Tag: folk music

LISTEN, Lula Wiles, ‘Don’t Ask Why’

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Artist: Lula Wiles
Hometown: Boston, MA
Song: "Don't Ask Why"
Album: Lula Wiles
Release Date: May 27

In Their Words: "'Don't Ask Why' is an exploration of human strife, loss, and death and the helplessness one can feel in the face of it. The story comes from a time when my younger brother's life hung in the balance. I vividly remember the little field of wildflowers I was standing in when I got the call from my dad, telling me my brother had suffered a traumatic brain injury. I lost my breath and, in that moment, I felt powerless.

As my brother recovered over the next many months, I wrote this song in an attempt to voice the vulnerability I felt during that experience. I've always been fascinated by the old folk songs with lyrics about unspeakable sorrow such as burying a child or murdering a lover, all sung with a plainspoken sense of honesty. The juxtaposition of major chords and heartache feels really powerful to me. With this song, I tried to approach the lyrics in the same way … combining folk idioms and real emotion with an emphasis on simplicity and earnestness as a songwriter." — Ellie Buckland

Photo credit: Louise Bichan

Take This Hammer, Blow Your Kazoo: Skiffle in the 1950s and Beyond

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In July, 1954 — the same month that Elvis Presley unleashed his first two world-changing singles — a Scottish-born singer and trad-jazz musician named Lonnie Donegan released a cover of “Rock Island Line” with backing on washboard and bass. Inspired by the African-American singer Lead Belly, Donegan explains the rules of the rails in his spoken-word intro and includes the shouts and cries of the engineers. Though he strums his guitar in a persistent rhythm to evoke the chug and drive of a freight train, the song picks up speed along the way, finally achieving a breakneck momentum as Donegan’s high-pitched vocals grow wilder. It’s a remarkable performance, studious to the point of mimicry, yet reckless like a runaway train.

It took two years, but the single finally caught on and started climbing the British pop charts in 1956. Donegan followed it up with a full-length album, An Englishman Sings American Folk Songs, which became a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic. In its wake, a series of like-minded folk acts starting popping up all over Britain: young men and women well-schooled in American folk music yet too irreverent and too wiley to be classified as traditional. Emphasizing ingenuity and spontaneity, they played rhythm guitar almost exclusively, along with whatever instruments happened to be on hand: usually kazoos, banjos, washboards, tea cabinet bass, and assorted homemade noisemakers. This was closer in spirit, if not in sound, to the rock 'n' roll coming out of the American South.

Thus was born skiffle, a short-lived scene with a lasting influence.

The word itself has a long history that reveals the concerns of its mid-century practitioners. Skiffle originated in the 1920s as a word to describe wild, impromptu jazz that mixed blues, ragtime, and folk. When Donegan and a few other musicians began playing sets of folk tunes during their trad-jazz shows, he called them “skiffle breaks,” borrowing the term from the semi-popular ‘30s jazz act the Dan Burley Skiffle Group. Eventually, the break would become the entire show, with Donegan and his small outfit often improvising their covers.

After the success of “Rock Island Line,” skiffle groups came out of the woodwork, with trad-jazz musicians migrating to this more lucrative market and kids picking up guitars for the first time. The Chas McDevitt Skiffle Group enjoyed a hit with a cover of Elizabeth Cotton’s “Freight Train” featuring Nancy Whiskey on vocals. A London outfit called the Vipers Skiffle Group — later known as simply the Vipers — rivaled Donegan as the trend’s guiding light, thanks to a string of smash singles like “Cumberland Gap” and “Don’t You Rock Me, Daddy-O” (which was produced by George Martin, later known as the Fifth Beatle). America even produced its own skiffle star, Johnny Duncan, who was born in Oliver Springs, Tennessee, but found fame in the clubs and charts of England with his 1957 hit “Last Train to San Fernando.”

As Rob Young writes in his indispensible 2010 guide to British folk music, Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music, “Skiffle’s accelerated swing rhythms and domestic equipment — kazoos, harmonicas, comb and paper — placed music-making in the hands of the amateur, as well as opening up a conduit for the dust-bowl and rust-belt blues and folk poetry of Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly to be siphoned into British ears.”

