Whistlin' Alex Moore's Blues - Moore, Alexander He
I Am the Black Ace - Turner, B.K.
Brother James - Williams, Big Joe
Lady Luck - Walton, Mercy Dee
Don't Drive Me Away - Smith, R.C.
Zydeco Introduction
Bernadette Chere - Chevalier, Albert
Bald Headed Woman - Hopkins, Lightnin'
Baby Please Don't Go - Williams, Big Joe
Believe on Me - Overstreet, Louis
Low Down Blues [#] - Lewis, George [Clar
The Country Blues - Public Domain [1]
Crowley Waltz - Darbone, Luderin
She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain - Public Domain [1]
Ay, Ai Ai - Chenier, Clifton
Write Me a Few Lines - McDowell, Mississip
James, Charlie - Lipscomb, Mance
Louisiana Blues - Chenier, Clifton
Track Listings (21) - Disc #2
Cindy - Public Domain [1]
Little Red Rooster - Burnett, Chester
La Betaille - Public Domain [1]
Calcasieu Waltz - Lejune, Iry
Almlied - Public Domain [1]
I Wonder Where You Are Tonight - Bond, Johnny
In the Breeze - Hahn, Jerry
Going Back to the Country - Bonner, Weldon
Sometimes I Cry - Young, Johnny [1]
Two Bugs and a Roach - Hooker, Earl
Dream - Funchess, John
Things Gonna Get Better - Houston, Bee
Visions - Simmons, Sonny
I Wish I Could Sing - Coleman, George [1]
Boogieing in Strasbourg - Moore, Alexander He
The Death of Doctor King - Williams, Big Joe
Please Settle in Vietnam - Hopkins, Lightnin'
Shake 'Em on Down - Woods, Johnny [Blue
El Desesperado [Corrido] - Juarez, Ruben Casti
Creole Belles - Lampe, J. Bodewalt
Finger Lickin' Good - Musselwhite, Charli
Track Listings (22) - Disc #3
Church Point Breakdown - Public Domai
Gstanzelm Aus Dem Freistriztal - Public Domain [1]
Gibson Creek Shuffle - Fprd, Robben
Ups and Downs - Robinson, L.C.
You Ain't Got a Chance - Perryman, Willie
Home Sweet Home - Public Domai
Satan's Burning Hell - Neely, Bil
Luzita [Marzurka] - Martinez, Narciso
Yo Me Enamore [Canci?n] - Public Domain [1]
Borracho Perdido [Ranchera] - Public Domain [1]
One of These Mornings (I'm Checkin' Out) - Burris, J.C.
Allons a Grand Coteau (Let's Go to Grand Coteau) - Chenier, Clifton
Under the Green Oak Tree (En Bas du Ch?ne Vert) - Menard, D.L.
Besos y Copas [Ranchera] - Cordero, Victor Aur
Fast Santa Fe (Bear Cat) - Shaw, Robert
I'll See You in C-U-B-A - Berlin, Irving
El Balaj
La Gata
Beym Rebns Sude (At the Rebbe's Meal) - Public Domai
J' Ai Laisse de la Maiso - Read, Wallace Chees
Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio [Ranchera] - Jimenez, Santiago H
Mi Problema
Track Listings (23) - Disc #4
Gr?tenme Piedras del Campo [Ranchera] - Sanchez, Cuco
Co-F?? (Why?) - Delafose, John
Single Girl - Maddox, Rose
Bee de la Manche - Fontenot, Canray
Bosco Stomp - Public Domain [1]
Negra Ausencia - Jimeniz, Santiago J
La Chanson de Cinquante Sous [#] - Public Domain [1]
Shake What You Got - Thomas, Leo
'Tits Yeux Noirs (Little Black Eyes) - Walker, Lawrence
The Chill of a Saturday Afternoon - Fruge, Wade
Jolie Blonde - Public Domain [1]
Here to Stay (P.I.E.) - Ruffins, Kermit
I Know That's Right - Lumsdaine, John
I've Been There - Ardoin, Lawrence
Mentiste Cuando Dijiste [You Lied When You Said It] - Bernal, Manuel
Aguililla [Huapango] - Public Domain [1]
La Reine de la Salle (The Queen of the Dance Hall) - Public Domain [1]
Chanson de la Sagesse (Ballad of Wisdom) - Public Domain [1]
Hot Chili Mama - Doucet, Michael
Check Out the Zydeco - Chenier, C.J.
