HighTone Records
Anthology
Rockin’ From The Roots
Spark 1720-2
maybe on amazon
This is a wonderful double disc collection of artists that spans the lifetime and shows the growth of HighTone Records from primarily a blues label to expand its horizons to include a wider spectrum of music that includes music that has evolved, while still being true to the heart from which it comes. This is drawn from a broad palette of artists, musical genres and it is a job that is well done. They don’t stick to the most popular song from an album, however they select songs that are true representatives of the artist and indicative of what they were aiming for with the particular disc (of course sometimes the song selected became/or was a signature song, as in Bill Kirchen’s , “Hot Rod Lincoln”). These discs include artists as divergent as Robert Cray, The Blasters, Randy Weeks, Joe Ely, and Dick Dale and that is just from the first disc. The artists run the gamut from well known people such as Tom Russell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (with Bob Weir) to artists that are lesser
known or more known as songwriters such as Julie Miller, Buddy Miller, Chris Gaffney and Randy Weeks.
This disc is a must buy for several reasons; it is a very good collection of music, though from one label it is a widely differing group of artists showing many facets of the roots of American Music, there are no throw away cuts, you may not like some but that doesn’t mean they are throwaways, and it is bound to introduce or reintroduce you to some good new artists you may not have heard, or forgotten about, it is also a great collection for a road trip.