What a joy to look through the Folkways catalogue! I picked a lot of music that’s really influenced me, music from my own regional and cultural backgrounds, and some songs from people who mentored my friends.

I've spent a great deal of time sifting through old recordings of Black vocal music over the past two years. Fond as I am of our instrumental performances, there's a special magic that happens when we reach for harmony together without an established chord structure to guide us.

As a record label proprietor trading in diverse repertoire, there is no greater influence or inspiration than Folkways. For those of us releasing archival and new works in the remote ‘folk’ world, we are all standing on the shoulders of this giant.

I first learned about Smithsonian Folkways through my dad's record collection. He had picked up a number of those records while working as a gigging folk musician around the Virginia and D.C. area in the 60's and 70's.

I tend to listen to more guitar music than other types, even though I make a very conscious effort to include a lot of different sounds in my listening, the sounds that the guitar is capable of are still my favorite. Today these are my essential guitarists, making sounds with the instrument that ...

The initial inspiration for this playlist was the work of one of my heroes, the recordist Tony Schwartz. There was something in the stillness and isolation of Covid that drew me back to his street recordings of New York specifically.

This mix is all Caribbean music, with a focus on stringed and melodic instruments and only including music from the islands, no continental countries on this playlist. I love this music so much, and have been doing a deep dive into Caribbean history...

This playlist focuses on Black music throughout the centuries, from the heart of Africa to throughout the diaspora, and includes various genres and emotions, from black pain to black joy.

I love making playlists. Always have. Total mixtape kid growing up with an unhealthy allegiance to the movie High Fidelity through my college years. Putting this together for Folkways’ Spotify page is a real honor.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to make this playlist. Mining their vast catalogue, I chose many of my favorites from their repertoire and placed them alongside various other songs that not only have inspired me, but that I feel are a continuation of those same traditions.

On this list is a title borrowed by Yo La Tengo, original versions of songs I first heard covered by pre- and post-punk bands, and a pork chop number that’s not the one that Michael (“Mike”) Hurley did.

I decided for this mix I would concentrate on some of the more bizarre recordings in their catalog, as well as digging deep into the Cook Laboratories archive which has thankfully been acquired by Smithsonian Folkways. Hearing these sounds out of context are fascinating on the basis of their ...

Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman curate picks for curious listeners of Folkways and beyond.

Sometimes it’s the warm hum of folk records with socialist leanings that really soothes the spirit, other times it’s the romantic serenades of Luiz Bonfa & his trusted guitar. Take a break from the noise with a collection of tracks that offer us a glimpse of comfort and verity in time uncertain.

Before commodification took over, we had a wealth of truly unique women and men creating eerily beautiful songs that dealt with all matters of peril and uncertainty, of faith and fear, and of life and death.

I think this playlist is an accurate depiction of the music I listen to on any given day- some new some old, all hovering around folk with storytelling at the center. All of these songs have been crucial to my development as an artist.

Just hearing these voices from other lands and languages (and other times) I find hugely reassuring and encouraging. All these humans, all getting on with what they do. And so beautifully. Highly inspiring.

Because of the size of the catalog, and the humbling idea of “choosing my favorites” from such a large field of work. I figured I’d approach it in one of two ways. One, to pick a favorite subsection…and delve deeply into that specific group of records. Or, jump around, picking favorites from a wide

Folk songs of all kinds, from all over the world, stories and funnies told and sung by men, women, and children, from all kinds of different backgrounds is what you’ll encounter on this compilation. I hope that you’ll enjoy listening to these gems.

As I was gearing up to write new music for my debut on the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, I was delving into the music of my youth, while at the same time discovering music new to my ears. This playlists is some of that music that perhaps influenced my writing.

These songs are at the root of everything I know and love about American music: Wandering heart songs that speak the truth. Listen and get right!

Traditional Appalachian music may have reeled us in, but everything from early experiments in electronic music to Lappish Joik songs of Northern Norway to field recordings of an office fax machine to the sweet sad panpipes of Quecha music of Peru - keeps us agape at the vast creativity and ...

Members of Our Native Daughters share tracks that inspired the recording of Songs from Our Native Daughters.

In conjunction with the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s exhibition “Between Worlds: The Art of Bill Traylor,” this playlist is inspired by the life of artist Bill Traylor.

Rooted in the folklore of the Pennsylvania Dutch (Germans), Groundhog Day has evolved into a playful holiday upon which we entrust a small woodland rodent to predict the coming of spring.

We at Smithsonian Folkways celebrate the re-opening of the Smithsonian's Asian art museums, the Freer and Sackler galleries, with a pan-regional playlist of music from our collection.

