American Epic: The Soundtrack

American Epic: The Soundtrack is the soundtrack of the 2017 documentary film American Epic. The album features the 15 musical highlights from the documentary series recorded between 1927 and 2014.

American Epic: The Soundtrack
Soundtrack album by
Various artists
ReleasedMay 12, 2017
Recorded1927-2014
GenreCajun, country, blues, folk, Hawaiian, Native American, Tex-Mex
Length44:22
LabelLo-Max, Sony Legacy
American Epic chronology
American Epic: The Collection
(2017)
American Epic: The Soundtrack
(2017)
Music from The American Epic Sessions
(2017)

Background

The album was compiled by the American Epic film producers and co-writers Allison McGourty, Duke Erikson and director Bernard MacMahon to provide a brief overview of the music featured in the documentary series.[1] The album features 13 songs recorded in the 1920s and 30s, an early 1960s gospel performance by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and a recording made for the film featuring the grandchildren of Amédée Breaux performing his song “Jole Blon” on the same instruments he and his brothers recorded it on in 1929.[2][3] The album shares a number of selections with the 5-CD box set American Epic: The Collection.

Restoration

New sound restoration techniques developed for the American Epic film series were utilized to restore the thirteen 1920s and 30s recordings on the album.[4] The 78rpm record transfers were made by sound engineer Nicholas Bergh using reverse engineering techniques garnered from working with the restored first electrical sound recording system from the 1920s in The American Epic Sessions.[5] This was followed by meticulous sound restoration by sound engineers Peter Henderson and Joel Tefteller to reveal greater fidelity, presence and clarity to these 1920s and 1930s recordings than had been heard before.[5][6][7][8][9] Some of the recordings were repressed from the original metal parts, located whilst researching the films.[10] Henderson explained, “in some cases we were lucky enough to get some metal parts – that’s the originals where they were cut to wax and the metal was put into the grooves and the discs were printed from those back in the ‘20s. Some of those still exist – Sony had some of them in their vaults.”[9]

Release

The album was released on May 12, 2017, a month prior to the broadcast of the American Epic documentary films.[1] The album issued on vinyl, CD, and download.[1]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Vice (Expert Witness)A[11]

Robert Christgau in Noisey awarded the album an A grade[12] and made it his number 5 Album of the Year.[13] He described it as “a terrific new anthology of American folk music,”[14] and praised the compilation’s ethnic and gender diversity writing “if this be political correctness, bring it on.”[12] The restoration work was described by Greil Marcus in The Village Voice as “re-mastering I can only call profound. Performances you might think you knew sound as if you’ve never heard them before — never apprehended them.”[6] Ian Anderson in fRoots, reviewing the restoration wrote “you haven’t really heard these tracks at all. Not like this. Forget bad dubs of worn-out 78s pressed on poor vinyl. The ‘reverse engineering’ transfers by Nicholas Bergh and subsequent restorations are so startlingly better, practically everything you will ever have experienced from this era can be discounted and CD is the best way to hear them. The clarity of group recordings where every instrument is well defined, and of solo artists where their instruments and voices suddenly sound real, will have you on the edge of your seat. And there’s none of that fog of 78 surface noise which many people find too much of a distraction: suddenly, legendary artists are in the room with you”.[8]

Track listing

No.TitleOriginal Artist and yearLength
1."Gonna Die with My Hammer in My Hand"Williamson Brothers & Curry 19273:25
2."On The Road Again"Memphis Jug Band 19282:50
3."Frankie"Mississippi John Hurt 19283:28
4."Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow"The Carter Family 19282:59
5."Mal Hombre"Lydia Mendoza 19303:32
6."Peg and Awl"The Carolina Tar Heels 19292:57
7."Tomi Tomi"Sol K. Bright with the Aloha Serenaders 19302:43
8."Indian Tom Tom"Big Chief Henry's Indian String Band 19292:36
9."Cocaine Habit Blues"Hattie Hart and the Memphis Jug Band 19302:51
10."Up Above My Head"Sister Rosetta Tharpe 1960s2:58
11."Down the Dirt Road Blues"Charley Patton 19292:56
12."Allons à Lafayette"Joe Falcon 19282:57
13."Stackalee"Frank Hutchison 19273:06
14."Waiting for a Train"Jimmie Rodgers 19292:47
15."Jole Blon"The Breaux Brothers with Louis Michot 20142:09
Total length:44:22

Personnel

References

Notes

  1. "American Epic: The Collection & The Soundtrack Out May 12th | Legacy Recordings". Legacy Recordings. 2017-04-28. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  2. "America Hears Itself - Know Louisiana". Know Louisiana. 2017-09-05. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  3. [1] Wald, McGourty, MacMahon 2017, p. 192
  4. "American Epic - Reviving Record Production's Past". Long Live Vinyl. 2017-06-16. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  5. "'American Epic': Inside Jack White and Friends' New Roots-Music Doc". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  6. "Greil Marcus' Real Life Rock Top 10: The Epic Tradition". Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  7. Lewis, Randy. "'American Epic' explores how a business crisis ignited a musical revolution". latimes.com. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  8. Anderson, Ian (August 2017). "American Epic". fRoots. p. 59.
  9. "Restoring a vintage 1920s recording system for 'American Epic'". Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  10. [1] Wald, McGourty, MacMahon 2017, pp. 21-22
  11. Christgau, Robert (January 22, 2018). "Robert Christgau on a Wave of American Epics". Noisey.vice.com.
  12. "Robert Christgau on a Wave of American Epics". Noisey. 2017-05-26. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  13. "Robert Christgau: 2017: Dean's List". www.robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 2018-02-20.
  14. Robert Christgau [@rxgau] (May 26, 2017). "3 terrific new anthologies of American folk music" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

Bibliography

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