I also read that he was working on Mississippi John Hurt's 1928 recordings. Why do some of you not like his work? I would love to hear as much as possible of the guitar work of a lot of the pre-war masters. Any input as always is greatly appreciated.
I don't know that people don't like his work. Some of it has been shown to be not quite the revelation it has been said to be by others. The Bluebird recordings of Tampa Red for instance were noted by dj to be better than this new version. Remastering early Tampa Red, some of which is pretty whupped, would have been more of a worthwhile project IMO. But I think he's experimenting in good faith and not making outlandish claims.
One problem seems to lie in the source material. If you are not working from an actual 78, the best condition you can find, then you work with what you have, which in his case doesn't seem to be 78s, but CDs and not necessarily the best available. This performance of Match Box Blues for example is I believe the same one available on Yazoo's Best of Blind Lemon Jefferson, and its predecessor, King of the Country Blues. In both cases, the Yazoo transfer is better and their sound wins out hands down. This Lemon track is an experiment so far for Rose, not a final product, so it's too early to judge. He has an earlier example of Blind Willie McTell's Georgia Rag that does seem to be an improvement. I'm thrilled that he's planning to do some work on Lemon, but will reserve judgement until final versions are in. If he really does improve things, he'll certainly be getting some of my money.
I've been more than satisfied with his product--love the RJ and Tampa Red, and I also find the Parker/Gillespie/Powell/Roach/Mingus at Massey Hall to be pretty unbelievable. I don't think there's a downside to what he's doing, and it's clear he's going to get my EUR9.99 pretty much every country blues or early jazz release he puts out.
(Hey Andrew, how 'bout the Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens?)
Kokomo and Andrew thanks for your insights. I would really like to hear Blind Blake's music cleaned up as much as possible, but I understand that the original source material is pretty bad to begin with.
Hi rjtwangs, I'm curious as to what has made you think that John Hurt's music is not liked by some folks here. I don't recall reading anything that suggested that. All best, Johnm