Anyone who still has any money (after we've been skinned alive in tomorrow's UK budget that is) will doubtless be interested in a pair of new releases from Dust to Digital. The blurbs for both are below and I shall say no more, except to point out that the ethnic minorities of the Upper Mid-West have never been very well represented on disc. That in my view makes this first set all the more invaluable.

FOLKSONGS OF ANOTHER AMERICA FIELD RECORDINGS FROM THE UPPER MIDWEST, 1937-1946 HARDCOVER, 456-PAGE BOOK WITH 5 CDS + DVD TO BE RELEASED ON AUGUST 7
Armed with bulky microphones, blank disks, spare needles, and cumbersome disk-cutting machines, several folklorists had the foresight to document and preserve a significant but overlooked part of the nation's musical heritage, made by immigrant, Native American, rural and working-class performers. Almost all of these dance tunes, ballads, lyric songs, hymns, laments, versified taunts, political anthems, street cries, and recitations are being issued for the very first time.

This 5-CD set is teeming with African-American, Austrian, Belgian, Cornish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French Canadian, German, Ho-Chunk, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Irish, Italian, Luxemburger, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Oneida, Polish, Scots Gaelic, Serbian, Swedish, Swiss, and Welsh performers.

Bonus DVD includes the new documentary film The Most Fertile Source: Alan Lomax Goes North with never-before-seen footage shot in Michigan in 1938. The accompanying book includes extensive liner notes, lyric transcriptions and translations by James P. Leary, co-founder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Listen to Audio from the set on our Soundcloud page
Pre-Order Folksongs of Another America for $60 (ships late July)
Pre-Order Folksongs of Another America and Ola Belle Reed set for $80


OLA BELLE REED + FRIENDS. SOUTHERN MOUNTAIN MUSIC ON THE MASON-DIXON LINE CLOTHBOUND, 256-PAGE BOOK WITH 2 CDS. TO BE RELEASED AUGUST 21
"What do you do when different musical forms come into a kind of fusion of what today is called old-time music, country music, and the folk song revival? I think that story is in Ola Belle." – Henry Glassie

Dust-to-Digital is excited to present the first in-depth look at the life of Ola Belle Reed, a groundbreaking artist who is one of the all-time greatest performers of authentic, old-time music. Ola Belle Reed's 1960s recordings, some of the earliest she ever made and available here for the very first time, are counter-balanced by a disc of modern-day field recordings of her descendants and those within her Appalachian community that she inspired. This deluxe edition highlights Ola Belle's deep repertoire – folk ballads, minstrel songs, country standards, and originals – and traces the impact her music made and is still making today with 58 newly-remastered recordings and texts by Henry Glassie and Cliff Murphy.