Charlie Poole with The North Carolina Ramblers and The Highlanders – 4CD

Track Listing:

CD1: Charlie Poole with The North Carolina Ramblers
1. The Girl I Left in Sunny Tennessee - 3:31   2. I'm the Man That Rode the Mule Around the World - 3:14   3. Can I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight Mister - 3:10   4. Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues - 2:53   5. Flyin' Clouds - 3:18   6. Wild Horse - 3:08   7. Forks of Sandy - 2:59   8. Mountain Reel - 3:04   9. Goodbye Booze - 3:17   10. Monkey on a String - 3:08   11. The Brave Engineer - 3:18   12. Too Young to Marry - 3:06   13. Ragtime Annie - 3:14   14. Leaving Home - 3:11   15. Budded Rose - 3:03   16. There'll Come a Time - 3:30   17. White House Blues - 3:29   18. The Highwayman - 3:17   19. Hungry Hash House - 3:25   20. If I Lose, I Don't Care - 3:07   21. You Ain't Talkin' to Me - 2:57   22. From Tennessee - 3:09   23. The Letter That Never Came - 2:49   24. Falling by the Wayside - 3:06

CD2: Charlie Poole with The North Carolina Ramblers
1. Take a Drink on Me - 3:16   2. Sunset March - 2:38   3. The Wreck of the Virginian No. 3 - 3:09   4. Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Medley - 3:14   5. Please Papa Come Home - 3:01   6. The Old Clay Pipe - 3:00   7. Write a Letter to My Mother - 3:04   8. Poor Little Joe - 3:19   9. We Will Outshine the Sun - 2:53   10. Walking on the Streets of Glory - 2:44   11. I Cannot Call Her Mother - 3:00   12. Pearl Bryant - 3:04   13. Take Back the Ring - 2:49   14. Give My Love to Nell - 2:58   15. My Mother and My Sweetheart - 2:58   16. She Is Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage - 3:12   17. Bill Mason - 2:38   18. Kitty Blye - 2:39   19. I'm Glad I'm Married - 2:53   20. Sweet Sunny South - 2:47  21. Blue Eyes - 2:43   22. The Bluefield Murder - 3:05   23. I'll Be There Mary Dear - 3:05   24. What Is Home Without Love - 2:59   25. There'll Come a Time - 2:53

CD3: Charlie Poole with The North Carolina Ramblers
1. George Collins - 2:50   2. As We Parted at the Gate - 2:53   3. There's a Mother Old and Gray Who Needs Me Now - 3:01   4. Sweet Refrain - 2:53   5. Budded Roses - 2:48   6. Take Me Back to Home and Mother - 2:47   7. A Young Boy Left His Home One Day - 3:07   8. My Wife Went Away and Left Me - 2:55   9. I Once Loved a Sailor - 3:06   10. Husband and Wife Were Angry One Night - 2:50   11. Ramblin' Blues - 3:06   12. Took My Gal a-Walkin' - 2:47   13. What Is Home Without Babies - 2:51   14. Jealous Mary - 2:59   15. Old and Only in the Way - 3:28   16. Shootin' Creek - 3:24   17. Bill Mason - 3:01   18. Goodbye Mary Dear - 2:53   19. Leaving Dear Old Ireland - 3:00   20. Baltimore Fire - 3:12   21. Sweet Sunny South - 2:55   22. He Rambled - 2:59

CD4: Charlie Poole with The North Carolina Ramblers & The Highlanders
With The Highlanders: 1. Under the Double Eagle - 2:57   2. Richmond Square - 2:54   3. Flop Eared Mule - 2:58   4. Lynchburg Town - 3:03   Fred Newman & Charlie Poole: 5. San Antonio - 2:43   6. What Is a Home Without Babies - 2:53   With The Highlanders: 7. Tennessee Blues - 2:56   8. May I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight Mister - 3:20   With The Allegheny Highlanders: 9. A Trip to New York, Pt. 1: On the Train - 3:02   10. A Trip to New York, Pt. 2: The Audition - 2:53   11. A Trip to New York, Pt. 3: In New York - 2:44   12. A Trip to New York, Pt. 4: In the Studio - 2:54   With The North Carolina Ramblers: 13. Sweet Sixteen - 2:52   14. My Gypsy Girl - 2:57  15. The Only Girl I Ever Loved - 3:02   16. Write a Letter to My Mother - 3:02   17. If the River Was Whiskey - 3:10   18. It's Movin' Day - 3:28   19. Southern Medley - 3:06   20. Honeysuckle - 3:15   21. Goodbye Sweet Liza Jane - 3:05   22. Look Before You Leap - 2:47   23. Just Keep Waiting Till the Good Time Comes - 3:22   24. Milwaukee Blues - 3:18   25. Where the Whipoorwill Is Whispering Goodnight - 2:58

Reviews:

1. AllMusic - Steve Leggett
Charlie Poole wasn't a particularly brilliant banjo player (although his later three-finger-style picking would set the table for the advent of bluegrass banjo a couple of decades after his death), and he wasn't the world's greatest vocalist either, but he had a certain devil-may-care charisma that made him a superstar in the string band era of the 1920s. Poole's greatest talent -- aside from an ability to go on long drinking sprees and to manage to be at the center of things even in his absence -- was in his song adaptations, which drew from sources outside the standard Appalachian fiddle tunes and reels, including pop, ragtime, and blues. This extensive 96-track, four-disc box set from Britain's JSP Records collects the lion's share of his recordings on Columbia, Poole's label from 1925 until his death in 1931 at the age of 39. Also included are a handful of cuts Poole made under the table for Paramount (where his North Carolina Ramblers were called the Highlanders) and Brunswick (which saw the band disguised as the Allegheny Highlanders). Working at various times with fiddlers Posey Rorer, Lonnie Austin, and Odell Smith, and usually with guitarist Roy Harvey, Poole favored loose-limbed arrangements of songs like "Leaving Home" (a version of the timeless "Frankie and Johnny"), "White House Blues" (a brilliant song about the 1901 assassination of President McKinley),"Shootin' Creek" (a North Carolina variant on "Cripple Creek"), "Ramblin' Blues" (a reworking of W.C. Handy's "Beale Street Blues"), and "If the River Was Whiskey" (which grafted Sleepy John Estes' "Diving Duck Blues" to Handy's "Hesitation Blues"), producing a body of songs unlike any other in the mountain string band tradition. That most of these songs dealt with drinking and carousing with a certain reckless blues edge was telling, since Poole's heart eventually gave out after a long, last multi-week drinking binge, a rock star-styled death for a man who lived life in a headlong rush. Nearly a hundred songs might be too much for the casual listener, but serious fans of the string band genre and Poole's unique contribution to it will welcome this generous set.