Acoustic Blues Vol. 1-4 The Roots Of It All [2013-2014] |

 VA - Acoustic Blues Vol. 1-4 The Roots Of It All (The Definitive Collection!) [2013-2014] (8 x CDs)

ACOUSTIC BLUES

"Four double discs can look like excess on the shelf, but this set settles into something quieter once it begins. 

Bear Family Records issued these volumes across 2013 and 2014, each one carrying its own booklet, 

yet the intention only becomes clear when they are heard together. 

Eight discs, nearly a century of recordings, arranged with patience rather than urgency.

It does not open with a statement. The earliest sides arrive plainly, voices and guitars set down 

with little separation between performer and room. Blind Lemon Jefferson, Papa Charlie Jackson, 

Lonnie Johnson appear without framing, each track carrying its own weight. The sound is direct, 

sometimes fragile, sometimes steady, but always close.

What changes is not the style but the surroundings. Moving through the first volumes, the recordings 

begin to widen. Small additions appear, a second guitar, a fiddle, a bass line that holds the rhythm a little tighter. 

By the time Robert Johnson enters the sequence, the language is already established, 

his recordings sit inside it rather than standing apart.

The later volumes shift the perspective again. Instead of ending the story in the 1930s, 

the set continues forward, showing how that same acoustic approach survives in later decades. 

Performers such as Taj Mahal and Etta Baker appear with clearer recording quality, 

but the structure remains familiar, voice, guitar, and space.

Across all four volumes, the sequencing works by accumulation. 

The shifts are gradual, almost unmarked, one performance leading to the next without needing explanation. 

Early field recordings, studio sides, revival era sessions, they sit together as part of the same line.

Taken as a whole, the set feels less like a history lesson and more like a long continuity of sound. 

Leave it playing long enough and the decades begin to blur, the differences still there, 

but held together by a shared approach that never really disappears." (Butterboy)

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