SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS RECORDINGS RELEASES PETE SEEGER'S AMERICAN
FAVORITE BALLADS BOX-SET
THE 5-VOL. SERIES IS AVAILABLE IN ITS ENTIRETY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN
ONE GORGEOUS PACKAGE
 Pete Seeger by Anthony Pepitone |
On April 21, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings released Pete Seeger's
American Favorite Ballads, a five-CD box-set featuring the
time-honored classics Pete Seeger recorded with Moses Asch between 1957
and 1962. All five volumes of Seeger's landmark recordings,
instrumental in sparking the folk revival of the 1960s, are presented
here in beautiful packaging, digitally re-mastered, with exhaustive
liner notes and historical annotations for each song written by the
compiler Guy Logsdon and Smithsonian Folkways archivist Jeff Place.
Pete Seeger, who turned 90 on May 3 (read our review of his huge Birthday celebration here, is perhaps the most venerated
American folk musician of all time. A folklorist, writer and musician
of prodigious integrity and talent, Seeger set out to assemble the
definitive American songbook in the late 1950s with his American
Favorite Ballads series. The 1950s and early 1960s were a prolific
time of recording for Pete Seeger and Folkways Records, and American
Favorite Ballads is the cornerstone of this collaboration. The series
features the songs that American families had learned, sung and passed
down for generations, and sparked unprecedented new interest in
American folk music among young students and musicians, ultimately
leading the way for the vibrant folk revival of the 1960s.
During the height of the 1960s folk revival, these records became
essential for any student of folk music to learn and incorporate into
their repertoire. American
Favorite Ballads features over 130 songs integral to American identity. Highlights include Lead Belly's "House
of the Rising Sun," Woody Guthrie's "Hard Travelin'," and other seminal
classics such as "John Henry," "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless
Child," "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," "Goodnight, Irene,"
"Swanee River," "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," "This Land
Is Your Land," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "I've Been Working on the
Railroad" and numerous others.
Check out our coverage of Pete Seegers's huge Birthday celebration at MSG here.
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