Recorded on Victor and Decca in the 1920s and 30s, Sleepy John Estes was a leading exponent of the Memphis blues style. These recordings capture the distinctive sound of Yank Rachel's legato mandolin lines and Jab Jones' rhythmic piano accompaniment, as well as Estes' skill at singing the narrative blues.

Originally released in 1959, The Country Blues features a range of styles and a collection of recordings not included in other Folkways compilations. This selection-mostly recorded between 1927 and 1931-includes such gems as a test pressing of Robert Johnson's "Preaching Blues" and local releases from the 1920s.

An influential figure in the growth of the Southern blues tradition, William "Jazz" Gillum (1904-1966) had the kind of life from which the blues spring. Orphaned, starved, threatened, shot at, beaten, and discriminated against, Gillum's style, as heard throughout this recording-and as described in the liner notes-is unsurprisingly "sometimes harsh, sometimes poetic, with it's expressive delayed beat and strong rhythm, and it's bitterness tinged with nostalgia." He is joined on this album by Arbee Stidham (vocals and guitar) and Memphis Slim (organ and piano), associates from his early professional jobs in Chicago in the 1930s. Liner notes include song lyrics and a biography of Gillum, who lived and sang the blues his whole life.

Orphaned at age 2, William Thomas Dupree grew up in the same New Orleans boys' home where Louis Armstrong first played the cornet. Continuing his music education with barrelhouse piano musicians, Dupree became known for his gritty yet soulful piano blues and boogie-woogie style. During the Depression, he started boxing for a living and earned the nickname Champion Jack, which stuck with him for the rest of his life. Here, Dupree's theme is clear: Bad women and good women. Hard times... hot hands, and hot music. Liner notes include lyrics, photos, and an introduction by Charles Edward Smith.

Walter E. "Furry" Lewis (1893-1981), was a Mississippi-born, Memphis-bred guitarist and singer whose early fame was based on his 1927 recordings for the Victor label. When the Depression ended most of the recording in the South, Furry took a job as a laborer for the city of Memphis. He lived in musical obscurity until he was "re-discovered" by producer Sam Charters in the late 1950s. Lewis's version of "John Henry" is a powerful example of early southern blues. This collection also includes Lewis's oral history of his early days as a bluesman, as well as the story of his musical education in several styles of blues guitar. The liner notes include a discography of Lewis's early recordings.

I've never had the blues, says Brownie McGhee in an interview with famed oral historian, Studs Terkel, "the blues has always had me." the trio of legendary bluesmen played, talked, and traded stories with Terkel until the early hours of the morning in the studio of Chicago's WFMT radio station, creating a historic and memorable experience. Big Bill Broonzy had the idea of putting this session together in order "to reveal the uniqueness of each man's blues as a reflection of the uniqueness of each man's life," as noted in the extensive liner notes to what would be Broonzy's last recording for Folkways Records.

Recorded in 1961, The Blues in St. Louis, Vol. 2 celebrates 1930s and '40s style Barrelhouse Blues and Boogie Woogie. Henry Brown and Edith Johnson came from very different musical backgrounds: pianist Brown was formally trained, while Johnson learned the blues by singing along with music playing in her husband's record shop. Yet, the two came together in Jazz and Blues fan Bob Oswald's recording studio, and the result is a combination of Classic Blues instrumentals and vocals like "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Little Drops of Water," often accompanied by Brown tapping his foot against the piano pedal. Musician and scholar Samuel Charters gives a first hand account of the musicians and circumstances of recording in the liner notes.

Pink Anderson (1900-1974) spent most of his life working as a roving entertainer in the small medicine shows that traveled throughout the South. His stage repertoire included blues, comedic songs, country ballads, and minstrel show tunes. Pink's songs were first recorded in 1950 by the folk singer Paul Clayton. Folklorist Kenneth S. Goldstein heard the material, and asked the music historian Samuel Charters to find Pink and document his song repertoire. Charters subsequently featured Pink in his documentary the Blues. After a film session at his home in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the summer of 1962, Pink felt like singing, so Charters continued recording. Many of the songs on this album come from those tapes, which include Pink's friend, blues guitarist Baby Tate.

Singing and begging are about the only two ways a blind man can make a living in farm country. Several years after Blind Willie Johnson's death in 1949, Samuel B. Charters tries to get to know the now-distinguished African-American blues and spiritual vocalist/guitarist through those closest to him, including Johnson's wife Angeline. The album combines old recordings, interviews and commentary.

Speckled Red (Rufus Perryman, 1892-1973) was one of the most irrepressible and enthusiastic proponents of barrel-house piano, a style born of rowdy roadhouses and closely associated with boogie-woogie but louder and more raucous. Red-born in Georgia and well traveled-was a self-taught player, never letting the finer points of the correct chord interfere with his own enthusiasm for the music. This collection of originals, Red's only collection on Folkways, showcases his singing and rhythmic approach to the keyboard. Red provides introductions to most of his tunes, offering further insight into the artist. The liner notes further explain the nuances of barrel-house piano.

