Folkways – a vision shared

This is the title of an excellent album of songs by Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly covered by, amongst others, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson and Taj Mahal. Leadbetter and Guthrie recoded for several companies, but they will forever be identified with Folkways Records the company which was founded by Moses Asch and became his life’s work. (This recording is available on Columbia CK44034 and was published in 1988.)

The Smithsonian Institution, that marvellous collection of museums on the Mall in Washington DC acquired the company and has continued Asch’s work. BTW my favourite is the Museum of American History. I digress.

This note is to introduce readers to the fact that Radio New Zealand is currently presenting, per their website, on Friday nights:

During Nights with Bryan CrumpThe Folkways Collection is a series of 20 one-hour programmes devoted to a comprehensive overview of this collection of music, word and sound. The programmes are made up of new and archival interviews, live and pre-recorded performances and spoken words.Started in 1948, by Moses Acsh, this collection is now considered one of the principal canons of American roots music and oral history.The collection is made up of more than 2,200 Folkways Records releases; featuring American folk, blues, jazz and country musicians, ethnic recordings from around the world, soundscapes, poetry readings and oral history.Folkways Records featured such artists as Pete Seeger, Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie and Ella Jenkins, as well as jazz and blues legends such as John Cage, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Lightin’ Hopkins.

Part 7: Hudson Leadbetter: Leadbelly

Huddie William Leadbetter was a convicted murderer who overcame adversity to establish himself as a music legend. In addition to his own compositions, Leadbelly was a living library of old European ballads, black work songs, southern ballads, blues and even cowboy songs.

Produced by Smithsonian-Folkways/CKUA Radio

Now I do not know about you, but Adam is not as young as he was and sometimes falls asleep whilst listening to these programmes. Not from lack of interest, but from time of night.

Then I found a solution. The Smithsonian publishes these programmes as MP3 files and you can download the entire series from here. Note there are 24 episodes on the site. Many of the artists had strong political views and these and the times they lived in are reflected in the material, continuing a long musical tradition.The site has a lot more material and I would encourage you to consider buying some of their recordings. They have some truly wonderful stuff. The music deserves a wider audience. When you listen to some of these songs, you realise how much this music influenced the popular canon. It is salutary to realise also that many of these songs come to us from elsewhere brought to America from UK, Europe and Africa and South America.Listen, enjoy!

If you enjoy the music and the programmes check out titles such as Anthology of American Folk Music, Best of Broadside.Check out also the Smithsonian Global Sound pages on the website. These have some good stuff also.