STEPPIN' IN THE BOILER HOUSE is the second solo album from Mark Schatz. Featuring his own traditionally innovative sound and clawhammer style of banjo playing, STEPPIN' combines new melodies with the heart and soul of old tunes. It blends the grit of swing of an old time string band with the drive and precision of contemporary bluegrass.

This release continues the series which we re-established last year with a 4-CD set of "The Greatest Country Hits of 1958" and which comprises selected annual collections of the biggest US country hits of each year. This great-value 116-track collection follows on from that 1958 anthology, and includes every record that appeared in the Top 20 of the Billboard country charts during 1959, excluding those records which had already made the Top 20 and which therefore appeared in the 1958 set (there was insufficient space to include them again in this collection). The country chart had been rationalised in October 1958 into a single "Hot C&W Sides" Top 30 listing. With the new format and research basis, there are fewer pop and rock 'n' roll records featured in the country charts this year, and it provides a platform for the top country artists of the day, as well as a number of more obscure tracks which have not been widely available on CD. With an in-depth 10-000+ word booklet with background notes on every record, it gives a solid overview of the most popular country music of the year.

This release continues the series which we re-established a couple of years ago and which comprises selected annual collections of the biggest US country hits of each year. This great value100-track 4-CD collection goes back to the start of the 1950s, when the relevant Billboard chart was called the Best Selling Retail Folk (Country & Western) Records, and apart from a few weeks at the start of the year, when there was a Top 15, was restricted to a published Top 10. The collection comprises many of the records which appeared in the chart during the year. Although there were many records which harked back to the styles of traditional hillbilly and western swing music, many of the artists featured were those who had established themselves during the late 1940s and would enjoy prolific hit-making careers during the '50s until the business changed significantly in the wake of the rock 'n' roll explosion. Artists like Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, Red Foley, Ernest Tubb and Tennessee Ernie Ford are therefore well represented along with many artists whose musical legacy is less well-known these days, as well as pop artists like Margaret Whiting and Kay Starr making forays into the genre through duets with country stars, which makes it a fascinating snapshot of the business as a new decade dawned. With an in-depth 10,000+ word booklet with background notes on every record, it gives a solid overview of the most popular country music of the year.

Swamp Pop is indigenous to the Acadiana region of South Louisiana as well as from the Beaumont/ Port Arthur area of neighboring East Texas. It is marked by highly emotional, ultra-romantic, plaintive style vocals. The simple, unaffected and often bilingual lyrics are backed by a honky-tonk piano, bellowing sax sections and a strong R&B backbeat. Upbeat pieces often possess the bouncy rhythms of Cajun and black Creole two-steps, and their lyrics frequently convey the local color and joie de vivre spirit pervading South Louisiana. Slow melancholic ballads with their undulating bass line and dramatic breaks exhibit the heart-broken ‘what’s-the-use-of-living’ laments common to many Cajun and black Creole compositions. The genre appeared during the mid-to late 1950s, its heyday lasting until the early 1980s.