The blind folk, gospel and blues musician made it to New York from South Carolina and made a name for himself as the "Harlem Street Singer." a Baptist minister and a teacher, Gary Davis was also an accomplished and influential vocalist, guitarist, and harmonica player. He was seventy years old at the time of this recording. "We Are the Heavenly Father's Children" is re-mastered and re-released on If I Had My Way: Early Home Recordings(SFW40123).

The Blues is life and life is the Blues. It covers from the first cry of a newborn to the last gasp of a dying man. It's the very existence." And Victoria Spivey took the blues business very seriously, from her many recording contracts to her performance schedule. These thirteen original compositions were written specifically for this recording, and range from a "No Friends Blues" or a "Slick Chick Blues" to a "Humble Blues" and even "A Sausage Blues.

The music on this recording is at once far-reaching and intimate. It has a quality enjoyed well beyond contemporary fans of this style of music, and yet this recording gives the listener the sense of being privy to a very precise moment in music history with Memphis Slim (1915-1988) as he plays piano. Slim (born Peter Chatman) grew up listening to his father perform blues in various venues in Memphis, Tennessee. He started performing around town at a young age before moving to Chicago at 25. He is accompanied on this album- the third of his four recordings for Folkways Records - by Arnold "Jump" Jackson (drums) and Arbee Stidham (guitar). The liner notes feature a biography of Slim by music critic Martin Williams.

Peter Chatman Jr.., aka Memphis Slim, stomps out a "progressive boogie and blues" on the piano. Self-taught in the honky-tonk juke joints of Tennessee, he produced some of the most powerful boogie-woogie out there, with an incessant bass like you wouldn't believe.

This fascinating album of storytelling and music includes some of minstrel, composer, businessman, and bluesman Perry Bradford's best-known works, including "That Thing Called Love," the first song ever recorded by Mamie Smith for Okeh Records in 1920. Singer Noble Sissle's interview with Bradford provides narration for this selection of songs.

There is no single kind of music that led to the creation of Jazz. Instead, the genre evolved, and continues to evolve, from diverse musical avenues. Following the popularity of swing music in the 1930's, Boogie Woogie-with it's characteristic walking bass pattern-captivated audiences and dancers. Performed by pianists like Count Basie and Meade Lux Lewis, this exciting rhythm provides-as Basie said-"four heavy beats to a bar, and no cheating."

Moses Asch purchased the "race records" heard on this album in 1941 for 15 cents each. Demonstrating some of the musical styles characteristic of the American South that proved influential in shaping what is now called Jazz, the selections range from folk songs to urban blues to boogie-woogie piano; artists include Dock Reese, Lead Belly, Scrapper Blackwell, Bessie Tucker and Champion Jack Dupree.

Charles Edward Smith, author of the album's notes, writes, "Few singers evoke as forcefully as Brownie the many-sidedness of heritage... sentiment and sex, humor and the solar plexus shots of bitter and broken, worried and lonely blues." But let Brownie's music, in all it's eloquence, speak for itself.

This album presents a variety of blues, and in Brownie McGhee's singing are echoes of work and dance songs, as well as spirituals. Brownie himself once said, "I want to make music the way I know is real," and the blues on this collection exemplify his honest, powerful style.

This album features big-voiced blues pianist and singer Memphis Slim and legendary bassist Willie Dixon, who is credited with having helped create the Chicago blues sound. Several tracks from this album are also included on Smithsonian Folkways' Memphis Slim: The Folkways Years (SFW40128).

As a youth in North Carolina, Sonny Terry-who lost his sight during his teen years-never imagined he'd eventually find fame as a musician on record, at festivals, and on Broadway in the musical, Finian's Rainbow. This album presents Terry's fine music, and the liner notes include elaborate stories of his life.

This album by harmonica player Sonny Terry and guitarist Brownie McGhee, with Coyal McMahan on maracas features traditional blues songs, spirituals, and originals by the three singer-instrumentalists. Each musician has his own distinctive style, and together they create a sound that is simultaneously melancholy and joyful.

Blind harmonica player and singer Sonny Terry recorded a few records during the 1930s and 1940s, but found wider fame in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. This recording features a washboard band-an ensemble that includes washboard, washtub bass (a development from the African earth bow), bones, and sometimes guitar, or as heard here, harmonica.

While recording in the South in the early 1960s, producer, writer, and music historian Samuel Charters was inspired not only by the sound of Furry Lewis's guitar, but by the patterns of movement in his hands and fingers as he played. Thus Charters decided to make a film that would document aspects of the blues that couldn't be put on a phonograph record. In the sweltering summer of 1962, Charters journeyed through St. Louis, Memphis, Louisiana, and South Carolina to shoot the film the Blues and record this soundtrack. Artists featured in addition to Lewis are J.D. Short, Baby Tate, and Sleepy John Estes. Liner notes include details of the making of the film and biographies of the artists.

In the spring of 1965 pianist Don Ewell began his four-week engagement in Toronto that lasted seven months. David Gillman, a jazz fan and one-time promoter, started hanging at the Golden Nugget and was reminded of another stride legend Willie "The Lion" Smith who he had presented in the '40s. Fast forward to '66, Gillman brings Ewell and Smith together for a Canadian TV filming. While in town the two jam together often at the Nugget and informal, live recordings are made (issued as Stride Piano Duets, DMK 249). The following year the two are brought together into a recording studio and this album is the astonishing result.