The Allen Brothers The Allen Brothers with Other Country Brother Acts (4-CD)

Country music has always featured brother acts. The most prolific included The Delmore Brothers, The Blue Sky Boys and The Monroe Brothers. This collection focuses mainly on Austin and Lee Allen. The first three CDs are devoted to them and the fourth deals with their fraternal contemporaries. By the early 1920s, already professional musicians, they settled in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga would feature in so many of their titles that they were dubbed the Chattanooga Boys. In Chattanooga the Allens got on radio once or twice a week - a bonus because radio was then the most effective form of publicity. The result was lucrative bookings as far afield as Georgia. They also performed for medicine shows - the musicians gathered a receptive audience for the show owner to exploit. The Allens seem to have entered the recording studio fairly seamlessly and they had decent record sales. They recorded regularly - most years twice or more. Their sales were sufficient for them to continue to record well into the 1930s at a time when - because of the Depression - many musicians were dropped. Possibly their best-selling title was the slightly risqu A New Salty Dog. Other good sellers were Jake Walk Blues and Reckless Night Blues. Inevitably newer brother acts like the Sheltons, the Anglins and the Crowders overtook the Allens, and a few of those are also included.