Charlie Poole
You Ain't Talking To Me: Charlie Poole And The Roots Of Country Music
Columbia/Legacy

The archetypal hard-living, sweet singing country troubadour is so ingrained in the American mythos that it's hard to remember that somebody had to invent it. What? You thought Merle Haggard invented outlaw country? Maybe it was Hank Williams Sr.? While it would be hard to attribute that development to any one person, singer and banjo player Charlie Poole is as good a candidate as any. He certainly influenced Hank No. 1, and that's probably all the argument we need.

Poole's work is celebrated on You Ain't Talking to Me, a lush three-CD box set that collects 72 sides Poole recorded during his brief recording career. The box is packaged in a cigar box wit R. Crumb cover art (Boy Howdy is bursting at his cap with pride) and accompanied by expansive liner notes by Poole historian Henry Sapoznik. It was Sapoznik who produced and compiled the collection, and he brings to the project the kind of scholarly passion that helps tie the music to its context.

Poole was born in 1889 to a migrant laborer, so he was used to the rambling lifestyle from an early age. In the process, he picked up a vast repertoire compiled of the popular music of the day. He made those pieces his own and put on shows that, as described by Sapoznik, sound awfully KISS-like: "By all reports, a Poole show was something to see. Punctuating sly twists on familiar songs with his rat-a-tat picking style, he would leap over chairs, turn cartwheels, clog dance on his hands, and shake up audiences with repertoire every bit as surprising." What, no blood?

And, goodness, the music! Disc One features Poole backed up by his North Carolina Ramblers on a series of sides for Columbia Records, committed to wax between July 1925 and September 1930. Footstomping classics like "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" examine themes that will be familiar to most rock 'n' roll fans. In fact, much of Poole's repertoire will be familiar to fans of rock and country.

The second and third discs in the set feature Poole's songs juxtaposed with versions of those songs by other artists — some were early influences, others were artists who came after. Taken together, it's a great lesson in the development of this most American art form.

Poole drank himself to death at the age of 38, laying the foundation for another part of both country and rock 'n' roll mythology — the early, excess-induced death.

You Ain't Talking to Me is a well-researched and gorgeously packaged set. It's informative and devilish. Education usually ain't this much fun. 

—Brian J. Bowe
June 2005