The music of Quetzal is at once visceral and intellectual. It makes you move, it makes you sing, and it makes you think. Sometimes thought of as a rock band, its members draw from a much larger web of musical, cultural, and social engagement. On Imaginaries, the group's first Smithsonian Folkways album and fifth overall, they creatively combine shades of East L.A.'s soundscape, traditional son jarocho of Veracruz, salsa, R&B, and more to express the political and social struggle for self-determination and self-representation, which ultimately is a struggle for dignity.

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Subscriber Discount! - Enter code SFQUETZAL and save 20% off retail price on this CD or album download through March 10.

Imaginaries is the 35th release in the Smithsonian Folkways Tradiciones/Traditions series, a co-production with the Smithsonian Latino Center. Quetzal will be performing in L.A. on March 2, at Fais Do Do. Visit www.quetzaleastla.com for all upcoming concerts.

“The Last of the Great Trios,” Mexican trío romántico Los Tres Reyes (The Three Kings) celebrates a career of more than 50 years with the new album Romancing the Past, available March 27.

“The trío romántico is synonymous with intimacy.” - lead singer Bebo Cárdenas

Sneak Preview: Listen to the playful “El Lunar de María (Maria’s Mole)” and a re-recording of “Ódiame (Hate Me),” the group’s signature song

On April 17, Smithsonian Folkways will release Pete Seeger: The Complete Bowdoin College Concert, 1960, recorded when Seeger was blacklisted from TV, radio, and most concert venues. This pristine live recording, featuring rousing performances and insightful commentary, will be the first-ever complete release of one of his “community concerts” which were often unannounced and frequently protested. 

Sneak Preview: Listen to “Penny’s Farm”

Each month we’ll ask a trivia question; email your answer, name, and address with the subject "March Trivia" to SmithsonianFolkways@si.edu by March 15, 2012, and a randomly selected entrant with the correct answer will win a free CD of his or her choice!

March Question: Quetzal and the group’s co-founder, Quetzal Flores, are named for what kind of animal? 

Congratulations to last month's winner, Nancy from Charleston, South Carolina, for the answer "with a bandoneón (of the concertina family), the direction of button movement is parallel with the direction of the air from the bellows, while with an accordion, the direction of button or key movement is perpendicular to the air from the bellows” to the question “The new album from Los Gauchos de Roldán features both the accordion and bandoneón. What is the main difference between these two free-reed aerophones?” 

• Smithsonian Folkways remembers award-winning old-time fiddle player Joe Thompson (1918–2012).
• Richard Dyer-Bennet, whose recordings became part of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog in 1995, is the subject of the recently published biography The Last Minstrel by Paul O. Jenkins.
• Smithsonian Folkways is a finalist in the 2012 About.com World Music Readers' Choice awards in the Best World Music Record Label and Best World Music Website categories. Also nominated is the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Vote for us now!
• Who owns music? Watch this lecture on music copyright and piracy by Dr. Anthony Seeger, Director of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive and former Director of Smithsonian Folkways.