Goodbye Babylon

Quick delivery and great package. Excellent!

This could not be better. If you know & love Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk, get this immediately. I know it's expensive but it's only money - and in this fantastic box is something more than money can buy - joy, love, inspiration, wonderful music from the American South - all the way from the 1920s to the 1950s. Speaking as a typical British fence-sitting agnostic, I couldn't honestly tell you if there is a God, but here's one thing I do know - belief in God made uneducated black and white people in the Southern states of America make some of the best, most exciting, soulful music I ever heard. You may be familiar with several names here - Skip James, Uncle Dave Macon, Mahalia Jackson, Golden Gate Quartet - but others are totally obscure Mother McColum, Dorothy Melton, the Tennessee Music and Printing Company Quartet (!!), oh, and something called "The Black Camel of Death" by the Rev J M Milton - are just as good. So this is 6 cds of rocking, rolling, ranting, raving, shouting, testifying, sermonising, hollering and praising, plus a wonderful fat booklet, and filling up the empty sections each side of the cds are cotton balls, with seeds. The final note in the booklet tells us "This set is dedicated to all the artists who wanted their message to be heard. The cotton is a reminder of the struggle, strife and sorrow that so many of them endured." The compiler of the whole astonishing thing is Steven Lance Ledbetter, of whom I know absolutely nothing, except that he's the Harry Smith of his generation. On Disc Three Washington Phillips asks the question "What are they doing in Heaven Today?" Might have been a head-scratcher in 1929 but in 2004 we know the answer - cranking up the volume and playing this lot loud.

If this is still available, buy it. Expensive, yes. Worth it? Oh, yeah. Spiritual / religious music being one of the richest veins of North American music to mine, the choices made by the wonderful Dust-To-Digital compilers here out-class Harry Smith's Anthology on a number of levels. Not to diss Harry, but he favoured a more limited selection, and had his tongue in his cheek at times. With Goodbye, Babylon it's all good, all interesting, and highly listenable. I readily compiled a single disc from this box-set that I've had on medium rotation for years - a poignant, wistful, joyous celebration of life harsh with work, tragedy, poverty and uncertainty. One day I'll rot and make compost, but right now I'm raising a fist against a vengeful god - ain't no grave gonna hold this body down!

I'm a little disappointed. The packaging was damaged...not on the outside, but the box inside was damaged, with one of the various partitions broken. It appears to have been rather poorly manufactured. The reviews had described the box and its (non music) contents to be something rather special.

This is simply fantastic. The music, the sermons, the booklet - even the wooden case and the raw cotton. If you're interested in country-gospel in particular, or roots music in general, then you really should buy this. A delightful thing to own; a breathtaking collection to listen to.

The greatest collection of songs and brilliant box and book and cotton ! This is the best thing ever !