Like the trad-jazz scene and like the blues revival of the following decade, skiffle was a result of Britain’s obsession with American traditional music. During the post-war years, even as many musicians strove to define and preserve a specifically English folk tradition in pubs and social clubs, much of the country looked west for musical inspiration, finding it in the music made by poor Americans often in rural settings. Granted, those folk songs could be traced back to European sources, brought over by immigrants generations before and gradually mutated over the years, but by the middle of the 20th century, the music sounded distinctly American.

What distinguishes skiffle from imported jazz or blues is its emphasis on labor and class. Most of the main skiffle hits were about workers’ laments: engineers and linemen, sharecroppers and cotton pickers, migrants and chain gang prisoners. Weirdly, skiffle was viewed as largely apolitical at the time, a harmless fascination with another country’s past. However, the subject matter of these songs reinforces the populism that lies at the heart of all folk music, which likely made it more appealing to everyday Brits, especially teenagers.

As Alan Lomax noted at the time, “At first, it seemed very strange to me to hear these songs, which I had recorded from convicts in the prisons of the South, coming out of the mouths of young men who had suffered, comparatively speaking, so little. But I soon realized that these young people felt themselves to be in a prison — composed of class-and-caste lines, the shrinking British empire, the dull job, the lack of money … things like these. They were shouting at the prison walls, like so many Joshuas at the walls of Jericho.”

Skiffle left a mark on an entire generation of men and women who picked up guitars and created some of the best music of the 1960s. The list of musicians who started out in skiffle is long and impressive: Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore, Pete Townshend … even Cliff Richard. Van Morrison was not only a huge fan of the genre, but also recorded an album with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber in the late 1990s. And one obscure skiffle group from Liverpool eventually changed its name from the Quarrymen to the Beatles.

The craze lasted barely five years, replaced by the screams and shouts of American rock 'n' roll, which offered similar freedoms and pleasure. Skiffle remains a brief chapter in pop history, but its lasting influence belies its short life. Although it remains obscure today — unknown by pop fans and often overlooked by folkies — the genre reinforced the idea that popular music is often best left to the amateur, the unschooled, the self-taught: those artists who innovate intuitively, without anyone telling them what they can’t do.

Dewi Peter's Skiffle Group outside Kayser Bondor, Pentrebach C.1957. Photograph courtesy of Clive Morgan.

Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village: A Self-Guided Walking Tour

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New York is not a sentimental town. It takes pride in its ever-evolving skyline. It doesn’t have a museum commemorating the Harlem Renaissance. The only jazz memorials are Woodhull Cemetery and the Louis Armstrong House. There is nothing celebrating the folk revival. It’s up to you and your two feet to seek out its history. A good starting point is Bob Dylan and Greenwich Village, a historical neighborhood that maintains much of its original architecture. On a cold Winter day in January of 1961, Dylan arrived in New York City. In the next three years, he left an indelible mark. Forever after, the two would be forever connected.

Start at 1 West 4th Street.

It’s a big brown building. Peek in a window and you are likely to see an art exhibit. It’s not much now — another bland NYU building — but it was formerly Gerde’s Folk City, a hotbed of folk talent in the 1960s. It was a bit off the beaten path, but it still attracted large touring acts. Dylan’s first professional show was at Gerde’s Folk City. He opened for the great John Lee Hooker. “A bright new face in folk music is appearing at Gerde’s Folk City. Although only 20 years old, Bob Dylan is one of the most distinctive stylists to play a Manhattan cabaret in months,” wrote New York Times critic Robert Shelton. “But if not for every taste, his music-making has the mark of originality and inspiration, all the more noteworthy for his youth. Mr. Dylan is vague about his antecedents and birthplace, but it matters less where he has been than where he is going, and that would seem to be straight up.”

On this same block is the former site of the Bottom Line. Dylan never performed at the Bottom Line, though he did live nearby in the 1970s, during the club’s hey day. It opened on February 12, 1974 and played a prominent part in preserving Greenwich Village's legacy as a cultural hotspot. Bruce Springsteen played some legendary showcases. Lou Reed recorded the album Live: Take No Prisoners here. A middle-aged Dylan spent some lonely nights here.