The events that unfolded last month in Charlottesville, Virginia, when neo-fascist protests against the removal of a Confederate monument escalated to the deaths of three persons, have stirred nationwide debate about the history of fascism and white supremacy.

There are few things more awe-inspiring than a solar eclipse. For centuries, people across the globe have met these astronomical events with celebration, fear, and wonder. Each element of an eclipse—earth, sun, and moon—has long inspired artists in both imagery and metaphor. This playlist celebrates

Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship has been given to many of the treasures of American traditional culture. This includes musicians, but also craftspeople and exemplars of various cultural traditions.

In recognition of the 2017 Women's March on Washington, Smithsonian Folkways spotlights songs of women's liberation. Spanning several decades of material, the themes in this playlist range from labor conditions and civil rights to women's health and the legal system. Featuring artists such as ...

The National Heritage Fellowship is the federal government’s highest award in the folk and traditional arts field in the United States. Given by the National Endowment for the Arts every year since 1982, the fellowships are awarded based on three criteria...

Life, like music, is inherently interruptible, and what I heard on Folkways—while masterful and beautiful—sounded like someone might walk in the room at any moment and break up the fun like a well-intended parent.

In honor of the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, we have curated a playlist of some of our favorite and most influential African American musicians from Smithsonian Folkways.

Bobby Susser Songs for Children, originally published between 1994 and 2012 by New Hope Records, is comprised of twelve albums of newly composed vocal and instrumental music, directed toward childhood’s universal development needs. Bobby Susser has worked with a wide array of musicians, from The ...

Images abound of children in the back-to-school season: lively little ones streaming out of the standard-make yellow school buses and into the red-brick schools and blacktop schoolyards; the flurry of colors as they run, skip, and jump down halls, into classrooms, and across the playing fields; the

July 4^th, America’s Birthday, Independence Day, a day for celebration. Fireworks and the company of others. A day to celebrate our country. The Story of America is that of a group of individual colonists breaking free from the control of a governing British government and beginning a process to ...

Whether in the sparse reggae-influenced beats of sibling-duo Wild Belle or in the expansive horns of “post-afrobeat” band NOMO, Elliot Bergman infuses every project with his love of the bright polyrhythms of West African and Caribbean music.

This playlist was published as part of our Tribute to Ralph Stanley.

As an ethnomusicologist, musician, and former record store manager, Huib Schippers is no stranger to the Smithsonian Folkways collection. As he becomes the new Director and Curator of the nonprofit label, he constructed a playlist that demonstrates both his personal connections to the catalog and ...

California is a land of musical riches. After all, the so-called Golden State has been a destination for immigrants from all over the world. This playlist reflects that richness in all its splendor.

Indie pop duo Sylvan Esso has garnered both critical and popular acclaim for their expert pairing of gentle folk vocals with textured electronic production.

In true American folk tradition, Will Oldham’s People’s Picks Playlist takes us on a ramble through his native Kentucky, introducing us to the folk legends he’s encountered in his travels, and letting us in on the songs that rattle around his head on his way.

The Southern Foodways Alliance documents, studies, and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. We are a member-supported nonprofit institution of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

The Black Twig Pickers are an experimental old-time string band from Virginia and North Carolina who draw inspiration from both traditional and experimental sources.

Stefan Shepherd of Zooglobble knows good kids’ music when he hears it. He’s been writing about “music you and your family can sing, dance, and groove to” on his acclaimed site Zooglobble for over a decade.

Detroit-based musician and producer Warren Defever’s music and engineering work has intersected with Smithsonian Folkways since he first heard recordings of Woody Guthrie as a child. Founder of the longtime experimental rock band His Name Is Alive...

Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Valerie June grew up in Tennessee, between the small towns of Humboldt and Jackson, moving to Memphis after finishing high school. While her original songs bear her distinctive style, their roots are planted firmly in the rich soil of southern ...

The Grateful Dead, celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2015, have inspired a passionate and enduring fan base that stretches around the world. The band’s repertoire reveals myriad influences from traditional American (and a few non-American) genres, and band members frequently cited Folkways ...

Writer Jonathan Lethem's latest novel Dissident Gardens chronicles his family history while bringing to life the world of the American Communist Party and the Greenwich Village folk revival.

Jean Ritchie (1922-2015) was one of the most prominent American folk artists. Known as the “Mother of Folk”, she was a multi-faceted musician; an active composer, singer, and credited with resurrecting the Appalachian dulcimer. Born and raised in Viper, Kentucky, Ritchie grew up in a family of ...

