Release Date: October 21, 1997.
Recording Time: 69 minutes.
Recording Date: 1927 - 1929.
Release Info: Compilation (REV205) Studio Recording.
Released on John Fahey's Revenant label, this Dock Boggs collection includes all 12 of his 1927-29 recordings, plus five alternate takes and four cuts by Bill and Hayes Shepherd, friends and fellow players of Boggs. Included with the set is a 64-page book with essays by Greil Marcus, among others, and this is undoubtedly the best Dock Boggs collection ever assembled. ~ John Bush
Dock Boggs was a singer and banjo player who sunded as if his bones were coming through his skin every time be opened his mouth. In the mountains of eastern Kentucky/ western Virginia in the 1920s he forged a highly personal music of such intensity it the power to shock seventy years after it was recorded.
"Boggs set down a handful performances so strangely demanding as to lead a listener to measure what he or she knew of the American voice - any emblematic American voice, Huckleberry Finn's, Robert Johnson's, Barbara Jordan's - against Bogg's, to see if what one knew could pass his test. He created a small body of work so dissonant that like black gravity it can seem to suck into itself whatever music might be brought to bear upon it." - Greil Marcus (from the liner notes)
64 pages of text and rare photos. Over 60 minutes of music, including Bogg's 12 original 1927 and 1929 recordings, 5 never-before-heard 1929 outtakes, and 4 1920s cuts by Bogg's compatriots Bill and Hayes Shepherd.
Credits:
Banjo, Vocals - Dock Boggs (tracks: 1 to 17), Hayes Shepherd (tracks: 18, 19)
Fiddle, Vocals - Bill Shepherd (tracks: 20, 21)
Liner Notes, Research - Barry O'Connell, Charles Wolfe, Greil Marcus, Jon Pankake
Mastered By [CD Mastering And Noise Reduction] - Charlie Pilzer, David Glasser
Transcription By [Song Transcriptions] - Barry O'Connell
Transferred By [78 to DAT] - Alan Stoker (tracks: 13 to 19), Jack Towers (tracks: 1 to 8, 11, 12), Richard Nevins (tracks: 9, 10)
Transferred By [Tape to DAT] - Scott Colburn (tracks: 20, 21)
Tracklist:
01. Sugar Baby - Dock Boggs
02. Down South Blues - Dock Boggs
03. Country Blues - Dock Boggs
04. Sammie, Where Have You Been So Long? - Dock Boggs
05. Danville Girl - Dock Boggs
06. Pretty Polly - Dock Boggs
07. New Prisoner's Song - Dock Boggs
08. Hard Luck Blues - Dock Boggs
09. Lost Love Blues - Dock Boggs
10. Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There? - Dock Boggs
11. Old Rub Alcohol Blues - Dock Boggs
12. False Hearted Lover's Blues - Dock Boggs
13. Lost Love Blues (Unissued Alternate Take #1) - Dock Boggs
14. Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There? (Unissued Alternate Take #1) - Dock Boggs
15. Old Rub Alcohol Blues (Sole Unissued Alternate Take) - Dock Boggs
16. Lost Love Blues (Unissued Alternate Take #2) - Dock Boggs
17. Will Sweethearts Know Each Other There? (Unissued Alternate Take #2) - Dock Boggs
18. Peddler And His Wife - Hayes Shepherd
19. Hard For To Love - Hayes Shepherd
20. Bound Steel Blues - Bill Shepherd
21. Aunt Jane Blues - Bill Shepherd
Tracks 13 to 17 previously unissued alternate takes.