150 highlights from the vast pool of American jazz, blues, folk and popular music in the 30s and 40s. Newly selected and arranged according to various themes.

While, at the time, this music was banned and brandished as indecent in most of Europe, in America it represented the tentative birth of a new culture: pop music!
Being spread and facilitated by the radio and newly emerging record companies, this music had an immediate national impact.

The initial formation phase of the modern mass culture was nurtured by an almost infinite reservoir of live music and by an array of very gifted musicians, the intensity and diversity of who probably still remains unique. The clubs in many cities were their arenas of apprenticeship and they were encouraged by an enthusiastic and competent audience, which actively participated in the creation of its own music.

Many of these precious pieces tell a story of an America in the midst of her worst economic crisis and World War II. A story of Americans torn between depression and hope. Americans, who asked themselves why they should die in a distant war, which was not really their business. These songs then also reflect the lifestyles and the wishes of many ordinary Americans. They constituted a solid basis for the struggle between freedom and dictatorship.

Produced by: Werner Pieper

Vols 1 & 2 are definitely indispensable and among the better and more entertaining re-issues of the year. Full article
(Folkroots)

For fanatical completism and sheer bizarreness (a country label run by a transsexual - you would never get that sort of thing in Nashville) Germany has the reissue market cornered. After brillant collections of Vietnamese buskers and Bavarian courtyard singing, the Munichbased Trikont label stakes its claim for greatness with its Flashbacks series….
THE WIRE -London

The Collection FLASHBACKS - Hot & Sexy is a superb selection of prewar aural sex. It`s a part of the wonderful FLASHBACKS-series Vol.1 - Vol. 6. …
THE LONDON TIMES