I love roots music and have over the years really enjoyed Smithsonian's Folkways CDs, but unfortunately they do not have very much available online. In looking around for a different resource, I came across the Digital Library of Appalachia's sound recording collection . This site is sponsored by Berea College in Kentucky.
As they state on their website:
"The Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives is mainly comprised of non-commercial sound and video recordings that document Appalachian history and culture and the history of Berea College. These recordings are especially strong in the areas of fiddle and banjo tunes; ballads and songs; Old Regular Baptist singing and preaching; folktales and legends; and oral history."
They allow search by title, performer, genre, subject, and also county state. I searched for the song "Cuckoo Bird," a staple song of roots/folk music. I received ten hits, seven of them were the song that I was interested in. The search results page provides a picture of the artist (if available), the title of the song, subject search terms, and a description. I clicked on "Cuckoo Bird" by John Lawson Tyree. This took me to a much more detailed record of the file, listing: contributors, place, time period, date, holding library, type, format, indentifier, note, relation, rights, file size, duration, and details about the thumbnail on the search page.
From this page you can display the item, which means play the song. You can also add this item to your favorites. This is a great feature because it allows you to make a list of songs and then save them as an HTML page.
I wish that the site provided more data about how many songs are in the collection, the provenance of the songs, and what the selection process for digitization was. All in all, I think it is a great resource for scholars and fans of this type of music. It's great to be able to look at a lot of different versions of certain songs and learn some of the context of when and where they were created.
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