Doc And Merle Watson - Pickin The Blues [Vinyl-180g]-aksman

Doc & Merle Watson - Pickin' The Blues [Analogue Productions 180g LP] 24-bit/96kHz

Posted By : aksman | Date : 22 Nov 2010 23:36:44 |Doc & Merle Watson - Pickin' The Blues

Analogue Productions 180g LP / APF 026

Mastered by Doug Sax & The Mastering Lab

Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz (converted to 24/96) | FLAC | m3u, cue & Tech Log

Artwork | DR Analysis | 750 | RS & Filefactory | Folk, Blues | 1985



Allmusic.com rating: 4 / 5 Stars



Son Merle Watson gets top billing along with his dad on this superior release of acoustic mountain music, but it is really a group effort in which the smooth mastery of Doc Watson serves as a kind of a picture frame for each of the musical canvases included.... Fans of acoustic guitar will love this record -- the instruments are recorded beautifully, especially in that warm, sonorous mid-register.

- Eugene Chadbourne/AMG



Pickin' the Blues is the title of a recording by American folk music artists Doc Watson and Merle Watson, released in 1985.



Review by Eugene Chadbourne/AMG



Son Merle Watson gets top billing along with his dad on this superior release of acoustic mountain music, but it is really a group effort in which the smooth mastery of Doc Watson serves as a kind of a picture frame for each of the musical canvases included. The album title might indicate some limitation in the material, but the concept of "blues" has always been a bit more open in the white, Appalachian tradition than in Afro-American music. For example, one of the chord changes in "Freight Train Blues" would have probably made Muddy Waters want to jump out in front of one. Of course, a great amount of work has gone into segregating black and white music throughout the United States, with the Appalachian area absolutely no exception. Jesse Helms would no doubt be proud of how much energy has gone into making it seem like the black and white musicians of his home state of North Carolina had absolutely nothing to do with each other over the years. What we have here is really a delightful blend of several different blues traditions, transcending the stupid questions of race as if it were a bit of dust that can be blown off a the phonograph needle. Some of the music is quite swinging, such as "Carroll County Blues," the fiddle playing of Sam Bush evoking more the clean sound of jazz violinists than the rugged tone of old-time fiddlers. "Stormy Weather" comes from the catalog of vocal jazz classics that are strongly influenced by blues, but actually have their own harmonic structure that is quite different from typical blues. Watson is such a fine vocalist that he is able to make a number such as this sound relatively fresh, no doubt helped by a blend of acoustic instruments not normally associated with this type of tune. But whatever style the players take on, everything is performed beautifully with deep feeling, comfortable tempos, and inspired picking that is never simply grandstanding. Fans of acoustic guitar will love this record -- the instruments are recorded beautifully, especially in that warm, sonorous mid-register.Track listing



All songs Traditional unless otherwise noted.



Side A

Mississippi Heavy Water Blues (Barbeque Bob) 2:48

Sittin' Here Pickin' the Blues (Coleman, Watson) 3:07

Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler) 3:44

Windy and Warm (John D. Loudermilk) 2:02

St. Louis Blues (W. C. Handy) 2:59

Jailhouse Blues (Sleepy John Estes) 2:40



Side B

Freight Train Blues 2:35

Hobo Bill's Last Ride (Jimmie Rodgers) 3:36

Carroll County Blues 2:47

Blue Ridge Mountain Blues 2:44

I'm a Stranger Here 3:07

Honey Babe Blues 3:20

Personnel



Doc Watson - guitar, vocals

Merle Watson - guitar, slide guitar

T. Michael Coleman - bass, harmony vocals

Sam Bush - fiddle, mandolin

Joe Smothers - background vocalsTechnical Log



RCM Hannl 'limited' with "Circulating Brush"

Music Hall MMF 9.1 Turntable

Tonearm: Pro-Ject 9cc evo with Pure Silver Wires

Cartridge: Nagaoka MP-500

Brocksieper Phonomax (Tube Phono PreAmp) (temporarily replaced by "ProJect Tube-Box 2 SE)

E-MU 0404 external USB 2.0 Audiointerface

Interconnections : Silent Wire NF5

WaveLab 6 recording software

iZotope RX Advanced 1.21 for resampling and dithering



Vacuum cleaning - TT - Brocksieper Phonomax - E-MU 0404 - WaveLab 6 (24/192) - manual click removal - analyze (no clipping, no DC Bias offset) - converted to 24/96 (16/44.1) with iZotope RX Advanced 1.21 - split into individual Tracks - FLAC encoded (Vers. 1.21)



No silence been removed, please burn gapless to match original tracklayout.Personal Note



With my vinyl transfers, I try to catch the whole beauty of vinyl records; therefore I don't use any post-processing or any sound improvement. What you get is a clear and flat transfer. For getting a clear sound, I'll do an extended washing of each record with my RCM, which can take up to 30 minutes brushing on each side. Resistant ticks and clicks I try to remove as good as possible, but the priority is not to lose any musical information in the process. Surface noises, as long they are not too high, are left in place. Only on bad pressings or on records recorded at extremely low levels do I use a fade in-/-out. As John Peel said, "Life is full of surface noises." In some cases this means that I have to make a compromise.... The result has to pass my personal quality criteria, which is IMO quite high.