Selected Discography
Afro-American Blues and Game Songs. Library of Congress AAFS L4Afro-American Folk Music from Tate and Panola Counties, Mississippi. Library of Congress, AAFS L67.
Afro-American Spirituals, Work Songs and Ballads. Library of Congress AAFS L3.
Big Bill Broonzy: Good Time Tonight. Columbia CK 46219 [CD]
. Blind Lemon Jefferson—King of the Country Blues. Yazoo 1069.
Blind Lemon Jefferson/Son House. Biograph BLP-12040.
Blind Willie Johnson: Praise God, I’m Satisfied. Yazoo 1058.
Blues Classics by Sonny Boy Williamson. Blues Classic 3.
Blues in the Mississippi Night. Features Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy Williamson, as told to and recorded by Alan Lomax. Notes by Alan Lomax. Salem, Mass.: Rykodisc, 1990 (RCD 90155). The recording on which Chapter 10 is based.
The Blues Roll On. Recorded in the field and edited by Alan Lomax, assisted by Shirley Collins. New York: Atlantic, ca. 1960 (Atlantic SD-1352) [LP]. Forrest City Joe and others.
Bo Carter: Greatest Hits 1930-1940. Yazoo L-1014.
Bo Diddly/Muddy Waters/Little Walter: Super Blues. Checker LPS-3008.
Chicago Blues Anthology. Chess 2CH 60012.
David “Honey boy” Edwards: I’ve Been Around. Trix 3319.
The Griots: Ministers of the Spoken Word. Ethnic Folkways FE 4178.
Gus Cannon and Noah Lewis: Volume Two. Document DOCD-5033 (Austrian).
Jim Jackson: Kansas City Blues. Agram AB 2004. King of the Delta Blues: The Music of Charlie Patton. Notes by Stephen Calt and Don Kent. Newton, N.J.: Yazoo (Shanachie), 1991 (Yazoo 2001) [CD].
Let’s Get Loose: Folk and Popular Blues Styles from the Beginnings to the Early 1940’s. New World Records NW 290.
Living Chicago Blues, Volumes 1-4. Alligator Records, ALCD 7701-7704.
Masques Dan, Cot d’Ivoire. Ocora OCR 52.
Masters of the Delta Blues: The Friends of Charlie Patton, Featuring Son House, Tommy Johnson, Willie Brown, Kid Bailey, Bertha Lee, Ishmon Bracey, Louise Johnson, and Bukka White. Notes by Don Kent. Newton, N.J.: Yazoo (Shanachie), 1991 (Yazoo 2002) [CD].
McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters. Chess 2CH-60006.
Memphis Jug Band. Yazoo 1067.
Memphis Slim and His House Rockers, featuring Matt “Guitar” Murphy: Memphis Slim---U.S.A. Pearl PL-10.
The Mississippi Blues 1927-1940. Origin Jazz Library OJL-5.
The Mississippi Blues No. 2: The Delta, 1929-1932. Origin Jazz Library OJL-11.
Mississippi Blues: Library of Congress Recordings 1940-1942. Notes by Ray Templeton. Crawley, West Sussex, England: Interstate Music Ltd., 1991 [1973, 1979] (Travelin’ Man TM CD 07). Contains material from Chapter 1.
Mississippi Folk Voices. Southern Culture.
Mississippi Fred McDowell: Delta Blues. Arhoolie F 1021.
Mississippi John Hurt—Avalon Blues. Rounder 1081.
Mississippi John Hurt—1928 Sessions. Yazoo 1065.
Mississippi John Hurt—Worried Blues. Rounder 1082.
Muddy Waters: Down on Stovall’s Plantation. Testament T-2219.
Musique Kongo. Ocora OCT 35.
Negro Blues and Hollers. Library of Congress AFS L59.
Negro Prison Songs from the Mississippi Penitentiary. Tradition Records TLP 1020.
Negro Work Songs and Calls. Library of Congress AAFS L8.
Really! The Country Blues. Origin Jazz Library OJL-2.
Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings. Columbia C2K 46222.
Roots of the Blues. Recorded in the field and edited by Alan Lomax, assisted by Shirley Collins. New York: Atlantic, ca. 1960 (Atlantic SD-1348) [LP].
Roots of the Blues. Edited by Alan Lomax. New York: New World Records, 1977 (80252-2) [CD].
Sam Chatmon: The Mississippi Sheik. Blue Goose 2006.
Sleepy John Estes, 1929-1940. Folkways/RBF 8.
Son House: The Complete Library of Congress Sessions 1941-1942. Original recordings by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. Crawley, West Sussex, England: Interstate Music Ltd., 1990 (Travelin’ Man TM CD 02).
Son House, Willie Brown, and Others: Walking Blues. Flyright LP 541.
Sounds of the South. Recorded in the field and edited by Alan Lomax, assisted by Shirley Collins. New York: Atlantic, ca. 1960 (Atlantic SD-13460 [LP]. Contains material from chapters 1, 2, and 7.
South Mississippi Blues. Notes by David Evans. Somerville, Mass.: Rounder Records, 1988 (Rounder Records 2009) [LP].
Tampa Red: Guitar Wizard. RCA/Bluebird AXM2-5501.
Traveling Through the Jungle: Negro Fife and Drum Band Music from the Deep South. Testament T-2223.
Wolof Music of Senegal and the Gambia. Ethnic Folkways RE 4462.
For more complete listings of blues recordings, consult the following discographies:
Dixon, Robert M.W., and John Godrich. Blues and Gospel Records: 1902-1943. 1977. Reprint. Saint Clair Shores, Mich.: Scholarly Press, 1982.
Oliver, Paul, ed. The Blackwell Guide to Blues Records. Oxford and New York: Blackwell Reference, 1989.
Scott, Frank, et al. The Down Home Guide to the Blues. Pennington, N.J.: A Cappella Books, 1991.
Atlantic Records is reissuing the recordings of Alan Lomax’s Southern fieldwork of 1959-60 as a four-CD boxed set entitled Sounds of the South. Here the reader can listen to Ed and Lonnie Young, the best fife-and-drum combo discovered in America, reviving African tradition intact in the Delta hills; Blind Sid Hemphill sparking hot rhythms with his quills, an instrument as old as music itself, at an afternoon hog roast in Senatobia; Fred McDowell’s slide guitar singing the blues, accompanied by his aunt on a comb wrapped in toilet paper; the lining hymns and anguished sermons of the Southern black church; Holy Rollers “getting happy”; polyphonic shouts from the Georgia Sea Islands; children’s game songs recorded I the backyard; the rowdy honky- tonk piano in the backroom of Charley Houlin’s place. The, this rich vein of African-American music-making is set beside the countervailing background of white song from the Southern backwoods, showing how, in the high-speed string combos of bluegrass, for example, these very diverse traditions interpenetrated ad influenced each other. Originally entitled The Southern Heritage Folk Series, it includes the following titles: Roots of the Blues (Atlantic LP 1348), The Blues Roll On (1352), Negro Church Music (1351), American Folk Songs for Children (1350), Blue Ridge Mountain Music (1347), White Spirituals (1349), and Sounds of the South (1346).
