Folkways Radio

Smithsonian Folkways Radio

Get a sense for the breadth and depth of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog while discovering recordings from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and nearly every location in between. Recordings are available for purchase on CD or digital download in MP3 or FLAC format, and the original liner notes are available as a free PDF download. Sit back, relax, and take a trip through the world of sound at Smithsonian Folkways, the nonprofit record label of the national museum of the United States.

Mickey Hart Radio

One of the few things we know about our universe is that everything in it is vibrating, is in motion, and has a rhythm. Rhythm is anything that repeats itself in time: the moon cycling around the earth, sap rising in the spring, the pulsing arteries of the body. Listen to complete tracks of Mickey Hart's favorite drumming on Folkways. Click here to read more .

Music of Colombia from Smithsonian Folkways

Listen to the variety of rhythms representing the regional diversity of Colombia. “Adiós, Berejú” features the marimba-led sound from the Pacific coastal regions, while “Sin Ti” and “Pedazo de Acordeón” are examples of the  accordion-driven vallenatos from the Caribbean coast. Also featured are the early cumbia sounds of Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto, whose members are well known for their white shirts, red scarves, and wide-brimmed hats. Grupo Cimarrón provides even more contrast, representing the Orinoco plains region of Colombia and Venezuela by mixing masterful harp playing with nimble maracas and soaring vocals. In recent decades, Colombia has suffered waves of violence, and the lack of economic opportunities has displaced people from rural areas to the cities. But Colombia’s proud musical tradition continues through the efforts of the musicians and organizations dedicated to promoting and preserving these unique sounds. The Smithsonian Folkways collection features eight albums containing Colombian music.

The Sounds of Peace Corps Countries

Since 1961, the Peace Corps has promoted world peace and friendship in 139 countries. The Peace Corps provides American expertise to nations in need, and facilitates intercultural understanding between the United States and Peace Corps host countries. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, the 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival hosts performances, discussions and demonstrations by fifteen Peace Corps nations on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The groups and individual musicians featured on this playlist, while not scheduled to appear at the 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, are from Smithsonian Folkways, the non-profit record label of the Smithsonian Institution, and represent the rich diversity of musical expression of the Festival participants. The selections here range from the unmistakable sound of the sitengena, or thumb piano, as played by a ¡Kung San musician from the northwestern Kalahari Desert in Botswana; to the distinctive tuning of ancient choral polyphony from the mountains of Georgia; to Kyrgyz music evocative of the hoof-beats of horses across the grasslands of Central Asia; to a classic protest song from American singer and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon; to a traditional Bambara jaliya song played by Malian musicians resident in New York City. The amazing range of musical sounds featured here also includes Kenyan afropop from Seattle, Guatemalan marimba, rural Jamaican calypso, and much more.

Rhythm & Blues from Smithsonian Folkways

In the mid-60s, Michael Asch, son of Folkways Records founder Moses Asch, received audition tapes from Lynn Productions of New Orleans that featured a compilation of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and doo-wop tracks. The recording sessions were led by Al White and the Hi-Liters, a prominent doo-wop group from the South who enlisted local bands and artists to showcase their sound for the records. What resulted were two records released by Folkways: Roots: Rhythm and Blues and Roots: The Rock and Roll Sound of Louisiana and Mississippi. While the names of the albums may assume the racial distinction between the two “genres,” the recording sessions featured both black and white musicians playing together on tracks of both genres.

This playlist features takes from these albums, as well as other notable R&B tracks from the Smithsonian Folkways collection.

Boogie Woogie Piano from Smithsonian Folkways

Coming from early blues traditions though featured prominently in honky-tonks, juke joints, and barrelhouses, the boogie groove is at the heart of the American R&B and rock and roll traditions. The combination of the driving rhythm from the left hand and the stylized and syncopated bluesy improvisations from the right create a dynamic style which is percussive in force. Adapted for guitar, bass, horns, and other instruments, the boogie-woogie sound has become one of the most distinct idioms in the American blues repertoire.

This playlist of tracks is compiled from the Smithsonian Folkways collection.

