Lead Belly - The Smithsonian Folkways Collection [5 CD, 2015/FLAC]

 

Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, the first career-spanning box set dedicated to the American music icon, is a 5 CD, 140-page, large-format book featuring 5 hours of music with 16 unreleased tracks.

A companion to 2012 s GRAMMY-winning Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection, Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection chronicles the recordings of Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter (c. 1888¬ 1949) in 108 tracks over five discs, including Lead Belly s beloved classics "The Midnight Special, " "Goodnight Irene, " and "Black Girl (Where Did You Sleep Last Night) " among many others. The collection also boasts 16 previously unreleased recordings, including four never-before-available original songs, and radio programs Lead Belly made for WNYC which can be heard for the first time since airing in 1941.

The set also features many rare photos, among them an intimate portrait taken shortly before his untimely death from ALS (Lou Gehrig s Disease) in 1949. It is one of the few known color photographs of the legend.

 

VA - The Blues - A Smithsonian Collection Of Classic Blues Singers [4 CD, 1993]

 

While any collection professing to be a definitive overview of a genre usually falls short of the mark, it's hard to find fault with this excellently researched and compiled four-disc set from the Smithsonian Collection. Running the recorded history of the music chronologically, the first disc explores the early sides by guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Barbecue Bob, Blind Willie Johnson, and Tommy Johnson, and classic blues singers like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Sippie Wallace. Volume two rounds up sides from Leroy Carr, Mississippi John Hurt, Charley Patton, Memphis Minnie, Son House, and Big Joe Williams, as well as off-the-beaten-track delights from the Memphis Jug Band and the Mississippi Sheiks. The third volume continues in the history of Delta blues with classic entries from Robert Johnson and Bukka White, moving into the Bluebird beat, ending up with the first recordings from John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins. The final disc is a veritable feast of Chicago blues with classic sides galore from Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Rush, and Jimmy Reed, finishing with more contemporary offerings from Ray Charles, Latimore, and a retro style closer from Cephas & Wiggins. The transfers on the really vintage sides are as good as any you're likely to come across, and the song selection throughout is impeccable. Add a sumptuous booklet chock-full of photos and an abundance of historical facts, all well-annotated by W.K. McNeil, and you've got a box set for the ages. Very, very well done.

Disc 1

01. Blind Lemon Jefferson - That Black Snake Moan (2:54)
02. Blind Lemon Jefferson - Broke and Hungry Blues (3:03)
03. Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues (2:51)
04. Papa Charlie Jackson - Shake That Thing (3:00)
05. Ma Rainey - Shave 'em Dry (2:41)
06. Ma Rainey - Countin' The Blues (3:11)
07. Bessie Smith - Jailhouse Blues (3:16)
08. Bessie Smith - Mama's Got the Blues (2:59)
09. Bessie Smith - Back Water Blues (3:19)
10. Sippie Wallace - Special Delivery Blues (3:26)
11. Sara Martin - Death Sting Me Blues (2:55)
12. Barbecue Bob - Barbecue Blues (3:14)
13. Jaybird Coleman - Mean Trouble Blues (3:06)
14. Alger "Texas" Alexander - Long Lonesome Day Blues (3:06)
15. Jim Jackson - Kansas City Blues, Parts 1 & 2 (6:36)
16. Furry Lewis - Why Don't You Come Home Blues (2:47)
17. Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night - Cold Was the Ground (3:23)
18. Cannon's Jug Stompers - Minglewood Blues (3:42)
19. Tommy Johnson - Cool Drink of Water Blues (3:36)
20. Tommy Johnson - Big Road Blues (3:23)
21. Henry Thomas - Bull Doze Blues (3:28)
22. Leroy Carr - How Long, How Long Blues, Part 1 (3:04)

Disc 2

01. Leroy Carr - Blues Before Sunrise (3:35)
02. Frank Stokes - Downtown Blues (3:14)
03. Mississippi John Hurt - Stack O'Lee Blues (2:58)
04. Peg Leg Howell - Rolling Mill Blues (3:07)
05. Lonnie Johnson - Mr. Johnson's Blues No. 2 (2:59)
06. Charley Patton - Pony Blues (2:59)
07. Roosevelt Sykes - Forty-Four Blues (3:07)
08. Memphis Minnie - Bumble Bee Blues (2:50)
09. Memphis Minnie - I'm So Glad (2:41)
10. Speckled Red - The Dirty Dozens No. 1 (3:15)
11. Sleepy John Estes - Diving Duck Blues (3:16)
12. Memphis Jug Band - K.C. Moan (2:33)
13. Mississippi Sheiks - Sittin' on Top of the World (3:15)
14. Walter Davis - M & O Blues (3:05)
15. Son House - Dry Spell Blues, Part 1 (3:10)
16. Skip James - Devil Got My Woman (3:00)
17. Bumble Bee Slim - Chain Gang Bound (3:44)
18. Blind Willie McTell - Broke Down Engine Blues (3:10)
19. Big Bill Broonzy - Big Bill Blues (2:59)
20. Big Bill Broonzy - I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town (2:55)
21. Kokomo Arnold - Old Original Kokomo Blues (2:54)
22. Cripple Clarence Lofton - Strut That Thing (2:53)
23. Carl Martin - Crow Jane (2:55)
24. Big Joe Williams - Baby Please Don't Go (3:21)

