Born less than half-a-decade after the end of the Civil War and performing well into the 1950s, Uncle Dave Macon was the link between the original roots of modern country music and the next generation of performers led by the Carter Family. Although Macon did not begin his professional career until the 1920s, much of his repertoire consisted of songs he must have first heard as a young man in Tennessee, including blackface minstrel tunes, gospel, work songs, comic banjo workouts, and traditional folk tunes like his early signature song “Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy.” Presented chronologically from Macon’s first 1924 sessions on the Vocalion label until the end of the ’30s, his most prolific period, this is the only Uncle Dave Macon the casual listener needs. (As a rule, Macon’s sporadic later recordings are much weaker reiterations of songs covered on this set.) The 100 tracks on the four-disc Classic Sides 1924-1938 are sort of like the country version of Charley Patton’s Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues: this isn’t so much country music as it is the raw material from which country music was formed. – Stewart Mason