The Roots of Rhythm & Blues from Smithsonian Folkways

The songs, spirituals, spoken word, and poetics presented in this playlist reflect the mosaic of voices, styles, genres, and cultural influences that have contributed to the popular post-war urban music explosion known as rhythm and blues (R&B). Historically R&B can be traced to the northward migration of southern populations and the movement of rural people to the city around the late 1920s; the unique musical traditions they brought with them merge at a crucial juncture of civil unrest, increasing secularization, and the development of electric instrumentation. Boogie piano music, with its driving rhythm, is energetic and youthful, while the character of lyrical styles derived from field and work songs is secular and playful. Gospel choirs serve a social function by creating community and teaching songs to youth attending church, while protest songs elicit the same sense of liberation and redemption found in sacred settings. The development of spoken word with jazz speaks to the urban experience and the progressive nature of the music.

The growth and evolution of R&B—especially contemporary R&B—has been popular and commercial in nature; nevertheless, the process by which these musical forms have been disseminated and recontextualized by new generations of musicians and audiences represents an essential element of folk expression.

This playlist of tracks is compiled from the Smithsonian Folkways collection.

Civil War Songs and Sounds

Speaking of the impact music had on his troops, Confederate General Robert E. Lee said, “Without music you cannot have an army.” With this in mind, the music collected here is not so much an account of what came to be known as America’s most violent war as it is the culmination of the anxieties, politics, and the racial divide that started the war in the first place. Certainly the origins of the Civil War are present in its music: the abolitionist’s cry for freedom in songs such as “The Ballad of Frederick Douglass” and “John Brown’s Body”; the irrevocable violence and censure laced into America’s founding in “Cumberland Gap”; and the bureaucratic irony of warfare in “All Quiet Along the Potomac.” But many of the era’s songs also convey intense personal longing, and struggle (see: “Just Before Battle, Mother” and “Go Down, Moses”). Frederick Douglass (through the voice of actor/activist Ossie Davis) speaks of this struggle in the playlist’s final track when he says: “A man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others.”

Radio Haiti

Some say that Haiti has been in perpetual revolution for 200 years. If so, then that revolution has a soundtrack: one that began with the rattle of the Taino caciques; that invokes healing and fighting spirits with the drums and chants of rada and petwo in Vodou; and that continues to express the appetite for freedom through the sly double meanings (betiz) in the songs of Carnival and rara, the cathartic dance rhythms of konpa and the compelling global edge of mizik rasin (roots music). The music of Haiti is a synthesis of Taino, African, and European music created out of often violent encounters, but has come to reflect great pride in their independent nation.

Bluegrass

Bluegrass music is charaterized by its high energy, fast tempo sound and a high-pitched singing style called the "high, lonesome sound." The genre combines American southern string band music, blues, English, Irish, and Scottish traditions, and sacred and country music. Bluegrass music became popular after World War II, but its roots date back to the 1930s. Named after Bill Monroe's legendary band The Blue Grass Boys, its songs often reflect issues important to everyday people. Religion is frequently a prominent theme, and gospel music has influenced the development of the bluegrass sound. The typical bluegrass band includes 5-string banjo, flat-top guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and bass. The instruments are traditionally acoustic with the guitar and bass carrying the downbeat and providing the rhythmic foundation. The Folkways collection contains some of the most influential early American bluegrass recordings and features such giants as Red Allen and Frank Wakefield, Bill Monroe, Doc Watson, the Stanley Brothers, and The Country Gentlemen. Listen here to these influential artists and experience this dynamic American roots tradition.

Music of Indonesia

Indonesia's music is as culturally diverse as its people. Best known abroad are the Javanese and Balinese orchestras generally called gamelans, which consist of gongs and other struck metal instruments. But gamelans are only one aspect of a much larger musical universe in Indonesia. Solo and group singing and solo instrumental music (typically played on the flute, shawm, plucked lute, bowed lute, plucked zither, or xylophone) are found everywhere, as are ensembles of mixed instruments, and ensembles dominated by instruments of a single type—especially flutes, drums, xylophones, zithers, or gongs. The music here is from Smithsonian Folkways Recordings' Music of Indonesia series, a 20-CD set compiled by Indonesian scholar Philip Yampolsky and released from 1991-2000.

