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Drawing 21 classic tracks including four previously unreleased- from the deep well of Smithsonian Folkways archives. This connoisseur collection spotlights songs from ragtime, country, Tin Pan Alley, pre-blues songs, blues hybrids, and old-timey string band. Marquee-name artists Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGhee, Lead Belly, Peg Leg Sam, Mississippi John Hurt,John Cephas, and more set the record straight that there has long been much more to the African American secular song tradition than just the blues.