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Twenty Four Volumes of Historic Country Music

Each with an illustrated booklet

Traditional Country Music is an ongoing catalogue of CD compilations of early country music, all originally recorded more than 50 years ago. The series started with 'Twenty Country Music Makers' to illustrate an aricle in Traditional Music maker magazine about artists such as Wesley Tuttle, Monte Hale, Texas Jim Robertson, Buddy Williams, Lulu Belle & Scotty, Gene Autry, Tex Morton and many others. Such was the demand form readers for more that this CD became Volume 1 in the series and we embarked upon a program of issuing a new compilation every other month. We are now up to volume 24, all of them having a minimum of 25 tracks with a comprehensive booklet compiled by Bryan Chalker. There are yet more compilations to be issued in future months many the result of readers informing us of their favourite artists and music styles. The CD's cover everything in early country music including Appalachian, Bluegrass, Yodelling, Gospel, Honky Tonk, Barndance music and Cowboy songs. If you like the sound of undiluted early country music then this series will satisfy you. You can listen to sample tracks from each CD on this website and purchase CDs through the secure WORLDPAY system. If you would like to recieve a copy of the complete printed catalogue, just send us an email with your name and address. Click here.

IDENTITY

We have tried to give Country back its rural identity, but in a way that avoids resurrecting cliched old songs. Fortunately our material sources are limitless and Traditional Country Music Makers seems set to become a permanent series without end. London-Starday's old Country Music Hall of Fame series of LPs attained double figures during the 1960s, as did RCA's Country Guitar collection of EPs but, with our Volume 21, Same Roots, Different Fruits, we are set to overtake them. This particular collection illustrates the diversity of country music and cuts a swathe through Western Swing, early Cajun, Bluegrass, Hillbilly, Hawaiian and Spanish-influenced styles as portrayed by the Light Crust Doughboys, Leo Soileau, Jerry Irby & His Texas Ranchers, Darby & Tarlton, Lonnie Glosson &. Wayne Raney and Bill Monroe And His Blue Grass Boys. The roots are from one tree, but the fruits it produces are often very different but all interlink to produce the general sounds we know as American Country music.

Sometimes it's good to swing off at a tangent to maintain variety, and Volumes 17 and 18 offer the country purist Country Gals and Heroes of the Honky-Tonks, respectively. The former title is fairly self-explanatory and looks at the work of female artists like Lulu Belle Wiseman, Rose Maddox, Molly O'Day, Bonnie Lou, Wilma Lee Cooper, Kitty Wells and The Miller Sisters. Heroes of the Honky-Tonks, however, features the work of just four acts, largely ignored by today's fans, and I refer to Jimmie Skinner, Frankie Miller, Johnnie & Jack and Jim Eanes and includes some rare tracks.

Country music and Rock & Roll are blood brothers, so we thought we'd devote at least one volume (19) to Country's Rockin' Roots and run the gamut of sounds and styles produced by a widely diverse selection of artists, including the Delmore Brothers, Jack Turner, Benny Barnes, Cliffie Stone, Arkie Shibley, Buzz Busby, Rocky Bill Ford and Jimmy Work. There will be much here to attract the Rockabilly fraternity, as well as country enthusiasts.

In between these specific titles will be further volumes devoted to thoroughbred Hillbilly music from the 1940s and '50s Hillbilly Jamboree (Volume 14), and Hillbilly Stomp (Volume 16) - and an irresistible selection for Volume 12 entitled Honky Tonk Jukebox, presented by Doyle & Grover & The Melody Boys, Hank Smith, Bill Mack, Hardrock Gunter, Dick Curless, George Jones and Jimmie Skinner, to name but few.

THE YODELLERS ARE BACK

Our two yodelling CDs proved popular enough to merit a third collection, so the yodellers are back with Yodeller’s Paradise (Volume 13) and falsetto jewels from Marvin Rainwater, Elton Britt, Donn Reynolds and Cliff Carlisle. Cowboy Songs (Volume 5) proved popular enough to prompt another foray into Western culture and for Volume 15, The Cowboy Rides Again. Amid the ever so slightly familiar contributions from the Sons of the Pioneers, Billy Williams, The Carter Family and Bill Boyd & His Cowboy Ramblers are two extremely risque and genuine Victorian cowboy ballads from the great Oscar Brand; certainly not for broadcasting before the 9pm watershed!

Acoustic music is back in fashion and we celebrate its renaissance with Hillbilly Banjo (Volume 20) and a veritable feast of clawhammer and three-finger style picking and singing from some of America's finest, including Charlie Monroe, Grandpa Jones, Stringbean, the Allen Brothers and Uncle Dave Macon.

I am one of many who consider Canada's Wilf Carter to be a greatly . undervalued contributor to the overall . growth of country and western music and Wilf will be treated to an entire CD package of his own in the months to come. This great Canadian will also feature in a forthcoming fourth volume of yodelling songs, once I can muster the courage to launch myself into more research on the subject.

We welcome suggestions for future volumes and assistance in sourcing ultra rare material. We may know a lot about country music but we don't know it all. I wasn't aware, for instance, that the late Red River Dave McEnery was the yodeller on Foy Willing & The Riders of the Purple Sage's version of She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain, featured on Yodellin' Gold (Volume 7) and am grateful to Paul Hazell for enlightening me. It's this kind of thing that makes country music research so challenging and exciting and why I enjoy compiling this unique series so much.

Bryan Chalker

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