(Blues, Folk/Country) CD

Includes the songs "Midnight Special", "Cotton Fields", "Special Delivery Blues","Rambling Round Your City", "Cool Water", "Down On Me", "I've Been Driving On Bald Mountain/Water Boy", "Saro Jane", "Battle Hymn Of The Republic","If I Had A Hammer", "Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jerico", "Meetin' At The Building", "No More Auction Block For Me", "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child", "Spoken Introduction: He Had A Long Chain On", "Another Man Done Gone", "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands", "Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor", "Livin' With The Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out", and "House Of The Rising Son". (Soul, Folk/Country) CD

A stunning tribute to the great Alan Lomax – the legendary musicologist, historian, and recording engineer who captured so many wonderful American sounds in the 20th Century! Lomax's work has been crucial to both the Library Of Congress and Smithsonian/Folkways Records – yet there's also a fair bit that has never seen the light of day before – amazing recordings that make up a surprisingly large part of this box set – which compiles work in many different styles recorded by Alan in the field – blues, folk, gospel, and global modes, plus compelling regional genres – all presented here in a special 6LP set. The box features 55 never-issued tracks, and lots more great ones too – with music by Shirley Collins, Fiddlin Joe Martin, Compagna Sacco, Calvin Frazier, Sonny Boy Williamson, Jelly Roll Morton, Ernest Williams, Neal Morris, Skip James, Son House, Elmer Barton, Brendan Behan, George Sea Island Singers, Big Bill Broonzy, Elizabeth Austin, Jean Ritchie, Bascomb Lamar Lunsford, Bessie Jones, Duke Of Iron, Charles Barnett, and many others. The box features a nice booklet of notes, too – and some rare photos from the archive! LP, Vinyl record album

The darker side of the hillbilly sound of the postwar years – a whole host of tracks that deal with inner fears, worldly temptations, and external terrors – served up in a mix of tracks that resonates strongly with the long running Hillbillies In Hell series! The approach here is a bit wider-ranging, and maybe a bit more rough around the edges – but we also appreciate that, and the way the package lets the CD format really open up the amount of tracks that are included – 28 numbers that include "Let Me Go Devil" by Wade Ray, "Spellbound" by Jimmie Holt, "Haunted Blues" by Jimmy Littlejohn, "Haunted House Boogie" by Happy Wilson, "Satan's Daughter" by Gene Davis, "Shudders & Screams" by Ben Colder, "Tennessee Hillbilly Ghost" by Red Folkie, "Spookie Boogie" by Cecil Campbell, "Satan's Chauffeur" by Jimmy Minor, and "Marijuana The Devil's Flower" by Mr Sunshine. CD

Every single song the great Jimmie Rodgers ever recorded! Jimmie Rodgers might be THE forefather of traditional country music, and one of the great hard times poets of the century. Bear Family has gone all out to include his entire recorded history, and if justice served this set would be celebrated in the same manner as Harry Smith's Antholology Of American Folk Music. The recorded history here is every bit as important, if not more so, to the maturation of American music – but even more importantly, it's filled with breathlessly great songs! Everything's here – "The Soldier's Sweetheart", "Sleep, Baby, Sleep", "Ben Dewberry's Final Run", "Mother Was A Lady", "Blue Yodel", "Treasure's Untold", "Mississippi Moon", "You And My Old Guitar", "I'm Lonely And Blue", "My California Sunshine Girl", "Mississippi River Blues", "Nobody Knows But Me", "She Was Happy 'Til She Met You", "For The Sake Of Day's Gone By", "Jimmie's Mean Mama Blues", "In The Jailhouse Now", "T.B. Blues", "Let Me Be Your Sidekick", and tons more. Tuberculosis took Jimmie away while he was still in his 30s, but he left an incredible legacy – unprecedented music that fused old time gospel, blues, and mountain folk into a new American art form. Nearly 150 tracks, including many alternate versions, and a great booklet crammed with biographical information and photos. CD