Disc 3

01. Little Brother Montgomery - The First Time I Met You (2:50)
02. Robert Johnson - I Believe I'll Dust My Broom (2:59)
03. Robert Johnson - Cross Road Blues (2:32)
04. Peetie Wheatstraw - Peetie Wheatstraw Stomp (2:35)
05. Sonny Boy Williamson - Good Morning Little Schoolgirl (3:01)
06. Sonny Boy Williamson - Sloppy Drunk Blues (3:16)
07. Jimmy Rushing - Sent for You Yesterday (3:00)
08. Big Joe Turner - Roll 'em Pete (2:51)
09. Big Joe Turner - Wee Baby Blues (2:56)
10. Bukka White - Fixin' to Die Blues (2:48)
11. Blind Boy Fuller - Step It Up and Go (2:54)
12. Tampa Red - Anna Lou Blues (2:56)
13. Big Maceo - Worried Life Blues (2:56)
14. Washboard Sam - I've Been Treated Wrong (3:17)
15. T-Bone Walker Quintet - T-Bone Blues (3:18)
16. T-Bone Walker Quintet - Call It Stormy Monday (3:02)
17. Tommy McClennan - Mozelle Blues (2:57)
18. Louis Jordan - It's a Low Down Dirty Shame (2:51)
19. Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson - Cherry Red (3:11)
20. Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - That's All Right (2:56)
21. Charles Brown - Drifting Blues (3:16)
22. Wynonie Harris - Mr. Blues Jumped the Rabbit (2:50)
23. John Lee Hooker - Boogie Chillen' (3:11)
24. Lightnin' Hopkins - Tim Moore's Farm (2:41)
25. Jimmy Witherspoon - No Rollin' Blues (4:02)

Disc 4

01. Muddy Waters - Louisiana Blues (2:57)
02. Muddy Waters - Honey Bee (3:24)
03. Lowell Fulson - Reconsider Baby (3:13)
04. Sonny Boy Williamson - Eyesight to the Blind (3:03)
05. Jimmy and Mama Yancey - Monkey Woman Blues (4:08)
06. Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog (2:52)
07. Junior Parker - Mystery Train (2:25)
08. Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man (3:08)
09. Joe Williams - Every Day I Have the Blues (5:29)
10. Howlin' Wolf - Smokestack Lightnin' (3:08)
11. Elmore James - The Sky Is Cryin' (2:51)
12. Memphis Slim - Woman Blues Boogie (3:11)
13. Bobby "Blue" Bland - Farther Up the Road (3:00)
14. Bobby "Blue" Bland - I'll Take Care of You (2:22)
15. Buddy Guy - The First Time I Met the Blues (2:22)
16. Lightnin' Slim - Rooster Blues (2:35)
17. Otis Rush - So Many Roads, So Many Trains (3:14)
18. Jimmy Reed - Big Boss Man (2:51)
19. Ray Charles - I Got a Woman (2:54)
20. Henry Johnson - Join the Army (3:39)
21. Latimore - Let's Straighten It Out (3:29)
22. Cephas & Wiggins - Dog Days of August (5:14)

VA - Classic Country Music: A Smithsonian Collection [4 CD, 1990]

 

Classic Country Music: A Smithsonian Collection was a multi-volume set of recordings released by the Smithsonian Institution. Released in 1990, the collection contains 100 tracks deemed to be significantly important to the history of country music.

Classic Country Music was issued on either four compact discs, four cassette tapes or six vinyl albums. It also contained an illustrated 84-page book by Bill C. Malone, a country music historian. Malone's extensively annotated essay details country music's history era by era, from its beginnings in the 1920s and commercialization during the 1930s through its growing popularity during the 1980s.

Huddie Ledbetter - Lead Belly : The Smithsonian Folkways Collection [5 CD, 2015]

 

Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection, the first career-spanning box set dedicated to the American music icon, is a 5 CD, 140-page, large-format book featuring 5 hours of music with 16 unreleased tracks.

A companion to 2012 s GRAMMY-winning Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection, Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection chronicles the recordings of Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter (c. 1888¬ 1949) in 108 tracks over five discs, including Lead Belly s beloved classics "The Midnight Special, " "Goodnight Irene, " and "Black Girl (Where Did You Sleep Last Night) " among many others. The collection also boasts 16 previously unreleased recordings, including four never-before-available original songs, and radio programs Lead Belly made for WNYC which can be heard for the first time since airing in 1941.

