LOST TRACKS : Good CDs We Overlooked Last Year

Mike Seeger

It's not just a lifetime of performance and research that places Mike Seeger in a unique position to trace early Southern guitar sounds. Access has something to do with it, too -- access to an extraordinary array of instruments. On his latest CD, the esteemed musician and folklorist takes full advantage of acoustic guitars large and small, handcrafted and factory-produced, made of exotic woods or sheet metal.

Even so, one needn't be a guitar-obsessive to enjoy this 28-track collection compiled by Seeger, co-founder of the New Lost City Ramblers (and Pete Seeger's half sibling). All that's required, really, is an appreciation of vintage folk and country music, for this compilation is as "rootsy" as contemporary recordings get.

Seeger's extensive liner notes are laced with insights, anecdotes and some speculation concerning how the guitar ultimately eclipsed the banjo's popularity in the South. (He's mindful of the contributions made by itinerant black guitarists, noting that blues recordings made in the 1920s "suggest many decades of creative development.") Yet Seeger's performances are instructive in their own right, beginning with "Wildwood Flower," a tribute to Maybelle Carter's profound flat-picking influence. Memorable tracks find Seeger nimbly fingerpicking his way through Sam McGee's "Buckdancer's Choice," using a Hawaiian-style Weissenborn guitar on "Guitar Rag" and playing a 12-string flat-top, Leadbelly style, on "After All Has Been Said and Done." In the end, all manner of guitars, techniques and tunings help make this survey as colorful as it is revealing.

-- Mike Joyce

DOWNLOAD THESE:"Wildwood Flower," "Buckdancer's Choice"