El Canoero [Cumbia] - Public Domain [1]
Corrido del Mono (Ballad of "The Monkey") [Tragedia en Palo Alto]
San Francisco Can Be Such a Lonely Town - Sharriff, Omar
Track Listings (16) - Disc #5
Mother - Public Domai
Gumagarrugu - Justo, Don
Khandan -E Amaturi III - Herawi, Aziz
A Ti, Colombia - Cuesta, Ivan
Food Stamp Blues - Nelson, Lionel
Ain't It a Shame - Wilson, Roma
J'Ai ?t? au Bal - Public Domain [1]
La Mal Sentada [Ranchera] - Davila, Pedro
Falling for You - Owens, Bonnie
Los Traficantes del Bravo [#] - Palomares, Cornelio
Jesus Will Fix It for You - Public Domai
Medved Na Lancu (The Bear on the Chain) - Klewitz, Anti Vo
Jale Griego - Public Domai
El Corrido de Esquiel Hernandez - Jimenez, Santiago J
What's His Name?...Jesus! - Public Domain [1]
Just a Closer Walk With Thee - Traditional
Superbly packaged and lovingly annotated, the five-disc Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Collection distills four decades of musical passion into six hours of highlights. The passion is that of Arhoolie founder Chris Str... more »achwitz, a German immigrant and former California schoolteacher whose label reflects a devotion to American roots music at its most vital and varied. Southern bluesmen Mance Lipscomb and Fred McDowell, Louisiana zydeco kingpin Clifton Chenier, and Tex-Mex conjunto accordionist Flaco Jimenez are just a few of the regional mainstays to achieve national renown through Arhoolie, and all of them are represented here. The spirited diversity of the 105 selections (including 13 available on CD for the first time) finds the label extending its reach from string-band country (Hackberry Ramblers) to hard-driving jazz (Jerry Hahn Quintet) to New Orleans brass bands to more recent forays into "sacred steel," featuring gospel music with pedal-steel guitar. Where so many folk preservations might as well be embalming musical relics, Arhoolie champions "vernacular music": music that retains a strong, integral connection to its community and gets people clapping, stomping, and dancing. Throughout the set, the immediacy of the performances transcends trendiness or timeliness, showing how America sounds beyond the plasticity of popular culture. --Don McLeese« less
Superbly packaged and lovingly annotated, the five-disc Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Collection distills four decades of musical passion into six hours of highlights. The passion is that of Arhoolie founder Chris Strachwitz, a German immigrant and former California schoolteacher whose label reflects a devotion to American roots music at its most vital and varied. Southern bluesmen Mance Lipscomb and Fred McDowell, Louisiana zydeco kingpin Clifton Chenier, and Tex-Mex conjunto accordionist Flaco Jimenez are just a few of the regional mainstays to achieve national renown through Arhoolie, and all of them are represented here. The spirited diversity of the 105 selections (including 13 available on CD for the first time) finds the label extending its reach from string-band country (Hackberry Ramblers) to hard-driving jazz (Jerry Hahn Quintet) to New Orleans brass bands to more recent forays into "sacred steel," featuring gospel music with pedal-steel guitar. Where so many folk preservations might as well be embalming musical relics, Arhoolie champions "vernacular music": music that retains a strong, integral connection to its community and gets people clapping, stomping, and dancing. Throughout the set, the immediacy of the performances transcends trendiness or timeliness, showing how America sounds beyond the plasticity of popular culture. --Don McLeese
CD Reviews
American Music 101
Samuel V. Berger | oakland, ca USA | 09/28/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you're looking for a place to go to get a comprehensive lesson in the finest in American roots music spanning blues, cajun/zydeco, gospel, bluegrass, tex/mex/conjunto, barrelhouse rock'n'roll, etc, look no further than this amazing collection. Intended as a "scrapbook" of label owner Chris Strachwitz's 40 year journey traveling across the hinterlands collecting and annotating the mostly obscure(though not all) raw sounds that he has had the pleasure of offering to us, the listening public, through Arhoolie. I like to think of it as a nice side companion to the Harry Smith collections. Including an amazing thick photo/essay book that makes this worth the price alone, this is as important release to serious music lovers as the recent Louis Armstrong box. WORTH EVERY PENNY!"
