Various Artists - The American Epic Sessions (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (LP)

Label: Third Man Records
Format: 3 x Vinyl, LP, Album, 180Gram
Country: US
Released: Jun 16, 2017
Genre: Rock, Blues, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Harmonica Blues, Delta Blues, Cajun, Country, Folk, Hawaiian, Rhythm & Blues, Texas Blues

 

The American Epic Sessions is a documentary film in which an engineer restores the fabled long-lost first electrical sound recording system from 1925, and twenty contemporary artists pay tribute to the momentous machine by attempting to record songs on it for the first time in 80 years. The film was directed and co-written by Bernard MacMahon and stars Nas, Alabama Shakes, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Jack White, Taj Mahal, Ana Gabriel, Pokey LaFarge, Beck, Ashley Monroe, Los Lobos, The Avett Brothers, Bettye LaVette, Rhiannon Giddens, Raphael Saadiq, Edie Brickell, Steve Martin, and others.

The film employed a diverse line-up of performers both ethnically and musically to represent the breadth of cultures that were first given a national platform through the invention of this recording machine. It also explored the extent to which the recordings made on it in the 1920s influenced and inspired contemporary music.

The original motion picture soundtrack was a three-LP and two-CD album released on June 9, 2017. It contained many performances not featured in the film, including "One Mic" by Nas, " “Mama's Angel Child" by Jack White, "Come on In My Kitchen" by Stephen Stills, and "Josephine" by Pokey Lafarge.