The set also features many rare photos, among them an intimate portrait taken shortly before his untimely death from ALS (Lou Gehrig s Disease) in 1949. It is one of the few known color photographs of the legend.



CD1
1. Irene (Goodnight Irene)
2. The Bourgeois Blues
3. Fannin Street (Mister Tom Hughes Town)
4. The Midnight Special
5. John Henry
6. Black Girl (Where Did You Sleep Last Night)
7. Pick a Bale of Cotton
8. Take This Hammer
9. Cotton Fields
10. Old Riley
11. Rock Island Line
12. The Gallis Pole
13. Ha-Ha This a Way
14. Sukey Jump
15. Boll Weevil
16. Scottsboro Boys
17. Governor O.K. Allen
18. Governor Pat Neef
19. There's a Man Going Around Taking Names
20. On a Monday
21. You Can't Lose Me, Cholly
22. Keep Your Hands Off Her
23. We Shall Be Free

CD2
1. Alabama Bound
2. Almost Day
3. Fiddler's Dram
4. Green Corn
5. Sally Walker
6. Bring Me a Little Water, Silvy
7. Julie Ann Johnson
8. Linin' Track
9. Whoa, Back, Buck
10. Shorty George
11. Ham and Eggs (Previously Unreleased)
12. Moanin'
13. Out On the Western Plain
14. Noted Rider
15. Meeting at the Building
16. Good, Good, Good (Talking, Preaching)/We Shall Walk Through the Valley
17. Ain't You Glad (The Blood Done Signed My Name)
18. I'm So Glad, I Done Got Over (Previously Unreleased)
19. The Hindenburg Disaster
20. Ella Speed
21. Haul Away Joe
22. Old Man
23. Sweet Jenny Lee
24. Jean Harlow
25. Laura
26. Queen Mary

CD3
1. Good Morning Blues
2. Sail On, Little Girl
3. Easy Rider
4. Poor Howard
5. Duncan and Brady
6. How Long, How Long
7. T.B. Blues
8. Jim Crow Blues
9. Pigmeat
10. John Hardy
11. Outskirts of Town
12. 4, 5, and 9
13. In the Evening (When the Sun Goes Down)
14. Red Cross Store Blues
15. Diggin' My Potatoes
16. Blind Lemon
17. When a Man's a Long Way from Home
18. Alberta
19. Excerpt from The Lonesome Train
20. National Defense Blues
21. Hitler Song (Mr. Hitler)
22. Big Fat Woman
23. Been So Long - Bellevue Hospital Blues (Previously Unreleased Original Song)

CD4
1. WNYC Folk Songs of America Lead Belly (Previously Unreleased): a. Grey Goose, b. Boll Weevil, c. Yellow Gal, d. Ha-Ha This a Way, e. Leaving Blues, f. Irene (Outro)
2. WNYC Folk Songs of America Lead Belly and the Oleander Quartet (Previously Unreleased): a. Almost Day, b. Blues in My Kitchen, Blues in My Dining Room, c. I Went Up on the Mountain, d. Good Morning Blues, e. Baby, Don t You Love Me No More, f. T.B. Blues, g. Irene (Outro)
3. If It Wasn t For Dicky (Previously Unreleased)
4. What's You Gonna Do When the World s on Fire w/ Anne Graham (Previously Unreleased)
5. Rock Me - Hide Me in Thy Bosom w/ Anne Graham (Previously Unreleased)
6. Packin' Trunk Blues (Previously Unreleased)
7. Leaving Blues
8. How Come You Do Me Like You Do? (Previously Unreleased)
9. One Dime Blues (Previously Unreleased)
10. I'm Going to Buy You a Brand New Ford (Previously Unreleased Original Song)
11. Jail-House Blues
12. Shout On
13. Come and Sit Down Beside Me
14. Red River (Previously Unreleased)

CD5
1. Yes, I Was Standing in the Bottom
2. Ain't Going Down to the Well No More (Version 2)
3. Everytime I Go Out (Previously Unreleased Original Song)
4. Go Down, Old Hannah
5. Black Betty
6. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out w/ Bessie Smith(Previously Unreleased)
7. Stewball
8. Ain't It a Shame to Go Fishin' on a Sunday
9. Relax Your Mind
10. Princess Elizabeth (Previously Unreleased Original Song)
11. Silver City Bound
12. The Titanic
13. House of the Rising Sun
14. It's Tight Like That
15. Diggin' My Potatoes
16. Springtime in the Rockies
17. Backwater Blues
18. Didn t Old John Cross the Water
19. De Kalb Blues
20. They Hung Him on the Cross (Version 1)
21. They Hung Him on the Cross (Version 2)
22. In the World