Continue two blocks on West 4th to Washington Square. Go to the fountain and look at the arches … there might even be some folk singers performing.

Washington Square Park

Folk musicians began performing at Washington Square in 1945. It was rough and tumble music. Then, in 1958, the Kingston Trio had their first hit — a pop-folk version of the traditional song “Tom Dooley.” Folk music boomed and, suddenly, Washington Square Park was flooded with musicians. By 1960, Sundays in Washington Square were the big day when the folkies would descend on the park. It was so popular with both tourists and players that the police put up barricades. When Dylan arrived in January 1961, he quickly began playing at the Square.

Three months after his arrival — in April of 1961 — the police cracked down on public performances in the park, insisting that all performers have a permit. When the folk musicians applied, they were denied. The following Sunday, Izzy Young from the Folklore Center and 500 musicians gathered and sang songs in the park. They then marched down 5th Avenue to the Judson Memorial Church where the riot squad was waiting. They attacked the singers with billy clubs, arresting 10 people in what is now known as the Beatnik Riot, much to the folkies' disdain.

Continue West on West 4th toward 6th Avenue. Cross 6th Avenue and continue on West 4th. Dylan’s first apartment is at 161 West 4th Street.

Bob Dylan was homeless for his first year in New York. When he fell in love with Suze Rotolo, they rented this apartment. She is on the cover of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, which was photographed right down the street.

Continue on West 4th Street to 1 Sheridan Square, home of the infamous Café Society.

In the 1940s, this was one of the first nightclubs to feature folk music. The great protest and folk singer Josh White held court at Café Society for five years. Billie Holiday and Lester Young were regular performers in what was one of the first clubs to truly break color barriers. When Dylan lived here in 1962, it was the Haven — one of New York’s largest openly gay nightclubs.

Now turn around and head back toward Dylan’s first apartment. Stop and buy a record at Bleecker Street Records. Maybe something by Bob Dylan?

Keep heading toward Dylan’s apartment and then turn right on Jones Street.

This is the street from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album cover. Take some photos and continue down the street — at the end is Caffe Vivaldi. Pop in for a beer. It’s a great place to hear some burgeoning New York musicians, as it is still home to songwriters and one of the only clubs with a piano. It’s a great old room.

Turn left at the end of block and cross 6th Avenue. Take a slight left up Minetta Street. Panchito’s is at 13-11 Minetta Street.

This room has a rich history. It was first the Commons. Opened in 1958, the Commons was originally a small theater and café that was tres bohemian. It was also one of the first basket houses — a coffee shop that had live music — in Greenwich Village. The performers were paid in tips, which were collected in a passed basket. The Commons expanded in 1960 and changed its name to the Fat Black Pussycat. This is where Dylan wrote "Blowin' in the Wind."

Take a right on Minetta Lane. On the corner of Minetta Lane and MacDougal Street is Café Wha?

Dylan performed at Café Wha? on his first day in New York. It was an open mic hosted by Fred Neil. Fred Neil is best remembered as the songwriter behind “Everybody’s Talking” from the film Midnight Cowboy. In 1961, he managed the café’s day bookings and MC’d the open mic. Dylan did a set of Woody Guthrie songs and Neil hired him on the spot as his harmonica player.

Take a right down MacDougal Street. Caffe Reggio is at 119 MacDougal Street.

This café is virtually unchanged from the day it opened. Without a doubt, Dylan spent time here. You might also recognize it from the film Inside Llewyn Davis. Caffe Reggio also claims to be the birthplace of the cappuccino.

Keep heading down MacDougal Street, away from the park. At 116 MacDougal Street is the former Gaslight Café.

The Gaslight was the place to play in the 1960s. It was the Carnegie Hall of folk music, where Dave Van Ronk hosted the weekly hootenanny every Monday and Dylan was one of the regular performers within a year of moving to town. There were typically five performers each night and they would rotate every four songs. It is a tiny spot, and there would be lines stretched down the block. Before being converted to the Gaslight, this was the coal room for the building. The walls were stained black from years of storage, but the room embraced it and left it dark. It’s also been rumored that this is where the beatniks began snapping instead of clapping, so as not to disturb the upstair tenants.

