Smithsonian Folkways

“People get more of a message from you than they do from an entertainer, and they believe in you. Now, you can say amen and forgive the sermon.” –Ralph Rinzler to Doc Watson, November 25, 1...

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Stanley Jacobs, bandleader of Stanley and the Ten Sleepless Knights, embraced quelbe music at a young age in the 1940s. “That’s all we knew,” says the St. Croix musician about the historica...

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Watch Iraqi-American oud player Rahim AlHaj captivate the audience in the latest NPR Tiny Desk Concert . The recent National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow recorded the award-w...

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#tbt In 1951, Moses Asch was recruited by the American Museum of Natural History to create a soundtrack for their exhibit “Men of the Montaña,” about a group of Peruvian indigenous tribes...

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#AlbumCoverTuesday Alfred Frugh provided the minimalist artwork featured on the cover of Bert Williams ’ 1981 Folkways release Nobody and Other Songs.

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Smithsonian Folkways - People's Picks: Singing Soul Food - A Playlist from the Southern Foodways Alliance : Southern food and Southern music are close kin, and the Southern Foodways Alliance ...

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‪#‎OnThisDay‬ in 1791 American volunteers and Chief Little Turtle of the Miamis had an encounter near Fort Recovery, Ohio. Get Wallace House’s interpretation of the story in the song �...

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‪#‎tbt‬ In 1816 Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec invented the stethoscope so that he could use sound to help better diagnose his patients. In 1955 Folkways released Sounds of Medicine , a...

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#WednesdayLessonPlan With “5,000-year-old Echoes of Humanity: Baalbek, Lebanon, ” students will compare and contrast the folk music of Lebanon, sing and play a simple song in Arabic, and da...

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#AlbumCoverTuesday Laura Pharis’ 2001 work “Early in the Spring” serves as the cover for Mike Seeger’s 2003 Folkways album True Vine . 

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Learn about the Irish diaspora and its musical repercussions in “Leaving and Being Left Behind: Immigration as a Theme in Irish Music ” from the latest issue of Talk Story: Culture in Motion...

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Happy Halloween! Listen to this spooky playlist from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings while you get ready for a night of trick or treating. 

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#tbt The July 4, 1964 issue of The New Yorker featured this cartoon spoof of Folkways Records. That recording must be lost in the archives somewhere, but we do have Deirdre Ní Fhlionn’s Iri...

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#AlbumCoverTuesday For the 1952 Folkways album Religious Music of India, Ronald Clyne used a 16th century Jainist painting on cotton from the Gujarat region of India. 

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‪#‎OnThisDay‬ Sonny Terry would have turned 104. Terry frequently played with blues guitarist Brownie Mcghee and the duo recorded numerous albums for Moses Asch on Folkways records. List...

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‪#‎SpokenWordSaturday‬ Looking for a good book to read? Listen to Morris Schreiber’s “Some Famous World Novels Examined ” from the 1963 Folkways release Understanding and Appreciati...

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This animated music video by Ben Katchor for “Ich A Mazeldicker Yid” from new release The Brothers Nazaroff: The Happy Prince captures the spirit of the Coney Island boardwalk, complete wit...

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Today marks the release of The Brothers Nazaroff: The Happy Prince , a boisterous, high-energy tribute to cult Yiddish troubadour Nathan “Prince” Nazaroff, who recorded the mysterious #Folkw...

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SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS REMEMBERS HENRY JACOBS (1924–2015)  Smithsonian Folkways remembers sound artist, humorist, recordist, and radio DJ Henry Sandy Jacobs, who passed away on September 25,...

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http://s.si.edu/1JOOfzI http://s.si.edu/1JOOfzI ‪#‎tbt‬ Listen to cable car crews from San Francisco discuss the art of bell ringing and the prestige associated with the Cable Car Bel...

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