Acclaimed young guitarist and Virginia native Daniel Bachman grew up steeped in the traditional music of the Commonwealth, drawing from and expanding on it in his own fingerstyle guitar albums.

Every spring in Washington, D.C., thousands of visitors flock to our nation's capital to savor the beauty of the cherry blossoms, representing a celebration of the coming season as well as the friendship between the people of the United States and Japan. This selection of music from Smithsonian ...

New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian music changed drastically in the 1970s, especially when chiefs Bo Dollis and Monk Boudreaux introduced the concept of Mardi Gras Indian funk. This African American tradition of chanting and parading in carnival suits, honoring the American Indians who allied with black

John Handcox, one of Pete Seeger's longtime idols, is an African American singer, poet, and union organizer. He wrote songs like “Roll the Union On” and “Mean Things Happening in This Land.” These songs moved and inspired musicians and activists battling against social injustices to this day. This ...

This playlist celebrates women’s contributions to worker’s rights and the labor movement. Featuring Bev Grant and other momentous figures in labor history—from Florence Reece to Hazel Dickens, Barbara Dane, Peggy Seeger, and Anne Feeney—the songs tell of hard-working women, oppressed women, women’s ...

Smithsonian Folkways presents 90 songs spanning the continuing career of “The First Lady of Children's Music” Ella Jenkins in celebration of her 90th birthday on August 6th and the release of her 40th title, “More Multicultural Children's Songs.” Performances by Ella, her friends, and her fans ...

The UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music (1955–2003) is comprised of more than 100 albums from 70 nations around the world. In 2014 and 2015, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings republished this collection (out of print since 2005) in both digital and physical formats.

Celebrating the incredible life of Pete Seeger (1919-2014).

Throughout the 1960s, songs of peace registered civilian frustrations with armed conflict. In the early part of the decade, potential devastation from atomic weapons occupied the minds of songwriters. By the decade's end, Vietnam had become a battlefield for U.S. soldiers... Read more about this ...

From the public to the intimate, the Islamic call to prayer, adhan, literally meaning “announcement,” pervades Muslim culture. It can be heard up to five times a day in Muslim communities, once for each of the five daily prayers. This playlist looks at the stylistic diversity of adhan, highlighting

Starting with the first Smithsonian Folkways release Musics of the Soviet Union in 1988, followed by a Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly collection a year later, Smithsonian Folkways has furthered Asch’s mission of presenting “the people’s music” from around the world. Celebrate a quarter century of ...

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings celebrates the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with this playlist of 1960s civil rights material. Composed of seminal recordings, this playlist highlights the important role that music played in uniting, energizing, expressing, and ...

Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Since 1985, many have enjoyed this edutainment computer game and public television game-show spinoff, but did you know the game, which blends abundant geography knowledge with an intriguing plot, also features international music from Smithsonian Folkways.

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings celebrates the 2017 presidential inauguration by offering listeners an aural journey through the diverse and intriguing world of presidential sounds.

Listen to the variety of rhythms representing the regional diversity of Colombia. “Adiós, Berejú” features the marimba-led sound from the Pacific coastal regions, while “Sin Ti” and “Pedazo de Acordeón” are examples of the  accordion-driven vallenatos from the Caribbean coast.

Some say that Haiti has been in perpetual revolution for 200 years. If so, then that revolution has a soundtrack...

Founded in 1954 by Hugh Tracey, the International Library of African Music (ILAM) is the greatest repository of African music in the world. A research institution devoted to the study of music and oral arts in Africa...

Tuva is a predominately rural region of Russia located northwest of Mongolia. It is home to one of the world's oldest forms of music. In Xöömei, or "throat-singing," a single vocalist simultaneously produces two distinct pitches...

Speaking of the impact music had on his troops, Confederate General Robert E. Lee said, “Without music you cannot have an army.” With this in mind, the music collected here is not so much an account of what came to be known as America’s most violent war...

Since 1961, the Peace Corps has promoted world peace and friendship in 139 countries. The Peace Corps provides American expertise to nations in need, and facilitates intercultural understanding between the United States and Peace Corps host countries.

In the mid-60s, Michael Asch, son of Folkways Records founder Moses Asch, received audition tapes from Lynn Productions of New Orleans that featured a compilation of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and doo-wop tracks.

Coming from early blues traditions though featured prominently in honky-tonks, juke joints, and barrelhouses, the boogie groove is at the heart of the American R&B and rock and roll traditions.

The songs, spirituals, spoken word, and poetics presented in this playlist reflect the mosaic of voices, styles, genres, and cultural influences that have contributed to the popular post-war urban music explosion known as rhythm and blues (R&B).