Immediately to the right is 114 MacDougal Street.

This is the former Kettle of Fish. When not performing, the musicians would eat and play cards up here.

Two doors down, at 110 MacDougal, is where the Folklore Center used to reside.

Izzy Young from the Beatnik Riots was the proprietor. Dylan referred to the Folklore Center as “The Citadel of American Folk Music.” Izzy was a notoriously bad businessman, but his folklore center was the hub of the New York folk revival. Van Ronk, and countless other musicians, were technically homeless — although they always had a place to crash. This was where their mail was sent. It was also where Dylan came to absorb records and learn new songs.

At the end of the block, turn left on Bleecker Street.

Bleecker Street was a mecca of basket houses. In the '50s and '60s, this street was crawling with amateur musicians toting guitars and hoping to be next big star. Café Figaro was located at 184 Bleecker Street. Today it is a Bank of America.

The Village Gate was at 158 Bleecker Street. Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in September of 1962 in the basement apartment. The Village Gate was a notable folk hangout for 36 years. It’s now Les Poisson Rouge and still hosts some of the best events and concerts in Manhattan. If you look at the corner, the original Village Gate sign is still posted.

Continue to 152 Bleecker Street where the old Café Au Go Go is now a Capital One Bank. Café Au Go Go was a cultural hotbed in the 1960s hosting folk, jazz, comedy, blues, and rock. The Grateful Dead played their first New York show at Café Au Go Go. A young Joni Mitchell had a weekly gig. Blues legends Lightnin' Hopkins, Son House, Skip James, Bukka White, and Big Joe Williams performed at the club after being "rediscovered" in the '60s. Young Bob Dylan spent many nights listening to his peers and forefathers.

Across the street at 147 Bleecker is the Bitter End.

This is where Dylan came up with the Rolling Thunder Review. When he moved back to Greenwich Village in the '70s, he spent many nights at the Bitter End. There were many late-night jam sessions and, one night, he decided to take this loose collective on the road. He recruited some of his famous friends, hired a film crew, and embarked on one of the most ambitious tours of the 1970s. The Bootleg Series put out an amazing double album, and Heavy Rain was recorded on this tour. If you’ve ever seen Dylan in white face with a pimp hat, it was from the Rolling Thunder Review.

LISTEN: Freddy & Francine, ‘If You Want Me’

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Artist: Freddy & Francine
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Song: "If You Want Me"
Album: Gung Ho
Release Date: June 10
Label: F&F Records

In Their Words: "Bianca wrote the beginning melody of the tune on piano and then brought it me to convert to guitar. This song deals with the process of learning to see the forest through the trees in a relationship, regardless of the present circumstances. It reminds us to simplify love and ask for the things we need." — Lee Ferris (Freddy)

Photo credit: Danielle Mulcahy

LIVE AT LUCKY BARN: Sam Amidon, ‘Way Go Lily’

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We've teamed up with the good people at Pickathon to present a season's worth of archival — and incredible — videos from the Pacific Northwest festival's Lucky Barn Series. Tune in every fourth Tuesday of the month to catch a new clip.

The second video from the Spring season of the Lucky Barn Series features alt-folkster Sam Amidon who recruits the crowd to sing along with him on "Way Go Lily." Amidon comes by his folkiness honestly — from two parents who traveled the same path before him — and started playing fiddle when he was a three-year-old growing up in Vermont. Somewhere along the way, he wandered over to guitar and began reimagining classic songs with contemporary twists.

Pickathon comes back to the Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon, from August 5-7, 2016. Recent additions to the festival lineup include Mac DeMarco, King Sunny Ade, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Joseph, Ry X, Cory Henry, Promised Land Sound, Town Mountain, Myke Bogan, Blossom, Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms, Open Mike Eagle, and Chanti Darling. Tickets and the full lineup are available now.

Click here for more, and stay tuned for another wonderful season of Lucky Barn videos. 

