Assembled by and to accompany the book of the same title, is organized around the central question, "What does the American say about America?" Well, judging from the selections collected, it would appear that America (no surprise here) is most obsessed with love and death and the attendant subplots of murder and betrayal, with an occasional train or car wreck tossed in for metaphorical value (if you move too fast you'll pay dearly....). The selections range from vintage 1920s and 1930s 78s, including 's mysterious riddle of gambling and false-hearted love, and two chilly Appalachian murder , (its melody, sped-up, later morphed into ) by fiddler by , to more recent fare by ( ), ), and ). Also worth noting are 's unaccompanied from 1961, 's restructuring of 's (in turn based on the melody of 's classic tale of speed beyond reason, Toss in and a remake of , and the result is an odd, disjointed sequence that is more of an academic conception than it is a musical one. But that is actually the strength of , since it forces listeners to make large leaps to connect the dots, and reminds everyone that tradition (or in its extreme form, obsession) carries its DNA forward in surprising ways. ~ Steve Leggett