"White House Blues": Music of the Political Process

The American political process has been intertwined with music as long as there has been a United States of America. From "Follow Washington," one of many songs written in praise of George Washington, to the popular theme songs used by present-day candidates, every election cycle has had its accompanying soundtrack. Before mass media made it possible for candidates to spread the message across the nation simultaneously, campaign songs, often set to other popular melodies, were used to reach broad populations, especially those that could not read newspapers. Natural accompaniments to political campaign songs are political satire and protest songs, and both categories are represented here by folk singer Joe Glazer and civil rights leader Hollis Watkins. Glazer, Oscar Brand, and Peter Janovsky each recorded albums of presidential campaign songs that, along with the other songs presented here, are part of the catalog of Smithsonian Folkways.

Archive Spotlight: ILAM

Founded in 1954 by Hugh Tracey, the International Library of African Music (ILAM) is the greatest repository of African music in the world. A research institution devoted to the study of music and oral arts in Africa, it preserves thousands of historical recordings dating back to 1929 and supports contemporary fieldwork. Smithsonian Folkways presents over a thousand tracks of music from ILAM, many available digitally for the first time. Most tracks are accompanied by extensive notes and images. Listen here to a sampling of musical treasures from this incredible archive.

Throat Singing

Tuva is a predominately rural region of Russia located northwest of Mongolia. It is home to one of the world's oldest forms of music. In Xöömei, or "throat-singing," a single vocalist simultaneously produces two distinct pitches-a fundamental note and, high above it, a series of articulated harmonies that are sequenced into melodies. The Tuvan herder/hunter lifestyle with its great reliance on the natural world and deeply-felt connection to the landscape is reflected in the Tuvan vocal tradition. With throat-singing Tuvans recreate the sounds of their natural surroundings—animals, mountains, streams, and the harsh winds of the steppe. Examples of this unique and moving vocal tradition are featured here.

Music of Hawai'i

Music has always been an important part of native Hawaiian culture. In early Hawai'i, mele (chant) paid homage to gods and remembered the actions of powerful people with drums and dancing. The small string of islands in the Pacific Ocean has also attracted sailors, explorers, and migrant workers, who all left their marks. Following the arrival of Europeans, Christian hymns and string instruments influenced native music and contributed to the development of new forms. In the mid 20th century, immigrants from Puerto Rico, Spain, Mexico, and Japan brought their own styles of music and singing. Both contemporary and traditional musical styles still thrive in Hawai'i.

Radio Africa

Listen here to the sounds of a continent rich with creativity, power, and enchantment. Radio Africa offers hours of tracks including field recordings from remote villages, voices of political protest, and songs from emerging Afro-pop artists. The music spans the continent, as well as the world, as African immigrants continue the traditions of their homeland in new communities. Radio Africa is a collaboration between Smithsonian Folkways and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the premier museum dedicated to the arts of Africa.

Radio Asia

Listen here to the authentic musical traditions of the planet's largest continent. From the nomadic and bardic cultures of the steppes to the classical court traditions of the cities, Radio Asia offers hours of music including field recordings from remote villages and performances by classically trained virtuosos. Radio Asia is collaboration between Smithsonian Folkways and the Smithsonian Freer and Arthur M. Sackler Galleries, home to one of the strongest collections of Asian art in the world.

Radio Latino

Radio Latino draws from the Latino audio holdings of the Folkways Collections-old and new-creating a cultural pastiche of sounds, styles, and cultures that hint at the vast cornucopia of music and cultural expression in the Latino world. It is produced with the Smithsonian Latino Center, which is dedicated to celebrating Latino culture, spirit, and achievement in America. In 2001, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings joined the Smithsonian Latino Center in a collaboration to bring grassroots Latino musicians and music to the fore of Smithsonian programming and American life.