Photo credit: Miri Stebivka

LISTEN: Nate Leavitt and the Elevation, ‘When I Was with You’

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Artist: Nate Leavitt and the Elevation
Hometown: Boston, MA
Song: “When I Was with You”
Album: Someone Send a Signal
Release Date: April 22

In Their Words: “The most surprising part happened to me during the lead vocal tracking. Somewhere during the third verse, I was overcome with emotion and started crying. I was able to keep enough composure to finish the take, but thought to myself it was a throw-away. Producer Dan Nicklin convinced me otherwise, and we kept the take to use in the song.

Writing songs about personal events in my life are a sort of therapy. However, reliving those moments can become emotional. Even though I don't feel the same way now as I did while in the moment writing, it's impossible not to be taken back to that place while reciting the lyrics. The amount of emotion that surfaced during the vocal take of 'When I Was with You' was unexpected. One of the main reasons I play music is to channel my emotions in a positive way. I guess what came out showed I still had some things to work out deep down inside. The finality of recording this story played a part, too.” — Nate Leavitt

Photo credit: Johnny Anguish

LISTEN: Jack Klatt, ‘Anywhere I Go’

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Artist: Jack Klatt
Hometown: Minneapolis, MN
Song: "Anywhere I Go"
Album: Shadows in the Sunset
Release Date: April 29
Label: Different Folk Records

In Their Words: "I wrote this song a while back for an old man I saw walking around the streets of Bozeman, Montana. I never met him. We only crossed paths for one moment, but he had a story in the way he walked that stuck with me. I got to wondering about that old man and how he carried his guitar case. He had the enlightened, wild look of a hobo king like Iowa Blackie or Utah Phillips. I wrote a song for him and, in return, he helped me realize that the only way a person can really get the best out of living is being alright with the dying part." — Jack Klatt

Photo credit: Joel Patterson

LISTEN: Amber Rubarth, ‘Ball and Chain’

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Artist: Amber Rubarth
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Song: "Ball and Chain"
Album: Scribbled Folk Symphonies
Release Date: April 15
Label: Chesky Records

In Their Words:  "I wrote this on a long drive to Memphis and first laid it down on my little four-track with just harmonies and a sung bass line — one hand on the steering wheel, the other pressing record. The original demo has a lot of wind and car noises. My heart had been fully invested for some time in a half-relationship with someone who didn't want to commit and, for the first time there, I came to peace with this idea that, if you are not on the same page on a commitment level with someone, it's best to let it go. Maybe obvious, and easier said than done, but in that moment writing this, I felt like a weight I'd been carrying for years was left behind.

In the old church in Brooklyn where we recorded, we played this one first early in the morning, all live around one microphone, with Jeff Taylor on vocals, Dave Eggar on cello, Victoria Paterson on violin, and myself on guitar and vocals. My favorite part of this entire album is that, artistically, it's so intertwined with many of my favorite musicians in New York." — Amber Rubarth

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Adventurous Listening: The World According to Dust-to-Digital

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Lance Ledbetter purchased his copy of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music the way other people might buy drugs: out of the trunk of a car, in an empty parking lot, in the dead of night.

It is, he says with a laugh, a lot more innocent than it sounds. “I worked at the college radio station at Georgia State, but my friend at another radio station got a better Folkways discount. So we all gave him money and he ordered five box sets for us. We had to drive out to meet him one night, and he pulled them out of his trunk. It seemed a little shady.”

Ledbetter remembers the night very well, because buying that box set — the 1997 CD reissue, of course, not the 1952 vinyl original — was a turning point in his life. “I remember the hype surrounding that reissue. It was so big," he says. "All those magazines, like Mojo and Uncut, were talking about it. I remember listening to it for the first time. I took it back to my apartment, put it on, and thought, 'Oh my God, I know what they’re talking about.' It was an incredible experience, and the Anthology was really what introduced me to this world of 78s.”

That moment — opening up that trunk, handing over the cash, ripping off the plastic, hitting PLAY on his CD player — is arguably when Dust-to-Digital was born. The Atlanta-based company, run by Ledbetter and his wife April, is one of the best reissue labels in the world, specializing in folk music from America and around the world.

