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Includes music from Mike Seeger, Doug Wallin, The Golden Eagle String Band, Dillard Chandler, Iron Mountain String Band, Margaret MacArthur, Ewan MacColl, Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Paul Clayton, and more. CD

A wide ranging collection from the Folkways label, including folk, blues, and even some jazz. Includes work by Lead Belly, Dave Van Ronk, Peggy Seeger, Mary Lou Williams, Bill Monroe, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lonnie Johnson, and others – 26 tracks total. CD

Music from Sticks McGhee, Doc Watson, John Jackson, Bill Williams, Pink Anderson, Brownie McGhee, Archie Edwards, Lesley Riddle, Peg Leg Sam Jackson, Roscoe Holcomb and more. (Blues, Folk/Country) CD

Features Frank Wakefield on mandolin. CD

Includes the albums Legendary Singer & Banjo Player, Dock Boggs Vol 2, and Dock Boggs Vol 3. CD

Includes music from Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Paul Robeson, Cisco Houston, Phil Ochs, and the New Lost City Ramblers. CD

Music from Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Big Bill Broonzy, Janis Ian, The New World Singers, Liz Getz, Peter La Farge, Phil Ochs, The Bergerfolk, Pete Seeger, and more. CD

Music from Woody Guthrie, Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Lord Invader With The Calypso Orchestra, Dr. W. K. Amoaku, Ella Jenkins, Langston Hughes, Ruth Rubin, Alan Mills, Illinois School Children, Suni Paz, and more. CD

Original recordings by Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly of songs interpreted on the Columbia Records album, Folkways A Vision Shared plus other selections. CD

Folk legend Woody Guthrie was no stranger to struggle – which is the subject highlighted in most of these tunes – pulled together in the shape of this album, which offered a great counterpoint to the Bicentennial madness in America when it was released in 1976! The titles of the songs give plenty of an idea of the nature of the music – with classic Guthrie recordings done for Folkways in the 40s, including "The Dying Miner", "Waiting At The Gate", "A Dollar Down & A Dollar A Week", "Lost John", "Union Burying Ground", and "Ludlow Massacre" – many of which echo the continuing struggle of the working man, even as America was shining forth as an industrial giant. The recordings mostly feature Woody on vocals and guitar, but there's also some guest contributions from Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry – both key contemporaries of Guthrie. LP, Vinyl record album

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Appalachian vocals and banjo tunes from great Roscoe Holcomb – mid 60s Folkways recordings with his gorgeously weary, soul stirring and sometimes otherworldly passionate voice commanding your attention and cutting real deep – and his banjo playing making a playful progressions underneath. Holcomb puts it all in that voice of his, an impressive, cutting instrument on its owns – and getting a lot of different sounds out of his banjo than many players of the era. Titles include "Wandering Boy", "Hook And Line", "Omie Wise"., "In The Pines", "Little Bessie", "Willow Tree", "Married Life Blues" and more. CD

(Blues, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album

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An album from the 80s, but one that echoes a much older tradition of folk and blues – with a vibe that hardly fits the dated spelling of the duo's name! Serious Bizness is the team of Jaribu and Ngoma Hill – who harmonize together on some very message-oriented music, in a way that was often a bit overlooked in the generation of beatboxes and keyboards, but which has all the pride and power of acoustic sessions from the Civil Rights generation! Instrumentation is just acoustic guitar on most numbers, but Jaribu and Ngoma have a way of really making the songs ring out with a great deal of power – on titles that include "High Tech", "Southern Shame", "Down Underground In A Company Town", "Stolen Dreams", "Stop The Bosses", and "Malcolm Lives". (Blues, Folk/Country) CD

Recordings by Alan Lomax, Fred Asch, and others. CD

Music from John Snipes, Dink Roberts, Joe Thompson & Odell Thompson, Etta Baker & Cora Philips, John Jackson, Homer Walker, Irvin Cook & Leonard Bowles, 'Big Sweet' Lewis Hairston, John Tyree, Rufus Kasey and more. CD

Harry Smith's much revered efforts to compile the deepest early-to-mid 20th Century American folk music resulted in the monumental Anthology Of American Folk Music box set – plus this later volume that didn't make it into the original set or the celebrated reissue – and sadly went unissued at all until 2000! Despite the lack of a commercial release for the set, Volume Four includes a number of tracks that ended up to be just as ingrained in the American folk, blues, and country conciousness as the cuts from its more famous big brother collection – with a bit more of a dip into the blues, gospel and cajun music of the time. 28 tracks on 2CDs – plus a thick, and truly excellent book featuring notes on the artists, photos, illustrations, text and essays by Greil Marcus, John Fahey, Ed Sanders, John Cohen and Dick Spottswood – nearly 100 pages worth! Tracks include "Memphis Shakedown" by the Memphis Jug Band, "Dog And Gun" by Bradley Kinkaid, "Nine Pound Hammer" by the Carter Family, "Packin' Trunk Blues" by Leadbelly, "Wreck Of The Tennessee Gravy Train" by Uncle Dave Macon, "Milk Cow Blues" by John Estes, "The Cockeyed World" by Minnie Wallace, "Ace's Breakdown" by the Four Aces and many more! CD

