Product Description Five Stars. Groundbreaking. "Fans of Nick Tosches' Where Dead Voices Gather will lap up this extraordinary snapshot of an America that is still shrouded in shadow. Good For What Ails You supplants the Harry Smith collections by surveying the people's music of the day, some of which sounds like nothing you have heard before." Jon Savage - MOJO Dec 2005 Before motion pictures, before radio, before television, the traveling Medicine Shows brought entertainment to America! Flamboyant pitch doctors roamed the land, hawking their tonics, elixirs, and miracle cures, and with them came a host of singers, dancers, comedians, banjo pickers, blues shouters, jug blowers, string ticklers, and minstrel men. The shows died out by mid-20th century, but not before a handful of seasoned veterans left their musical legacy on phonograph records. Here are classic performances by such colorful names as Pink Anderson, Daddy Stovepipe, Gid Tanner, Blind Sammie, Bogus Ben Covington, Fiddlin' John Carson, Banjo Joe, Shorty Godwin, Beans Hambone, Emmett Miller & His Georgia Crackers, the Three Tobacco Tags, and many more! Two-CD Set / 48 Songs Digitally Remastered / Over 2 Hours of Music / Six-Panel Digipak with 72-page Full Color Booklet A Profusely Illustrated History of the Medicine Shows, many Rare Photographs and Firsthand Accounts never before published, plus full discography and song descriptions. Review A Sonic Tonic: One of the fall's more curious and enlightening CD sets comes from acclaimed reissue label Old Hat. -- Todd Martens - Billboard/Reuters 15 Oct 2005Annual Critics' Poll of the year's best records: Good For What Ails You # 16 -- Top 20 Reissues of 2005 - No Depression (TN) Jan/Feb 2006As academia continues to pry open American show business' minstrel past, Ails is a fascinating illustration of its musical appeal. -- Michaelangelo Matos - Seattle (WA) Weekly 30 Nov 2005Fans of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music may well find that this one is even wilder. -- Steve Leggett - All Music Guide Nov 2005Good For What Ails You is just amazing - expansive, odd, moving, confusing, glorious. -- Greil Marcus - author The Old, Weird America Oct 2005Listening, one can almost smell the Kickapoo Indian Salve. Pitches may have been purest snake oil, but music still delights. -- Chris Morris - Hollywood Reporter/Reuters 29 Dec 2005Rare tracks from the heyday of the snake oil vendors. Weird folk and blackface balladry for Harry Smith Anthology addict. -- Top 10 Reissue of the Year - MOJO Jan 2006
H**Y
Great to hear original music
I sat back and thoroughly enjoyed this music. Original music played and sung with great gusto. I imagined being in the wild west being sold all kinds of tonics. The best tonic of all is the variety of this album.
R**S
Five Stars
good fun music
K**D
Great collection of songs, with great liner notes.
A rich 2 disc seam of American musical history, presented with a gorgeous booklet containing liner notes, photographs and essays on the phenomenon of medicine show music. May seem like a minority interest item, but if you like early blues or bluegrass there is plenty here for you to enjoy. There is even a version (the original?) of Tell it to me, the song done so well by Old Crow Medicine show. I have given it 4 stars out of 5 only because of the price. JSP records knock out well remastered 4 disc sets of this kind of stuff for half the price (though their liner notes are not is this league).
G**R
THE REAL ORIGINAL AMERICA
THIS IS HOW AMERICAN MUSIC SOUNDED BEFORE IT BECAME TOTALLY COMMERCIAL AND DEPENDENT ON THE WHIMSOF THE STUDIO PRODUCERS. THIS COLLECTION CAPTURES THAT WONDERFUL MOMENT WHEN SHEER IRREPRESSIBLE ENERGYWAS ALLOWED TO BE COMMITTED TO VINYL WITHOUT THE INTERFERENCE OF STUDIO EXECUTIVES. WHAT A JOY!
F**N
a worthwhile buy
THIS DOUBLE CD AND BOOK ARE EXCELLENT VALUE, THE BOOK IS GREAT FOR WANT OF A BETTER WORD, ITS WELL WORTH BUYING JUST FOR THAT, BUT MUSIC IS AN ADDED BONUS I RECOMEND THIS VERY HIGHLY WORTH EVERY PENNY