The Anthology not only introduced Ledbetter to the music he would devote his life to researching and releasing, but created a world in which the label could thrive. “The original issue of the Anthology in ’52 gets so much credit for spawning the ‘60s folk revival, and I think the CD reissue in ’97 is a touchstone for people like me. It was the spark that led to this reissue culture that we see now.”

Dust-to-Digital itself has had nearly as powerful of an impact. Two years after first listening to the Anthology, Ledbetter dreamt up his own box set — a collection of early 20th-century gospel songs by artists both popular (Hank Williams, Blind Willie McTell) and obscure (Sister O.M. Terrell, North Carolina Cooper Boys). From conception to release, it took Ledbetter nearly five years to make Goodbye, Babylon a reality, partly because he was a novice at collecting, digitizing, and securing rights for old 78s, but mostly because he wanted to make sure everything was thoroughly researched and exquisitely presented.

“It’s our job to communicate to people why this music is important,” he says. “There are a lot of ways you can do that. There’s the packaging. There’s the design. There’s the way you write the onesheet.” While subsequent releases may not be quite as extensive or elaborate — none, for example, are packaged with bolls of raw cotton — every Dust-to-Digital release is presented with great care and affection, with the Ledbetters collaborating with scholars, musicians, and bloggers around the country. You don’t merely listen to their box sets; you lose yourself in them, immersing yourself in the music, the text, the photos, even the DVD documentaries.

“When we did Goodbye, Babylon, we had more than 300 tracks in consideration, which we whittled down to 160. Of those 160, a lot of them featured multiple musicians and performers. And I think there were maybe four or five people still living. The core belief of this aesthetic is that, if these people could see what we put together, I would want them to feel honored and proud. I would want them to feel like we had done right by their legacy.”

Ledbetter’s expertise lay in old-time gospel, but Dust-to-Digital’s purview has expanded well beyond any genre or geographic boundary. The label’s growing catalog includes collections of old African 78s, reed music from the Middle East, odd “educed” music dating back 1,000 years … even old-time Christmas music. There are single- and multi-artist collections, not to mention compilations around playful themes, such as a history of the string bass or two decades’ worth of bawdy pop music.

“It’s adventurous listening,” says Ledbetter. “We listen to all types of music. But everything we put out is definitely not for everyone in our audience. We just want to get it out there and give people an access point to this very rich music that has been overlooked.”

With that in mind, here are 10 essential Dust-to-Digital releases — not necessarily everything you need to hear, but a good place to start digging around the catalog and perhaps find your very own Anthology.

Various artists: Goodbye, Babylon — 2004

This is the box set that introduced the Dust-to-Digital philosophy. The set was nominated for two Grammy awards and has been rightly praised for its elaborate packaging: a cedar box containing six CDs and a 200-page hardbound book, all packed with bolls of raw cotton. The set proved just as ambitious in its scope, gathering tracks from a range of artists — popular and obscure, black and white, rural and urban, sanctified and secular — and painting a portrait of a distinctively American God feared and praised in equal measure.

Various artists: Fonotone Records Frederick, Maryland (1956-1969) — 2005

One of the most under-celebrated figures in American music, Joe Bussard founded Fonotone Records out of his parents’ basement in the D.C. suburbs. For 14 years, he released seminal recordings of American folk music: blues and rambles, reels and jigs, and pretty much everything in between. Dust-to-Digital spared no expense repackaging the label’s catalog as a five-CD, 161-track box set that includes postcards, a cigar box, and a bottle opener. (Bussard recently started his own imprint at Dust-to-Digital, which allows him to curate releases like last year’s The Year of Jubilo: 78 RPM Recordings of Songs from the Civil War.)

Various artists: How Low Can You Go? Anthology of the String Bass (1925-1941) — 2006

Often overshadowed by flashy brass and strutting guitar, the string bass has provided the low-end groove for nearly a century, and this rambunctious, occasionally even raunchy, single-disc collection argues for its primacy in jazz, blues, folk — any American form of music. It’s an important historical document of the era and the evolution of popular music, but it’s arguably more useful as a party-starting romp.