Appalachian vocals and banjo tunes from great Roscoe Holcomb – mid 60s Folkways recordings with his gorgeously weary, soul stirring and sometimes otherworldly passionate voice commanding your attention and cutting real deep – and his banjo playing making a playful progressions underneath. Holcomb puts it all in that voice of his, an impressive, cutting instrument on its owns – and getting a lot of different sounds out of his banjo than many players of the era. Titles include "Wandering Boy", "Hook And Line", "Omie Wise"., "In The Pines", "Little Bessie", "Willow Tree", "Married Life Blues" and more. CD

Lucinda Williams second album for Folkways – and the first to feature her own material – introducing one of the best Americana singer songwriters of the past few decades! Happy Woman Blues has an apt title, and although there's plenty of heartache in her radiating from her vocal chords and in her words, it's done with passionate, unflinching confidence and charisma the brings a smile to our faces as wide as the one she's wearing in the cover photo. More of a honky tonk record than a blues record, and a great one! Essential! Titles include "Lafayette", "Lost It", "Maria", "Happy Woman Blues", "Rolling Along", "Howlin At Midnight", "Hard Road", "Louisiana Man" and more. CD

(Global Grooves, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album

Music from Reverend Gary Davis, Yvonne Hunter, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton, Carter Stanley, Mary Townsley, Bill Monroe, Eck Robertson, Last Forever, Elizabeth Cotton, Woody Guthrie & more. CD

A classic series – in which Pete Seeger brings back lost American classics, accompanying himself on banjo and 12-string guitar! CD

Includes music by Coro Santo Nino, Coro de San Jose, Gregorio Ruiz, Charles Aguilar, Los Reyes de Albuquerque, Mercedes Lopez, and Johnny Florez – 26 tracks total. (Latin, Folk/Country) CD

A seminal album from Elizabeth Cotten – not just a backwoods lady with a guitar, but a self-taught player with a completely unique style that went on to shape generations of musicians in the 60s! This 1958 Folkways album was the first to bring Cotten's talents to a wider audience – and soon resulted in much greater attention, and even visits to her home by fans and legendary followers – which makes the whole thing almost a touchstone of acoustic music in the postwar years! Yet despite any later acclaim, the record's got a quality that grabs you right at the core – music that needs no introduction at all, and which has the same earthy power of early John Fahey recordings, and a similar individual sensibility. Elizabeth plays both guitar and banjo, and sings just a bit – on titles that include "Freight Train", "Vastopol", "I Ain't Got No Honey Baby Now", "Going Down The Road Feeling Bad", "Run Run/Mama Your Son Done Gone", "Spanish Flang Dang", and "When I Get Home". LP, Vinyl record album

Beautiful guitar work from Elizabeth Cotten – much more sensitive and lyrical than you might expect – with a warmth that really goes beyond the usual Folkways record of this nature! Elizabeth sings on the set at points – in this raspy, time-worn style that's pretty compelling on its own – but honestly, it's the guitar that really grabs us – played with deftness that's impressive, and a sense of greater sound that really shows some unique phrasing throughout. Titles include "Freight Train", "Run Run Mama Your Son Done Gone", "Spanish Flang Dang", "When I Get Home", "Vastopol", and "I Don't Love Nobody". CD

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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

Appalachian music great Roscoe Holcomb is best known for his Folkways recordings of the early 60s – but he sounds equally wonderful here in a rare performance recorded at a church in Portland in 1972! There's a stark, moody feel to the music – summed up perfectly in the photo on the cover, and billed by Folkways as the "high lonesome sound" – as Roscoe plays these hypnotic lines on banjo that are often filled with these cyclical passages that weave a dark musical tapestry, while his vocals reach for redemption with these qualities that are completely haunting. The set features two very long tracks – "Rocky Mountain" and "The Village Churchyard" – next to shorter cuts that include "East Virginia Blues", "Swanno Mountain", "Single Girl", and "Black Eyed Snake". LP, Vinyl record album

Very much in the Folkways vein – with work by Memphis Slim, Arbee Stidham, Jack Dupree, Brownie McGhee, Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, and Woody Guthrie. (Blues, Folk/Country) LP, Vinyl record album