DESCRIPTION:
Close To Home
Folkways
1975

Recorded in Holcomb's home in eastern Kentucky, this album portrays the music of a master musician whose identification with his songs is intense, innate, and above all, honest. It's not for nothing that John Cohen, the man who recorded Close to Home, coined the phrase "the high lonesome sound" to describe Holcomb's voice.
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Without attempting to slight any other Appalachian or old-time artist, many critics have decided the solo recordings of Roscoe Holcomb produced in the '60s by John Cohen represent some kind of pinnacle for this genre. Every quality that is important in this music is represented here in the fullest dimension, by a man who sings like a philosopher while keeping a rhythm going on several stringed instruments that would make a metronome envious. - Eugene Chadbourne

Photos: John Cohen