American Epic The Collection

American Epic: The Collection is a 100-track, 5-CD box set of American roots music performances from the 1920s and 1930s. It was compiled by film director Bernard MacMahon to accompany the release of his American Epic documentary film series. The box features 100 songs by 100 different artists and has been acclaimed by many critics as a worthy successor to the Anthology of American Folk Music and one of the best box sets to ever be released. The album covers a very broad range of rural and vernacular American styles; Cajun, country, blues, Hispanic, Mexican, Native American, Puerto Rican, Tex-Mex. The compilation spans from 1926 to 1936 with two pre-electric recordings – the 1922 Eck Robertson recording of “Sallie Gooden” and 1916 Don Richardson recording of “Arkansas Traveler” – which the liner notes posit as being the first commercial country recording. New sound restoration techniques developed for the American Epic film production were utilized to restore the 100 songs on the album. The 78rpm disc transfers were made by sound engineer Nicholas Bergh using ‘reverse engineering’ techniques garnered from working with the original 1920s recording equipment.