Might be because one of the tracks appears on a different compilation ("Your Enemy Can Not Harm You" by Edward Clayborn also shows up on the 6disc gospel set Goodbye Babylon).
Other times it's due to the recognition of a distinctive voice from a different song that appears on some other compilation (there are some VERY distinctive voices on this compilation and 7 of the 12 artists are also included in Goodbye Babylon).
Or maybe the song itself is familiar.
Ends up that Alfred Karnes' "Goodbye to the Promised Land" is the folk standard 'Don't Let The Deal Go Down' put to different words.
I immediately recognized 'Wouldn't Mind Dying' by Blind Mamie Forehand due to a lasting obsession with the Carter Family (who also performed the song).
But it took nearly two weeks to figure out that the reason why I knew all the words to Kid Prince Moore's 'Sign of the Judgement' the first time I heard it was because Marianne Faithfull (backed by Bill Frisell) covered it on her Strange Weather LP (1987).
"Fight On, Your Time Ain't Long" won't blow away anyone who has already heard Goodbye Babylon, the Smithsonian/Folkways Harry Smith box or the 2 American Primitives on Revenant but even holders of those collections will appreciate that Mississippi has pressed (ON VINYL) a nicely sequenced collection of guitar-centric folk spirituals. And, appropriately, with NO clunkers as at least three of the songs have lyrics that echo the gist of the title--'there's no time to lose... our time on Earth ain't long'.
