar: Bottles, Knives & Steel Vol. 2", 20 Tracks, 62:10 minutes

Disc 10 "Lonnie Johnson: Steppin' On The Blues", 19 Tracks, 58:26 minutes

Disc 11 "Preachin' The Gospel: Holy Blues", 20 Tracks, 60:23 minutes

Disc 12 "Good Time Blues: Harmonicas, Kazoos, Washboards & Cow-Bells", 21 Tracks, 59:28 minutes

Disc 13 "News & The Blues: Telling It Like It Is", 20 Tracks, 59:03 minutes

Disc 14 "Booze & The Blues", 22 Tracks, 65:44 minutes

Disc 15 "Messed Up In Love And Other Tales Of Woe", 16 tracks, 45:32 minutes

Disc 16 "Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts & Lollipops", 20 Tracks, 61:31 minutes

Disc 17 "Cajun Vol.1: Abbeville Breakdown 1929-1939", 22 Tracks, 61:23 minutes

Disc 18 "Cajun Dance Party: Fais Do-Do", 23 Tracks, 67:58 minutes

Disc 19 "White Country Blues 1926-1938: A Lighter Shade Of Blue Vol.1", 24 Tracks, 73:05 minutes

Disc 20 "White Country Blues 1926-1938: A Lighter Shade Of Blue Vol.2", 24 Tracks, 66:52 minutes

It opens smartly clumping together the 4-discs of the much praised and long deleted "Retrospective: 1925-1950" 4CD Sony/Legacy Box Set first issued June 1992 in the USA (107 tracks). Highlights on Disc 1 are "Cow-Cow Blues" by Dora Carr and "Empty Bed Blues" by Elizabeth Johnson - the kind of 78" Blues you'd swear turned up in episodes of "Boardwalk Empire". Discs 2 and 3 feature names you know like Lonnie Johnson, the piano of Albert Ammons, Roosevelt Sykes, the twelve-string guitar of Blind Willie McTell, Leroy Carr, Charlie Patton, Joshua White and Big Bill Broonzy ("...leaving this morning on the C&A"). Highlights include "Good Woman Blues" where Scrapper Blackwell instructs the lady folk of the USA "...women if you got a good man, give him three meals a day..." and Joshua White worries that he'll have to travel to find love because his "good gal might be in China..." Cliff Carlisle yodels his woes about a lack of clothes, the little ones coming on and his wife eating all the time in "Onion Eating Mama".

By the time you get to Disc 4 every track is really clear and a blast in its own genre right - Bluegrass, Old Timey Country, Guitar Blues, Washboard Shuffles, Church Music and Gospel, Fiddle Music, Piano Blues, Boogie Woogie  - it's all here. Favourites include the saucy "You Got To See Mama Ev'ry Night (Or You Can't See Mama At All)" where our hero is getting instruction on martial bliss and "Mean Black Snake" where another dude suspects his lady is removing traps for another kind of visitor. Two huge Blues giants show up in early form - Muddy Waters and Joe Williams - with William's monster "Baby, Please Don't Go" thrilling still (how many bands have cut their Blues teeth on this song!).

Of the other discs I have two personal favourites - the eerie and harrowing "News & The Blues: Telling It Like It Is" and the deliciously saucy and sexy "Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts & Lollipops". The first has Bessie Smith moaning "it's rained five days and the sky is dark at night...there's trouble in the lowlands..." while the amazing guitar of Blind Willie Johnson has "people run and pray..." as the 1912 Titanic sinks during "God Moves On The Water" (amazing solo in the centre of it). 

And when the singers let their hair down - the results on "Raunchy Business" are brilliant. Titles like "My Stove's In Good Condition", "Banana In Your Fruit Basket" and "My Pencil Won't Write No More" don't leave much to delicacy but will make you grin. In fact when Lucille Brogan gives us Part 2 of "Shave 'Em Dry" - the opening lyrics about nipples as big as thumbs and pulling back her mattress so Daddy can oil her springs - is shocking even now. Lillie Mae Kirkman waxes lyrical about a man she met last night in "He's Just My Size" where apparently he's a kitchen mechanic who makes her biscuits rise (lovely).

Some of the Cajun and Washboard stuff is samey for sure and hard to take at times - but the "Booze" and "Messed Up" CDs have nuggets galore (The Mississippi Sheiks and Memphis Minnie to name but a few). But that's what so great about a box as full as this - the sheer variety - Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Blind Boy Fuller and so many more - you'll be digging into it for years to come. "Take It Easy Greasy" the song tells us (Lil Johnson on Disc 2) - I say buy it and jump right in and enjoy...