Various artists: Art of Field Recording, Vol. 1 & 2 — 2007/2009

Compiled by folklorist Art Rosenbaum, this pair of box sets documents a time when producers and engineers traveled to the performers, not the other way around. The fact that there are two four-CD sets speaks to the depth of Rosenbaum’s collection. The fact that you could easily compile three or four additional volumes speaks to the tireless efforts of those field recorders.

Various artists: Baby, How Can It Be? Songs of Love, Lust, and Contempt from the 1920s and 1930s — 2010

Anyone who thinks old-time musicians were paragons of virtue and decency should spin these uproarious discs, curated by musician John Heneghan. Each CD tackles a different subject and the best, of course, may be Lust, which features a memorable single entendre by Harry Roy & His Bat-Club Boys. Their memorable “Pussy” is about his girlfriend’s … cat.

Let Your Feat Do the Talkin’ — 2010

This isn’t an album, but a documentary about septuagenarian buckdancer Thomas Maupin, who used dance as a form of percussion — making music with your whole body. Following his battle with cancer, as well as his life as one of the last living practitioners of an old American art form, the film itself is fascinating and poignant, but the true highlight of the DVD may be an hour-long dance lesson from Maupin himself.

John Fahey: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You (Fonotone Recordings 1958-1965) — 2011

Gradually and quietly, John Fahey has become one of the most influential guitar players of the 20th century, inspiring a new generation of pickers and strummers that includes William Tyler, James Blackshaw, and Ryley Walker. This five-CD box set is a kind of Bible for the new American Primitivist movement, chronicling Fahey’s long and productive tenure on Joe Bussard’s Fonotone label and showing his considerable stylistic range and his almost inconceivable musical innovation.

Patrick Feaster: Pictures of Sound: One Thousand Years of Educed Audio, 980-1980 — 2012

This book is one of the weirdest and wildest installments in Dust-to-Digital’s catalog. A professor and archivist at Indiana University, Feaster tracked down old illustrations of music — from hand-drawn illustrations to newspaper print ads — and managed to “educe” audio from the pictures. There’s something miraculous about listening to these unlikely sounds, not to mention a perverse joy in hearing distorted speech and indescribable tones coalesce into enjoyable and exciting music.

Various artists: Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll — 2015

All music is world music, and Dust-to-Digital has extended its reach well beyond American borders. This soundtrack to John Pirozzi’s documentary of the same title chronicles Cambodia’s raucous rock scene in the years leading up to the Khmer Rouge. The upbeat energy and boundless vivacity of these rock tunes sounds all the more desperate and remarkable when you realize that many of the musicians on the album would be executed simply for making art.

Blind Alfred Reed: Appalachian Visionary — 2016

Blind Alfred Reed was a supremely influential musician who participated in Ralph Peer’s historic Bristol, Tennessee, sessions (alongside the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers) and who summed up the plight of the American everyman in songs like “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” He’s been covered recently by Bruce Springsteen and Ry Cooder, among many others, but this is the best and most comprehensive collection of his short career, which kicked off in 1927 and wound down in 1929. Featuring liner notes by historian Ted Olson, it’s a lovely reminder of the central role music can play in addressing current events and the plight of the average American.

Pixar: For the Love of Folk

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Pixar’s recent release, Inside Out, might be the best movie yet from the massive award-winning animation company. The story of a 12-year-old girl’s emotional development after a family move sounds a bit dry on paper, but the film is deeply complex. It works on multiple levels, features stellar voice talents — like Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, and Mindy Kaling. Of course, that’s Pixar’s stock in trade — beautiful, complex, touching stories that break the boundaries of family entertainment. And one of the more unheralded keys to this equation is the animation company's love of roots music. From Pixar's long love affair with folk in their films, here are six highlights:

Lava 

In stunning animation, Lava tells the touching story of two volcanoes in the Hawaiian sea as they go through some major tectonic shifts in life. But really, the whole short is based around one song — “Lava,” by Hawaiian artists Kuana Torres Kahele and Napua Greig. The song’s lyrics are the only words. Pixar admitted that the song was patterned in large part after the music the great Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. Braddah Iz, as he was called, transformed how Hollywood and mainland America saw Hawaiian music and was featured in about a thousand movies. So it’s not ultra-groundbreaking for Pixar to want to work with that template, but the thing about them is that they get deep into their subject matter. Just as Inside Out consulted extensively with the most cutting-edge neuroscientists to get the current research into their plotline, here they’ve selected one of the best traditional Hawaiian artists, Kuana Torres Kahele.

