My earliest memories in life are from Southwestern Pennsylvania: Hunkytown, or The Patch, we called it. My earliest memories of music from the radio are polkas, some 1950s, and big band music. From the neighbors’ televisions, I caught glimpses of the old big band movies, along with snatches of other contemporary music. Nothing much moved me until we moved to Bellaire, Ohio, just across the river from Wheeling, West Virginia. I recall my father plugging in the old box radio and stringing the antenna before we even had the truck unloaded. And I still recall that very first program we tuned in: WWVA Radio, The WWVA Jamboree. My introduction to ‘hillbilly music.’

Now, more than fifty years later, I found a taste of that same music in the form of this Charlie Poole box set. Actually, it’s more than a taste – more like a seven-course dinner.

Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee form a pocket of land that time kind of forgot for a lot of years. The few roads that were there were closer to footpaths. It doesn’t take much imagination to visualize “Dueling Banjos” and Deliverance.

The sawmills that were built populated selected areas and, thanks to the generosity and foresight of the owners, they introduced music instruction and appreciation to their laborers. Bands and orchestras popped up in the unlikeliest of places, such as Spray, North Carolina, where Charlie moved following a failed marriage.

Charlie was a hard-drinkin’, hard-livin’ character straight out a story that Damon Runyon or Mark Twain wished he wrote. He’s the prototype of the “Outlaw Country” before it was ever invented.

Two policemen once approached him, one telling Poole to consider himself under arrest. “Consider, Hell!” he exclaimed, slamming his banjo down on the policeman’s head. The other policeman pulled a pistol and Charlie wrestled him to the floor. The officer got the barrel of the gun in Charlie’s ear, then pulled the trigger. Charlie had somehow managed to push the gun barrel away just enough so that he got away with a few chipped teeth and a badly burned mouth. Add to this his already partially crippled hand from an earlier unfortunate bet, and you’ve got a fair picture of Charlie Poole, considered by many to be the Patron Saint of modern Country Music. Throw in his spectacular performances, with his machine-gun picking style, his chair jumping, his cartwheels, and his clog dancing on his hands, and you have a small taste of Poole’s magic.

Charlie’s death at 39 was a classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of a hard-fought victory. Following a period of failing fortune and particularly hard drinking, Charlie received an offer from Hollywood to perform the music for a movie. Charlie died with the train tickets propped on his dresser.

This three-CD collection, containing 72 selections, is one of the finest collections of early country music ever offered, in this writer’s opinion. It's a gem of a collection and comes packaged in a nifty cigar box with a Robert Crumb drawing on the front. The drawing alone almost makes the set worth the price. How cool is that?