And you thought that only jazz had small and independent labels!
Founded in CMH by Martin Haerle, CMH Records started out as a small label focusing on delivering roots and bluegrass music that made you feel like you were back at the local VFW. The family run business has its years of 1975-1992 delivered here with an impressive anthology by some of the best bona fides you’re gonna find this side of the Cumberland Gap.
Wonderful flat picking and banjos team up on an agonizingly folksy “House of the Rising Sun” with Lester Flat and the Nashville Grass, while Johnny Cash sits in with the team with Curly Seckler and a young Marty Stuart for a lonesome road of “What’s Good For You.” Merle Travis hits the strings for a V8 Ford of a “White Heat.” The mix of bluegrass strings and vintage vocal harmonies make you feel like it’s an after church picnic on “Charlottes Web” and “Angels Rock Me To Sleep” and a read of Danny O’Keefe’s “Goodtime Charlie’s Got the Blues” by Josh Graves is Moose Lodge perfect.
This is music that reflects a time and epoch before country music got taken over by failures in rock music who decided to just add a hat and a twang and make it in another genre. Check it out!