While Tex-Mex music is commonly thought of as the folk music that's popular along the Texas-Mexico border, ironically, it knows no borders when it comes to musical influences. Several selections on... more

Recorded in 1940, and later reissued by Folkways Recordings in 1950, Guthrie's first album chronicles the American Dust Bowl through his prosaic style of talking blues. Using only guitar and vocals,... more

The classic 1957 release from one of the greats of gospel blues, a rough diamond of hard, pure country gospel expression, at odds with the earthly concerns of the blues and yet entwined with the... more

Self-taught musician Alfred Montmarquette began learning the accordion at the age of twelve. In adulthood, he recorded for Columbia and other companies, performed for variety shows at the Monument... more

This compilation traces the genre's early days in the recording studio. It includes a reissue of the Victor Talking Machine Company's first piano ragtime disc in 1916, as well as several performances... more

Orphaned at age 2, William Thomas Dupree grew up in the same New Orleans boys' home where Louis Armstrong first played the cornet. Continuing his music education with barrelhouse piano musicians,... more

The New York Times called The Red Clay Ramblers "a musical group whose eclectic repertory is that of a fantasy roadhouse band from a vanished rural America." This collaboration with bluegrass fiddler... more

Blessed by Ragtimer Eubie Blake, Trebor Tichenor plays the "real stuff." Rags, Tichenor comments, "retain strong ties to the country"-maintaining notably Midwestern and southern roots-and are... more

Recorded on the night of May 18, 1964 after a small concert at Bard College, Hell Bound and Heaven Sent Blues documents two blues singers and guitar players, Big Joe Williams and John Wesley "Short... more

"You are now about to begin a great adventure." Thus begins Leary's 1966 recorded reading from his 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. For those... more

On August 28th, 1963, more than 250,000 people from across the United States gathered in Washington DC to join in peaceful protest against racial segregation and demand equal rights legislation from... more

Of Brownie McGhee's expressive thumb-and-forefinger guitar style Charles Edward Smith writes, "[it] sings and rings and whangs and talks to you." Indeed it does, and his versatile voice molds each... more

Cisco Houston's first solo album on Folkways Records represents a small portion of the artist's repertoire of American folk music. Extensive liner notes (complete with a glossary of cowboy slang such... more

Buell Kazee (1900-1976) grew up playing the five-string banjo in the traditional flailing style ("thrashing" style, as he called it). As a teenager, he began to study religion and ended up spending... more

This is volume 2 of a projected 3-volume set of Lead Belly's performances recorded by Moses Asch during the 1940s. The original masters now reside in the Folkways Archive at the Smithsonian... more

The French short story tradition can be useful in teaching French. Armand Bégué, a professor at Brooklyn College, his wife, and Pierre Capritz, a professor at Yale University, have recorded six... more

Melvin Stewart 's acting career took off when he was cast in Langston Hughes' play, Simply Heavenly. The show started as an Off-Broadway production, moved to Broadway, then toured in Europe before... more

Those who have gone before and those who are yet to be birthed - it is to these that we owe our legacies. I am hopeful we are at least as strong as our foreparents and I am confident we will be as... more

Cousin Emmy, born Cynthia May Carver (1903-1980) in Barren County, Kentucky, brought the old time banjo music of her roots to glitzier venues, where she donned sequined dresses to create a stage... more

For a detailed portrait of this blues-harmonica hero's life and times, consult the liner notes here. To have your soul stirred and spine tingled, just listen to Alcoholic Blues; Locomotive Blues; Bad... more