Folk Best Sellers

This recording, first released by Folkways founder Moses Asch in 1976 to coincide with the celebration of America’s Bicentennial, was originally recorded by Asch in the 1940s. The collection captures Woody Guthrie at his artistic best with gritty songs about the struggles of the American worker (“Waiting at the Gate,” “The Dying Miner”), unions (“Ludlow Massacre,” “1913 Massacre”), and an ode to a bad man (“Pretty Boy Floyd”). Blues harmonicist Sonny Terry sits in with Guthrie on “Lost John,” and fellow traveling companion and folksinger Cisco Houston contributes his voice, guitar, and a song (“Get Along Little Doggie”).

The Milk Carton Kids’ fifth album , All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do arrives from ANTI- Records on June 29. The new project marks the first time that acoustic duo Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale have brought a band into studio with them. “We wanted to do something new,” Pattengale says. “We had been going around the country yet another time to do the duo show, going to the places we’d been before. There arose some sort of need for change.” “Musically we knew we were going to make the record with a big- ger sonic palette,” says Ryan. “It was liberating to know we didn’t have to be able to carry every song with just our two guitars.” “Sometimes in singing, we’ll switch parts for a beat or a bar or a note,” Ryan says. “And things start to obscure what is the melody and what is the supporting part.” A third presence rises out of their combined voices. “There are only so many things you can do alone that al- low you to transcend your sense of self for even a short period,” Pattengale says. “I’m the lucky recipient of a life in which for hundreds of times, day after day, I get to spend an hour that is like speaking a language only two people know and doing it in a space with others who want to hear it.”

Recorded in 1958 and released on the Folkways label in 1959, this album introduced American listeners to Joseph Spence’s unique guitar and vocal styles. These field recordings by musicologist Sam Charters capture Spence in a relaxed, expansive mood—only one of the six selections in the set is under five minutes in length. Spence’s guitar style was due in part to the D tuning of his bass string, which produced a lower bass sound. Whereas many critics have called Spence’s vocal style unorthodox, they have found his guitar playing spontaneous and iconic. Some music critics have gone so far as to refer to him as the “Thelonious Monk of folk guitar.”

With their powerful harmonies and imaginative songwriting in full force, Girlpool are making new creative leaps with their new album, What Chaos Is Imaginary. Combining elements of shoegaze, folk, and 80’s postpunk with their own melodic gifts, these two great songwriters come up with a modern classic full of great tunes and sonic surprises. Impressive growth for this already celebrated band.

Dave Van Ronk was a mentor to Bob Dylan and immortalized in the Coen Bros film "Inside Llewyn Davis". This 1967 live recording was released as a CD in 1997 and comes to record stores for the first time on vinyl for Record Store Day 2018, with a bonus remix of "Statesboro Blues".

The highly-anticipated album, The Tree of Forgiveness, is Prine's first collection of new material since 2005's Grammy-winning Fair and Square. Rather than going out on a limb, Prine cultivated the themes that have brought international acclaim since the 1970s. For example, he can take a topic like loneliness and make it funny or heartbreaking.

Prine teamed with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb to record in Nashville's historic Studio A, enlisting friends like Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, and Amanda Shires to sing along. The songs are new, although some had waited to be finished for decades, like a co-write with Phil Spectro called 'God Only Knows'; Another incomplete song, 'I Have Met My Love Today' now celebrates the unexpected spark that leads to lifelong romance -- with a dash of youthful innocence. The musical arrangements may be simpler than on past efforts, yet his unique ability to distill complex emotions into everyday language remains fully intact.

Ty Segall goes all the way, flipping the Freedom coin to find passion, laughter and savagery on both sides. A head-spinning compendium of stompers, weepers, ballads, screamers, bangers and funker-uppers, all marking a different impasse, like a flag whirling into a knot, exploding and burning on contact, in the name of life and loathing and the pursuit of what you love.

HQ vinyl reissue of original 1969 compilation featuring several non-album singles, all the hits!

Bob Dylan - Love And Theft - LP Vinyl Album

Mitski warmly recalls a quote from sculptor El Anatsui, "Art grows out of each particular situation, and I believe that artists are better off working with whatever their environment throws up."

With this nerve exposed lyrically, and having dived into her new beginning, Mitski chooses her 2014 breakthrough album Bury Me at Makeout Creek to explore uncharted sonic territory, trading in large string arrangements for guitar and bass. While studying composition at SUNY Purchase's music conservatory, she previously recorded music with a full orchestra. However as college graduation inched closer, Mitski moved away from the concert hall and into the campus' active DIY scene. Upon relocating to New York following graduation, she entered stages at Death By Audio, Silent Barn, and Bed Stuy basements, entrenching her songs of love, fear, lust, and brilliant clarity into entirely sympathetic ears.

