In another thread, somebody said the Doc Watson Vanguard Years 4-CD set contained everything Doc recorded for Vanguard. It certainly does not. It has a mere 64 songs, a total of about 175 minutes - that's under 44 minutes per CD, and it would easily fit on 3 CD's. Vanguard was quite generous on their Weavers and Baez box sets, but they sure were stingy with their Doc Watson music. I wonder why.
You expect to be shortchanged by some labels. The Curb label, owned by a former lieutenant governor of California and former head of the easy-listening Mike Curb Congregation, packages hundreds of reissues, 10 to 12 cuts per disc. He came to Sacramento one day a week when he was lieutenant governor, so what do you expect?
Country CD's are usually 10 cuts, 30 minutes - but there are signs of improvement there. Columbia used to be cheap about the length of reissue CD's but they don't seem to be as bad as they used to be.
But Vanguard has hours and hours of Doc Watson material - why is it that I got so little for my money? I was really looking forward to this Doc Watson box, but it was a disappointment when it came out - great music, but not very much of it. Can anybody explain to me why some of these reissues contain so little music?
-Joe Offer-