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No one could pound out that incessant bass with the left and still lead the way with a thunderous right like Slim. This 1959 LP features one stunning solo after another by one of the most exciting... more

There is no single kind of music that led to the creation of Jazz. Instead, the genre evolved, and continues to evolve, from diverse musical avenues. Following the popularity of swing music in the... more

These eight songs are the fruit of Lead Belly's first visit to New York in 1935, but the record company's financial downfall prevented all but two-"Pigmeat" and "Black Snake Moan"-from reaching the... more

This Folkways LP came out in '61, but the tracks take you from John's first year of recording ('29) through his '30s prime. The Memphis blues icon is backed by the unmistakable mandolin playing of... more

This album features big-voiced blues pianist and singer Memphis Slim and legendary bassist Willie Dixon, who is credited with having helped create the Chicago blues sound. Several tracks from this... more

Piedmont blues singer and guitarist Brownie McGhee's voice rings clear over his strumming about love, cheating, and remembering his friend Big Bill Broonzy. Liner notes include song lyrics and brief... more

Texan Blind Willie Johnson was one of the most successful recording artists in the South in the late 1920s, before the Depression ruined the company for which he recorded. This collection... more

Although the barrel house may no longer exist, the piano style that took it's name finds rich expression in Blues. On this album, released in 1961, Little Brother Montgomery, who is known as "one of... 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

Singing and begging are about the only two ways a blind man can make a living in farm country. Several years after Blind Willie Johnson's death in 1949, Samuel B. Charters tries to get to know the... more

I've never had the blues, says Brownie McGhee in an interview with famed oral historian, Studs Terkel, "the blues has always had me." the trio of legendary bluesmen played, talked, and traded stories... more

Tony "Little Sun" Glover (b. 1939) is a Minneapolis-born harmonica player and singer, most notably associated with guitarists "Spider" John Koerner and Dave "Snaker" Ray during the folk revival in... 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

This compilation brings together recordings produced by Henry Hines and Al White for Lynn's Productions, and provides a musical snapshot of some of the bands popular in clubs, fraternities, and... more

Moses Asch purchased the "race records" heard on this album in 1941 for 15 cents each. Demonstrating some of the musical styles characteristic of the American South that proved influential in shaping... more

When George "Daddy Hotcakes" Montgomery sings "Mustard Greens," his rich, rugged voice shifts from a call-and-response conversation about eating cornbread and mustard greens to lyrics about growing... more

An influential figure in the growth of the Southern blues tradition, William "Jazz" Gillum (1904-1966) had the kind of life from which the blues spring. Orphaned, starved, threatened, shot at,... more

Recorded by Folkways in 1973, this lively album by Arbee Stidham recaptures his classic Southern Blues roots. Stidham says: "In doing this session, I thought back to my boyhood days when I was... more

This second volume continues Folkways' The Country Blues (FW00RF1) and is the result of efforts in the early 1960s to find singers who were previously known only as names on commercial recordings.... more

From the early blues of Son House, Willie Brown, and Charley Patton to the assertive music of the Depression, the Mississippi delta has produced songs and singers with a fierce honesty that has... more

As the Depression's early days brought Southern musicians to Northern cities, the Chicago blues scene absorbed and incorporated these new arrivals. Ensembles grew, the blues became more popular, and... more

This album presents a variety of blues, and in Brownie McGhee's singing are echoes of work and dance songs, as well as spirituals. Brownie himself once said, "I want to make music the way I know is... more

Charles Edward Smith, author of the album's notes, writes, "Few singers evoke as forcefully as Brownie the many-sidedness of heritage... sentiment and sex, humor and the solar plexus shots of bitter... more

Little Brother Montgomery (1906-1985) was an American jazz, boogie woogie, and blues pianist and singer. This album features a number of blues and jazz standards, including "Pine Top Boogie Woogie"... more

Best known for his blues harmonica recordings, Sonny Terry joins friends Brownie McGhee and J.C. Burris to explore the range of the jawharp (also known as Jew's harp or mouth harp) in blues and... more