A Treasury of Obscurities
Kurt Harding | Boerne TX | 10/18/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I wasn't sure how I was going to like this box set when I bought it because I had never heard of most of the artists. When I first obtained it, I listened through once then put it on the shelf. On a recent road trip, I decided to put all 5 CDs in my CD changer to listen to in sequence and lemme tell you, am I ever glad to have done so.
The Journey of Chris Strachwitz is a musical journey through parts of America most of us never see or hear. There is Cajun, Zydeco, country, Tejano, blues, gospel and more. There is not the polished, overproduced kind of music one often hears on the radio, but rather the raw authenticity of music being played straight from the heart. Most of these musicians have made very little money in the business and are forced to do other work in order to make ends meet. Its a shame because just the small sampling here shows me that most of these artists have more talent than an army of top-40 schlocksters like Backstreet Boys and Madonna.
I am not equally enthusiastic about every song, but I was introduced to many performers from whom I want to hear more. Its hard to choose favorites, but I was impressed with Mance Lipscomb, the Reverend Louis Overstreet, Lydia Mendoza, Valerio Longoria, Omar Sharriff, Chatuye, The Campbell Brothers, and Aubrey Ghent in addition to more familiar performers like Clifton Chenier, Charlie Musselwhite, and any of the Jimenez clan. The worst song on the album is more pleasurable listening than most of the vapid pap served up on commercial radio.
With the CDs comes an informative booklet, filled with photos and stories of the performers and the sometimes serendipitous ways that Strachwitz hooked up with them.
If your musical taste runs the gamut, you should like this fairly priced box set. Chris Strachwitz did American music a tremendous turn when he set out to capture the sound of the folk before it was lost to us forever. I give this treasury of obscurities my heartiest recommendation. You won't be sorry you bought this!"
Great set and great value for money
J. Julian | London UK | 01/27/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is a truly wondrful set that works on every level.Beautifully presented with a very informative book and five high quality CD's.The sound quality is superb as are all the production values.The mixture of world music, old-time music and American regional sounds, as repesented in the output of Arhoolie Records, works extremely well here.I found my self playing all 5 CD's one after the other without strain and enjoying them all.Once having heard many of the artists for te first time the search wil then commence for solo albums if they exist, and they probably do in most cases.If this were a "Bear Family" set there would certainly be another $... on the askng price.If you are already a fan of this type of musci or are looking to explore it furter this really is THE set to buy as a starting point.All the tracks are strong and there is no "padding" at all. Combine this with a quite outstanding book giving full details on the artists and the history of Arhoolie and this is a set that will be cherished for years to come and played with great regularity.Highly recommended."
You'll enjoy this journey!
EKB | Olympia, WA | 01/18/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"If you're a fan of living/breathing folk music, not whitebread I-gave-my-love-a-cherry acoustic music,but vibrant music from backwoods, churches and back alley sub-cultures obscured and ignored by the modern world, then this collection is for you.
In the early 80's I became a big fan of Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco. Collecting his records was the first time I encountered the Arhoolie label. I began to see that other artists I enjoyed were also on the label Beasoleil, Fred McDowell, Mance Lipscomb and others. It got to where I'd buy records just because of that red and black label. Even if I'd never heard of the artist I could always bank on the record being interesting and that is all because of Chris Strachwitz. He's the owner but he's also the guy out there beating the bushes to find this stuff and most of the music collected here he recorded himself in the field.
Arhoolie has managed to remain an independent record label which is saying something in this day and age and that independence keeps it vital. There is a recording in this collection by a street artist name Bongo Joe, whose music is essentially Joe improvising lyrics while beating out a rythm on a metal 50 gal. oil drum. Everytime I hear this track I smile because it's so wild and also because I know this guy would be out in the street doing this whether someone recorded him or not. Thank god someone did and they did it because they saw the intrinsic value in this mans art, not the chance to make a million dollars.
The booklet that accompanies the collection is full of wonderful photos, history and stories. Mr. Strachwitz shares his field recording technique of having one microphone in the center with the artists gathered around it which lends these recordings a comfortable charm. I could not agree more with the reviewer who said this collection is a nice companion to the Anthology of American Folk Music, it provides a nice bookend for that hallowed collection. I started out by saying this is living/breathing folk music. I did not mean to infer that these artists are still alive (though some are), rather that the sub-cultures that spawned these artists are still out there. We should all take comfort in that."
Track Listings (25) - Disc #1