East Virginia Blues is but one disc from a multi-volume set with the series title When the Sun Goes Down: The Secret History of Rock & Roll. This collection of early country classics seeks to provide the discriminating listener with the original versions of songs that have been recorded by a variety of contemporary musicians. The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, and Johnny Cash are but a few of the artists who took these historic tunes and placed them in new settings, between their original material.

"In late July 1927, Victor's A&R man, Ralph Peer, set up a makeshift studio on State Street in Bristol, Tennessee, and recorded nineteen acts, two of whom, The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, forever changed country music." So the liner notes tell us. Remember the ramshackle studio shown in O Brother Where Art Thou and you'll have some idea of how this was accomplished. This collection presents two dozen American classics, recorded between 1924 and 1940. Some songs you will recognize with no problem, others have had their melody shifted and twisted to suit modern ears.

The Carter Family are represented by the title song and their signature song "Wildwood Flower." The latter opened new vistas for guitar players as Maybelle Carter's strumming style was copied by generations of pickers. The Monroe Brothers (Bill & Charlie) do an unrecognizable "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," and later Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys sing "Mule Skinner Blues." The sound of these archival recordings has been digitally restored and is clear with lots of top end and very little hiss. A beautiful job.

"The Prisoner's Song" (you'll know it as "If I Had the Wings of an Angel") by Vernon Dalhart was country music's first million seller, but have you ever heard of the singer? He appears again doing "The Wreck of the Old 97." O Brother . . . re-introduced the world to "Man of Constant Sorrow," which is performed by the Hall Brothers in a different version. This is folk music, passed on by oral tradition, and tunes and words were traded and interchanged.

The Blue Sky Boys, the Rouse Brothers, Wade Mainer & Zeke Morris, and J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers, show the family tradition of this music. Solo stars like Gene Autry, Riley Puckett, Ernest Tubb and the great Jimmie Rodgers also appear. And the songs are familiar to long time music fans. Original versions of Elvis Presley's "Just Because," The Beatles' "Matchbox Blues," and Johnny Cash's "In the Jailhouse Now" are just a few of the treasures collected here.

Colin Escott provides detailed and loving liner notes, and the whole package is attractively designed. I'm not sure what the rest of the series is like, but East Virginia Blues is a model of historical and musical memories.