Since releasing Bury Me at Makeout Creek, Mitski has received international acclaim for her distinct, arresting sound and profoundly reflective lyrics. Pitchfork applauded the release as "inventive and resourceful," while Rolling Stone celebrated her "deep-cutting lyrics." NME said of Bury Me, "it's a record that doesn't tug at your heart-strings as much as it mercilessly pounds at them, taking to your emotions like a lead pipe to a piñata." She has also received widespread attention for her "cathartic" live shows as dubbed by The New York Times' Jon Caramanica.

"I was so young when I behaved 25," Mitski sings on "First Love / Late Spring," "yet now I find I've grown into a tall child." This veritable thesis speaks to sentiments of the poetry and beauty of struggling up the hill to adulthood. Mitski follows El Anatsui's humbling advice, cathartically revealing snapshots from her adventures in youth, and the empowerment found in sharing these stories with others. In 2015 Mitski is poised to continue delivering her particular flavor of soul-baring rock, and tour throughout North America and beyond.

MITSKI / BURY ME AT MAKEOUT CREEK

'It's all rock & roll -- no golf!' is how acclaimed singer/songwriter/violinist Amanda Shires describes her electrifying firth album, To The Sunset. She's borrowed a lyric from the effervescent track 'Break Out the Champagne,' one of ten deftly crafted songs that comprise her powerful new recording. The Texas-born road warrior, new mom, and recently minted MFA in creative writing has mined a range of musical influences to revel an Amanda Shires many didn't know existed. 'Isn't it refreshing?' Shires asks. Indeed. Distorted electric guitars, effects pedals, swirling keys and synths, and rockin' rhythms certainly suit Shire's visceral songcraft and lilting soprano.

Check out tracks, "Eve's Daughter", "Parking Lot Piroutte", and "To The Sunset"

Nathaniel Rateliff has written and recorded his first solo record since the explosive debut of his work together with The Night Sweats. And It's Still Alright, is an intensely personal 10-song album of vibrant country-blues, badland ballads, ornate Americana and jazz-inflected R&B. Rateliff's warm baritone, ranging from gently hushed to a guttural howl, imbues these superbly drawn character studies with raw, naked emotion.

And It's Still Alright was produced by Rateliff, Night Sweats' drummer Patrick Meese and James Barone of the indie band, Beach House and primarily recorded at National Freedom in Cottage Grove, Oregon, the studio formerly owned by the late Richard Swift (who produced both Night Sweats recordings). While Rateliff, Meese and Barone handled much of the album's instrumentation, several friends make contributions including Night Sweats' guitarist Luke Mossman; bassist Elijah Thomson (of the indie band Everest); keyboardist Daniel Creamer (of The Texas Gentlemen); steel guitarist Eric Swanson (touring musician for Israel Nash) and renowned string arranger Tom Hagerman (of the instrumental vocal ensemble DeVotchKa), whose delicate orchestrations beautifully complement the album's deep emotional terrain.
 
And It's Still Alright's many highlights include album opener ''What A Drag,'' which sketches a vivid portrait of a disconnected relationship, ''Tonight #2,'' a haunting, end-of-the-world waltz, ''Time Stands,'' detailing an epic, desperate struggle for love and the elegiac ''Rush On,'' a heart-breaking requiem for Swift.

Unguarded and unflinchingly real, Nathaniel Rateliff's And It's Still Alright expands on the sounds and styles he's used to great affect across both his band and solo careers. It's a commanding next step in Nathaniel's evolution into one of America's most vital and essential songwriters.

Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time. In the four years since Are We There, Van Etten guest-starred in The OA, performed in David Lynch's Twin Peaks revival, and wrote her first film score and song for TV - for Kathering Dieckmann's Strange Weather Tig Notaro's show Tig, respectively. Van Etten also had a child, and began studying psychology. In the scraps of hours between these endeavors, Remind Me Tomorrow was born. Working with producer John Congleton, Remind Me Tomorrow reveals piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums. Originally a piano ballad, "Comeback Kid" evolved into a dark, menacing anthem. "Seventeen" began as a Lucinda Williams-esque dirge, but winds up a star-spangled nod to Springsteen, exploring gentrification and generational patience. The breadth of Van Etten's new passions have inflected Remind Me Tomorrow with a wise, warped-time perspective. She explains, "I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have a stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair. I feel like a mess, but I'm here. Doing it. This record is about pursuing your passions." This is Remind Me Tomorrow, fusing a pained attentive realism and radiant lightness about new loves.

American Love Song finds Bingham honing his creativity on two distinct levels, the personal and the cultural. The record is co-produced with Charlie Sexton, the superb Austin guitarist who has played for years in Bob Dylan s touring band. American Love Song was recorded at Arlyn Studios and Public Hi-Fi in Austin with additional recording at Matter Music/Stella Sound in Los Angeles.