Texas Towns & Tex-Mex Sounds by Los Texmaniacs

San Antonio, Laredo, El Paso, Corpus Christi, Seguín, and other Texas towns inspired this second Smithsonian Folkways recording of “hardcore conjunto” music by the spunky and spirited GRAMMY-winning group.

See Los Texmaniacs in concert and listen to a new playlist of conjunto music on Spotify or Rdio.

Subscriber Discount: Enter code SFAUGUST12 and save 20% off retail price on album downloads or CDs through August 30.

Old Man Below by The Dust Busters with John Cohen

Standing squarely in the lineage of The New Lost City Ramblers, the Dust Busters' reverence for old-time music runs deep while their interpretations bring fresh meaning and a sense that their music is as contemporary as any other. Dust Busters' mentor and Ramblers' elder John Cohen joins on this solidly grounded album.

See The Dust Busters with John Cohen in concert on September 6 at the Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, and as part of the Woody Guthrie tribute concert with Arlo Guthrie, Billy Bragg, Steve Earle, and more on September 22 at Brooklyn College.

Subscriber Discount: Enter code SFAUGUST12 and save 20% off retail price on album downloads or CDs through August 30.

Stephen Wade’s Banjo Diary: Lessons from Tradition will be released September 11, 2012, coinciding with the publication of his new book, The Beautiful Music All Around Us:Field Recordings and the American Experience.

Listen to selections from Banjo Diary: Lessons from Tradition

Inspired by past banjo masters of frailing and of two- and three-finger styles, this diary tells of an education written indelibly in a musician's heart.

Each month we’ll ask a trivia question; e-mail your answer, name, and address with the subject "August Trivia" to SmithsonianFolkways@si.edu by August 30, and a randomly selected entrant with the correct answer will win a free CD of his or her choice!

August Question: What borderland murder ballad, recorded instrumentally by Los Texmaniacs on Texas Towns & Tex-Mex Sounds, has also been covered by The Grateful Dead and became a university fight song?

Congratulations to last month's winner, Barbara from Greenville, South Carlolina, who correctly answered "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" to the question: "Which of Woody Guthrie's most best-known songs, written about a tragic 1948 plane crash and recorded by Judy Collins, The Byrds, Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Sweet Honey In The Rock, and Los Super Seven among many others, was never recorded by Guthrie himself?"

• Attention Washington, DC! Mark your calendars for a Woody Guthrie panel discussion at the Library of Congress on October 13, and a "Woody at 100" concert at the Kennedy Center on October 14 featuring Arlo Guthrie, John Mellencamp, Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, Judy Collins, Donovan, Del McCoury, Tim O'Brien, Rosanne Cash, Old Crow Medicine Show, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and more.

• Smithsonian Folkways remembers skilled Uruguayan bandoneón player Luis Alberto “Chichí” Vidiella (1932–2012), who performed on the 2012 album Los Gauchos de Roldán: Button Accordion and Bandoneón Music from Northern Uruguay.

• Watch Pete Seeger perform "Quite Early Morning," originally released on the 1974 Folkways album Banks of Marble and Other Songs, on a recent broadcast of The Colbert Report.