Roscoe Holcomb - Untamed Sense of Control
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Free Music Notes for Untamed Sense of Control
Free Music Review: ROSCOE HOLCOMB: AN UNTAMED SENSE OF CONTROL
Hit: 5 Stars
Excellent. This shows the greatness of the hills music of the time. He does an excellent job on fiddle work, vocal, and resatational work. This is a collection of his home recordings. It puts you in a relaxed and happy mood and sets you back to the times when things were great.Free Music Review: deep mountain soul
Hit: 4 Stars
Roscoe Holcomb was one of the greatest Southern folk singers ever recorded, a performer of such intensity that his music defies casual listening. There is nothing polished about it, and it certainly is not bluegrass or anything like it. Its style predates even the hillbilly string bands from whose 1920s recordings folk revivalists have been drawing ever since. Holcomb's finest performances, once heard, are never forgotten. The opening cut, "Swanno Mountain," conjures up a whole universe of its own, in the inimitable fashion of other immortal folk recordings such as Furry Lewis's "Kassie Jones," Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues," Pete Steele's "Payday at Coal Creek," Dock Boggs's "Sugar Baby," and Bascom Lamar Lunsford's "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground."
Holcomb was adept at a variety of traditional musics, secular and religious, ballads and blues, lyric songs and dance tunes. If some of the titles look familiar, the versions aren't. However many times you may have heard "Little Maggie," you have never heard it done as it is done here. "Barbara Allen Blues," the ancient ballad transformed into a solo harmonica-blues piece, is as stunning as it is utterly original. "Combs Hotel Burned Down" recalls a small-town tragedy in a way that makes it sound like the apocalypse itself.
Toward the end of this long CD, however, a few of the performances stumble. One particularly painful example is "Foggy Mountain Top," played here on knife guitar. The idea should have worked, and it probably did most of the time, but the one version here, which John Cohen happened to catch on Holcomb's front porch one day in 1972, is sadly unlistenable. "Frankie and Johnnie" is such a wretched cliche that it defeats even Holcomb.
Still, An Untamed Sense of Control contains so much fine music -- not to mention the added virtue of Cohen's extraordinary photographs and deeply felt liner notes -- that a small number of miscues are overlookable. It is true in the most literal sense that they don't make music like this anymore. Listen and be grateful that Roscoe Holcomb lived and managed to leave such stirring testimony to that life.
Free Music Review: Great addition to "High Lonesome Sound"
Hit: 4 Stars
This is a great collection of songs and a great collection of recordings. The dates of the recordings range from the 1950s to the 1970s. Some are recorded on Holcomb's porch in Kentucky, and others live in music halls. Everything you've heard about Roscoe Holcomb is here, with the addition of some raw harmonica and fiddle playing. It is music undiluted by the music industry. The title of the CD (coined by Bob Dylan when talking about Holcomb) is very appropriate.The CD booklet contains a wealth of information on Holcomb. There are great pictures (the cover is GREAT) and snippets of letters written by Holcomb. On the CD itself is a picture of Holcomb's outstrecthed hands. They look like you would expect them to look (he was basically a laborer, when he was able to find employment, for most of his life).
That said, if you're new to Roscoe Holcomb, this is probably not the disc to start with. "The High Lonesome Sound" (on the same label) has an overall stronger song selection (not to say this one doesn't, but it does pale sightly in comparison, key word being "slightly"). This disc is best if you've heard "High Lonesome Sound" and want more Roscoe Holcomb. In that this disc succeeds incredibly well.
For those of you who might buy the CD because it's heavily advertised as including Holcomb's version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" (the "hit" song from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") don't buy it for that reason. Holcomb's version is a very raw a capella piece which is great but is not something you would dance to or play at a party. His version fits the song's lyrics far better than the popular movie version.
In short, this is a great companion disc to "High Lonesome Sound" for those of you who cannot get enough of the unpolished and happily unproduced sound of Roscoe Holcomb. I am happily among that crowd.
Free Music Review: High, Lonesome, Extremely Genuine...
Hit: 4 Stars
High Lonesome Sound, a very accurate description of the extraordinaire musician Roscoe Holcomb, a man gifted with many musical talents, able to master banjo, guitar, slide, violin, harmonica, with a high pitched, untrained, steadily controlled voice that could make the dead roll over. Roscoe possessed an overall sound like no other, here within lies something eerie and unique to be heard, listen and learn to "Swanno Mountain", "The Hills Of Mexico", "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues", "Coney Isle", "Knife Guitar" - some of the best slide you'll ever hear - twenty six appalachian blues/folk songs guaranteed to take you "way out" in the Smokies. Definitely a different listening experience from Smithsonian Folkways, more dynamic and uneasy than Dock Boggs. Roscoe Holcomb - "I come from the country, where nobody bothers us except ourselves". Welcome to the "Holcomb zone".Free Music Review: there's a really cool picture on the back i just noticed
Hit: 4 Stars
mr holcomb doesn't sound very healthy. each song is sort of like a prolonged whiskey-laden death rattle. but they're also very full of life. as sweet as his voice is, i think my favorite songs here are the few instrumentals. "knife guitar" just rocks.
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