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4.5
Playing Time - 46:52 -- The 15 songs on "Down Home Saturday Night" were picked to represent "the most rocking, rollicking and partying tracks" the music archivists could find in the Smithsonian Folkways collection originally obtained from the estate of Moses Asch in 1987. Celebrating those venues where everyday folks gathered to kick up their heels on Saturday nights, the album gives us a sampling of old-time, blues, folk, bluegrass, Cajun, Conjunto, Texas jump blues, Zydeco, R&B, western swing, and even country novelty ("Hey Bartender, There's a Big Bug in My Beer"). Obviously designed for listeners with eclectic tastes, this sampler allows us to discover or experience a variety of American roots sounds. These happy, playful songs are all about the time of the week when we relax, unwind, and socialize. Liner notes by Jeff Place suggest that we put this album on the CD player the next time family and friends come over to barbecue.The music bursts with pep and will surely keep your party lively. How can you go wrong with a Cajun dance-hall stomp featuring accordion, guitar, fiddle and singing? It's interesting to see how compilers arranged the set with so much disparate material from so many genres. While most of the featured artists in the opening tracks are acoustic, by track five we are grooving to the electric jump blues of Erbie Bowser, T. D. Bell and the Blues Specialists. The Texas Playboys' "Big Ball's in Cowtown" is a good song to seque back to a more acoustic setting of Memphis Slim's piano/vocal and the New Lost City Ramblers' old-time string band sound. That group's rendition of "Bill Morgan and his Gal" also appears on the label's new release of songs about money called "If You Ain't Got the Do-Re-Mi" (SFW 40195). The album's three closing numbers offer three types of music with drums -- electric R&B from The Chambers Brothers, conjunto from Ben Tavera King and Los Poleros, and Zydeco from Boozoo Chavis and the Magic Sounds.The albums from which the tracks come were released between 1959-2003. I'd encourage you to find some that you especially like, and then purchase your favorite artists' complete albums. And then you'll be able to party all night long to their music. (Joe Ross, Roseburg, OR.)
