Various Artists – The Best Of King And Starday Bluegrass

The plain truth is that I know almost none of the music on these four discs — at least not these versions of the songs — which is precisely why this box is welcome.

Artists in the ’50s and ’60s didn’t necessarily aspire to being signed by King or Starday, but it was a road to the top, or a way to stay in the game until the next major came calling. Or just a way to make records. Same as the indies are now, one suspects. The Stanley Brothers and a number of now-familiar names stopped by one or the other (and sometimes both): Jimmy Martin and Bob Osborne, Reno & Harrell, Reno & Smiley, Jim & Jesse, Red Allen, the Country Gentlemen, the Lewis Family, the Stoneman Family, Larry Sparks, on up to J.D. Crowe and New Grass Revival.

Still, it oughtta be a bigger deal, somehow. Cincinnati’s legendary indie King (home not just to the Stanleys, but to James Brown and countless others) and the Texas-born, Nashville-raised Starday imprint (home to some of the most gorgeously outlandish album covers in the history of country music — and Minnie Pearl) have long survived, and stayed in and out of print, within the confines of Gusto, a budget reissue outfit.

But this set is sure a step in the right direction. Some years ago I lobbied a big reissue outfit to release Ira Louvin’s lone solo outing, only to find that King had already done so (licensed from Capitol), adorned with a one-page, one-sided cover. This set, at least, comes with a spartan 28-page booklet, each act given a solid (if inelegant) long paragraph profile, complete with session information and photos. Legacy or Bear Family it ain’t, but it covers the bases.

And they’re bases worth covering, for here are the first and second generations of bluegrass, at work. The shock of discovery (found on the Stanley Brothers’ Rich-R-Tone sides, for example) is largely absent. This is a more blue-collar keep-working stuff. Because they are trying, in some shifting sense, to conform to an already accepted standard, there is less variety in approach here than one might hope for.

Each label’s history is summarized in two discs, arranged chronologically and thus leaving any intuitive musical linkages between artists to the listener. Hits and misses are mixed in with a small handful of previously unreleased tracks (including two from NGR’s never-issued second album, lost to the early 1970s collapse of Starday) in an uncertain logic.

So it’s not perfect.

It’s still a fascinating document, for along with the well-known are a number of artists who all but the most devout bluegrass fans probably know principally as names in books: J.E. Mainer (the opening pair of tracks on the King half), Mac O’Dell, Hylo Brown, Carl Story. And more that I’ve no memory even of having read about: Tommy Magness, Bill & Mary Reid, Jim Eanes, the Easter Brothers, Bill Duncan. And still more.

At the center is a fair swatch of work from the Stanley Brothers, and Ralph after, and from various combinations of Don Reno and Bill Harrell. Which is to say that the level of musicianship is high, even if the productions seem rushed by today’s standards; some of the songs are deservedly obscure, and some of the musicians went into more lucrative fields.

The result is a mixed bag. You’ll make some new friends, find old ones in somewhat different settings, and discover some acts whose work requires no further inspection. And occasionally there will be moments when your head snaps up and you think, “Ah, that is why Carl Story is revered.”