How do we know what has gone before in music and folklore? Musical explorers with reel-to-reel recorders and notebooks went out and found music, recording musicians and singers and storytellers to make sure the music kept going. For the record this week, we’ll listen to field recordings from years past, including the Doc Watson Family, Sara and Maybelle Carter (as recorded by Mike Seeger) and Pink Anderson, among many others. Music collected in the field … this week on The Sing Out! Radio Magazine.

LISTEN:

Artist/”Song”/CD/Label

Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer” (excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle / Smithsonian
              Folkways
The Doc Watson Family / “Tucker’s Barn” / Tradition / Rounder
James “Son Ford” Thomas / “44 Blues” / Voices of Mississippi / Dust to Digital
Will Shade, Charlie Burse and Gus Cannon / “Take Your Fingers Off It” / Classic Harmonica Blues /
              Smithsonian Folkways
Pink Anderson / “Talking Blues” / Classic African American Songsters / Smithsonian Folkways
Peg Leg Sam / “Froggy Went A-Courting” / Classic African American Songsters / Smithsonian Folkways

E.C. Ball / “The Farmer’s Curst Wife” / Sounds of the South / Atlantic
Maybelle Carter and Sara Carter Bayes / “I’m Leaving You this Lonesome Song” / Classic Old-Time Music /
              Smithsonian Folkways
Doug Wallin / “Naomi Wise” / Classic American Ballads / Smithsonian Folkways
Burl Hammons / “The Big Scioty” / The Hammons Family / Rounder
The Doc Watson Family / “Give the Fiddler a Dram” / Tradition / Rounder

The Southland Hummingbirds / “You Don’t Know Like I Know” / Voices of Mississippi / Dust to Digital
Indian Bottom Association Old Regular Baptists / “Guide Me O Though Great Jehovah” / Songs of the Old
              Regular Baptists / Smithsonian Folkways
Bozie Sturdivant / “Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down” / A Treasury of Library of Congress Field
              Recordings / Rounder

James “Son Ford” Thomas / “I Know It’s Wrong to be Playin’ the Blues” / Voices of Mississippi /
              Dust to Digital
Lead Belly / “Cow Cow Yicky Yicky Yea” / Cowboy Songs on Folkways / Smithsonian Folkways
Elizabeth Cotten / “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” / Close To Home / Smithsonian Folkways
W.H. Stepp / “Bonaparte’s Retreat” / A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings / Rounder
Pete Seeger / “If I Had A Hammer” (excerpt) / Songs of Hope and Struggle / Smithsonian
              Folkways