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"Oh, but this is wonderful! The title comes from a quote by Bob Dylan, 'Roscoe Holcomb has a certain untamed sense of control which makes him one of the best'. One of the best? Come off it Bob. This guy was the best! And this album is as good as it gets. I am sure that Roscoe needs no introduction. His recordings on two previous Smithsonian-Folkways sets, Mountain Music of Kentucky (SF CD 40077) and The High Lonesome Sound (SF CD 40104) are testaments to his greatness. Now we have the cream on the topping.
Any number of people have tried to analyse just what it was that made him such a good performer. Was it his intensity as a singer, his voice straining on all those forced high notes? Was it the driving banjo, or the open-tuned guitar plying relentless notes behind that remarkable voice? Or was it rather that he was the total embodiment of all those varied facets that make up what we call the Appalachian style of music? Sitting here listening to Roscoe's voice working its way through the Frank Hutchison classic Coney Island it hardly seems to matter. No matter what the source of Roscoe's songs and tunes, they were his songs and tunes. And they were sung and played by a man whose whole life, his total experience of life, sparkled throughout his performances. Many people listening to Roscoe only heard the sound of pain and suffering, but I think that they were missing something. John Cohen, who has assembled this collection, gives the following quote from John Hartford, 'See, I really love Roscoe Holcomb's sound. These other people tell me I'm hearing all this pain and all this stuff - but that's not what I think of. I can't tell you what I feel - I just love it. Maybe there's some deep psychological reason going on that I don't understand with my limited hillability.' Roscoe's music stems from a number of factors. It is rooted in the hard life that he was forced to endure in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. It takes in the traditions that were all around him, the old ballads and love-songs, the Baptist hymns and chants, the blues 78s that were played on treasured Victrolas, performers on the radio. But, whatever the source, Roscoe's singing was, as I said, his and his alone."
sounds like: my bloody valentine for real
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