Thanks for posting this, Becky. I'll take a listen to the NPR interview tonight.

I listened to all the samples posted on the Smithsonian site, and it is a nice collection.

I'm pretty ignorant about blues history and blues styles. However, I'm not sure I am interested in seeing someone reclassify what we categorize as Piedmont Blues as Appalachian Blues, and a goodly number (the certainly not all) of the songs and artists on the cd are well known for their Piedmont Blues styles.

Maybe I will understand better once I listen to the interview, but from the brief notes I read on the NPR and Smithsonian websites, he appears to attribute the music as arising primarily from the coal fields. There are definitely Piedmont style blues folks who were from the southern Appalachians (Doc Watson, Etta Baker, the McGees, for example.) However, except for the McGees, (Knoxville) they hale from places south of the coal fields. Most of the Piedmont blues style artists on this album appear to actually hale from the Piedmont areas of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Seems to me this collection would have been better called a collection of upper and mid-south blues.

I'll shut up and see if some folks who actually know something chime in. In the meantime, I'm just sayin'.....:>)