#593 Roy Acuff - The Essential Roy Acuff (1936-1949)

Classic, old-timey country music, full of fiddles, plucked guitars, harmonies, sadness and resignation.

At the heart is Acuff's voice, a soaring, majestic, wind-wisp'd thing, an ancient eagle circling its range on its ever-last autumn day. There's an important detail about this era that's easy to overlook, but crucial to understanding its sound: as a country or blues singer, you had to be able to sing and be heard over a band, often without amplification. This gives rise to blues shouters like Big Joe Turner and country callers like Acuff alike, giving the music much of its desperation and urgency and power. Now, or course, much of this is music being made during The Great Depression; this was music of hard times and The Lord was just about the only thing keeping most folks going, so a certain amount of desolate, defiant reaching is to be expected. But that practical detail fostering such a blessed side-effect is one of rock and roll's most fascinating pieces of backstory.

For those wondering what to expect, this is decidedly in line with the well-regarded O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, but there's also shadows of Carey Mercer's hooting, swooping cries, Blitzen Trapper's dusty underbelly, and heck, The Beatles' Rocky Raccoon. You have to look to see the connections all the way into rock as we know it, but they're there, dusty and waiting 3.5/5