A record that was years ahead of its time – in part because Karen Dalton's a singer with a style that's wonderfully hard to peg! The set was issued on Capitol Records at a time when the label was doing great work with Fred Neil – but Dalton's got this blues-inflected style of singing and a kind of inflection that also maybe echoes Billie Holiday a bit – yet all at a level that's very laidback and easygoing, so that Karen never sounds like some of her contemporaries who were trying a bit to hard to reach for the more soulful side of the spectrum! Instrumentation is mostly acoustic, gut there's some great use of electric bass and a bit of electric guitar – which makes Dalton's 12 string and banjo performances come across more like some of the hipper acoustic sessions on Vanguard at the time. Tunes include a few originals two Fred Neil covers, and a well-chosen Tim Hardin track too – in a set list that includes "In The Evening It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best", "Little Bit Of Rain", "Blues On The Ceiling", "Sweet Substitute", "Ribbon Bow", "I Love You More Thank Words Can Say", and "Down On The Street". (Rock, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album

A landmark collection of music – the now-famous series of American Folk Music volumes put together by Harry Smith in the 50s! The work here spans the space of a few early decades of recorded music – all in styles expertly chosen by Smith, with countless examples of music that might have fallen beneath the sands of time if not otherwise included in the series! Even back at the original release of the collection, the series was a crucial bit of musical archaeology – and over the ensuing space of decades, has only gone onto become even more important. Styles run the gamut from blues to roots to folk and other styles in between and features tracks by Dick Justice, Coley Jones, Buell Kazee, Kelly Harrell, the Carter Family, the Bently Boys, Henry Thomas, the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers, Blind Willie Johnson, Dock Boggs, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and more! CD

That's "bards" of prey, not birds of pray – a great selection of country singers, really doing their best on a well-chosen batch of unusual material! There's some of the slight doom/gloom themes going on here that you'll find in other material from the Hillbillies In Hell series – but there's also maybe a more expansive ear for the music too, maybe more thoughtfulness for the quality of the vocals instead of the oddness of the tune – an effort that we can wholeheartedly endorse! Titles include "Afraid To Rock The Boat" by Roy Clark, "The Little Bird" by John D Loudermilk, "Hell Walks The Street" by Shirl Milete, "Ballad Of Black Mountain" by Mac Curtis, "These Boots Are Made For Walkin" by Hayden Thompson, "Sing & Shout" by T Tommy & The Chanters, "Hell Bound Train" by David Rodgers, "Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down" by Slim & Zella Mae Cox, and "Listen To The Devil Laugh" by Dave Baker. And oddly, a few tracks here are repeated in other versions, by other singers too! LP, Vinyl record album

Rare rockers, early soul, and cool classic country – all the sorts of cuts you'd expect to hear from the mighty Bear Family Records label – but brought together here with school and the classrooms as the theme! A few of the cuts are familiar, but most are nice and obscure – in keeping with the well-chosen tracks we always discover on Bear Family – all presented with very detailed notes and vintage images too! Titles include "School Bus" by The Shades, "High School USA" by Tommy Facenda, "I Wanna Dance With The Teacher" by The Olympics, "Letter To A School Girl" by The Delcados, "The Teacher" by The Falcons, "High School Love" by Ronnie Allen, "School Girl" by The Winstons, "School House Rock" by Billy Harlan, "Talk Of The School" by Sonny James, "School Bus Love Affair" by Wynn Stewart, and "School Girl" by the 5 Royales. 34 tracks in all! (Rock, Folk/Country) CD