In the Blues in St. Louis, Volume 3, electric guitarist Henry Townsend plays familiar blues songs, accompanied by Tommy Bankhead on electric bass. Samuel Charters, who recorded the session in 1961, writes in the liner notes that he was "prejudiced against electric instruments" until he heard the duo play the first track, "Cairo Is My Baby's Home." the use of electric instruments for the blues is a trend that continued through the decades, with artists like Albert Collins and B.B. King, and elements of these electric bass lines can even be heard in Led Zeppelin's music.

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.

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).

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.

From the early blues of Son House, Willie Brown, and Charley Patton to the assertive music of the Depression, the Mississippi delta has produced songs and singers with a fierce honesty that has ensured the style's enduring popularity. This selection features a range of songs and extensive liner notes.

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.

On this album, Mary Lou Williams presents a history of jazz in speech and in music, from meditations on learning ragtime and blues as a child to performances of her own compositions, including "Night Life," which was captured on her first recording in 1930 and became a Kansas City classic.

As well as presenting a collection of first-rate piano solos from the likes of Willie "The Lion" Smith, Meade "Lux" Lewis, Art Tatum, Mary Lou Williams, Teddy Wilson, and Erroll Garner, this album stands as homage to Folkways Records founder Moses Asch, who recorded each of the tracks included here.

Recorded at four venues during Duke Ellington's first annual tour of the Pacific Northwest in 1952, these songs bring listeners to the ballrooms and armories of Oregon and Washington, where the legendary Ellington and his band had been hired to play for dancers.

In the mid-1940s, Elizabeth Cotten (1895-1987) chanced to meet composer Ruth Crawford Seeger at a department store. They began to talk, and Seeger soon hired Cotten to work in the Seeger household. It was here that Cotten became motivated to pick up the guitar again-it had been so long she had forgotten she knew how to play-and she began playing professionally in her early eighties. The material chosen for this recording includes songs and tunes from her childhood, such as "Praying Time Will Soon Be Over" and original compositions like "When I'm Gone." She accompanies herself on her guitar, strung in the usual right-handed way yet played left-handed, with the guitar upside down. This album showcases her unique style, described by Mike Seeger as "a synthesis of turn-of-the-century parlor music, blues, church songs, and a little ragtime." Liner notes include extensive selections from conversations between Cotton, Mike, and Alice Gerrard.

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.

The life of jazz is in it's playing-in unrehearsed sessions in front of audiences or microphones, ears corporeal or mechanical that gauge the passing of time not by hands on a watch but by the birth and development of new musical ideas. Footnotes to Jazz, Volume 2 captures this process in a set of previously unreleased rehearsals by the Art Tatum Trio in 1944.

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.

The piano got off to a late start in Jazz, notes Frederic Ramsey Jr., but, beginning with Jelly Roll Morton, it made up for lost time. Pianists became important in performance and composition. On this compilation, Morton, Earl Hines, Joe Sullivan, Fats Waller, Meade Lux Lewis, Mary Lou Williams and others put their blazing chops on display.

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.