Geri's Game

This charming short about a wily old man playing himself at chess debuted prior to Pixar’s first full-length film, Toy Story, when the studio was mainly working on shorts. It’s basically wordless, with the focus on the virtuosic French musette accordion music of the great Gus Viseur. Like his friend, Django Reinhardt, Viseur came up in the bal musettes of Paris — the working-class dances that featured insanely virtuosic accordions and heart-breaking songs. His music now is some of the best-known Parisian musette music. He was a stunning musician, and the only accordionist to be featured in the Hot Club de Paris … plus he was Edith Piaf’s accompanist. He played a chromatic button accordion and was known for his wickedly complex melodic lines. You can hear that on the tune that Geri’s Game features, one of Viseur’s great classics, “La Flambée Montalbanaise.” Geri’s Game might well be the start of Pixar’s love of folk music in their films. It also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 1997.

Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2 marked the start of Pixar’s work with the seminal and highly entertaining Western Swing outfit Riders in the Sky. With the addition of Jesse the Yodeling Cowgirl and the Woody’s Roundup characters, Toy Story 2 had a more Western theme than the first film, and Riders in the Sky were all over it — swinging along with fiddle, accordion, acoustic guitar, and doghouse bass, and turning in the memorable song “Woody’s Roundup.” The playfulness of their music and onstage personas was a winning match, not only for Pixar, but for Toy Story 2 itself, which had a much lighter feel than its follow-up, Toy Story 3. Riders in the Sky returned for the 2000 short For the Birds, as well, bringing their Western Swing and vintage country roots to this cute little film. Since, Riders in the Sky have recorded companion albums and covers for Pixar films, and actually won a Grammy for an all-Western Swing album of monster songs to go along with Monsters, Inc.

Brave

This film has the most folk music of any Pixar movie, perhaps in part from its historical setting in medieval Scotland. Pixar tapped Scottish composer Patrick Doyle and gave him the free rein to bring Scottish traditional music into the film. For example, Brave seems to be one of the few Hollywood films set in Scotland to use the actual Scottish highland bagpipes (played in the film by Scottish piper Willie Armstrong of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers). Doyle wrote songs in Scots Gaelic for the film, including the lovely lullaby sung by Merida and her mother (played by Emma Thompson). This song, “Noble Maiden Fair (A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal),” was written by Doyle and inspired by the rhythms and stories of Scottish waulking songs (songs sung during community events). Doyle and the Pixar team also brought on renowned Scots Gaelic singer Julie Fowlis. She’s got a raft of great albums under her belt and is one of the best Gaelic singers living. With Fowlis on board and a composer who deeply understood Scottish traditional music, most of Brave’s soundtrack draws from Scottish folk roots.

Wall-E

Another nod to Parisian musette, perhaps, Pixar’s mostly wordless film Wall-E featured Louis Armstrong’s “La Vie En Rose” in a particularly beautiful sequence between the two characters. The song itself comes from Edith Piaf, the French musette singer that Gus Viseur accompanied early on who got her start in the nightclubs and bordellos of 1940s Paris. New Orleans jazz icon Louis Armstrong recorded the definitive English version of the song, but interestingly, he wasn’t singing lyrics that were direct translations. Prolific Disney songwriter Mack David wrote up English lyrics that, supposedly, reflected the spirit of the song. But the language between both is pretty different.

The Good Dinosaur

The newest Pixar movie, though it takes place in an alternate world where dinosaurs are the dominant life form, has a surprising amount of really lovely bluegrass and country fiddling (to go with a slight Wild West motif throughout). No surprise that they picked up master fiddler Gabe Witcher from the Punch Brothers for this!