Folk America is a three-volume, documentary series on American folk music, tracing its history from the recording boom of the 1920s to the folk revival of the 1960s.

Note: This title comes on two discs.

VOLUME ONE - BIRTH OF A NATION
Volume one examines how, in the 1920s, record companies searched the American south for primitive folk talent to sell. This was a golden age of American music where the now American legends and influential artists like the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charlie Poole, Dock Boggs and Mississippi John Hurt burst onto record, eager to have a share in the new industry and the money it made, only to lapse into obscurity when the depression hit at the start of the 1930s.

Interviews include: Judy Collins, Steve Earle, Tom Paxton and Pete Seeger, surviving relations of 1920s greats such as Mississippi John Hurt, the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon, plus three actual survivors of the era - guitarist Slim Bryant, banjoist Wade Mainer and Delta bluesman 'Honeyboy' Edwards.

Music includes: Steve Earle: "Satellite Radio." Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers: "White House Blues," "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues," "Take A Drink On Me," "You Ain't Talking to Me." Mamie Smith: "It's Right Here for You," "Crazy Blues." Theodore Bikel: "Dodi Li (My Beloved)." Hoyt "Floyd" Ming and His Pep-Steppers: "Indian War Whoop." Uncle Eck Robertson and Family: "Brilliancy Medley."

Fiddlin' John Carson: "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane," "I'm Going to Take the Train to Charlotte." Ernest and Hattie Stoneman: "The Mountaineers Courtship." The Stoneman Sisters: "The Titanic." William and Versey Smith: "When that Great Ship Went Down." Wade Mainer: "White House Blues." Uncle Dave Macon: "Buddy Won't You Roll Down the Line." Tom Paley: "From Earth to Heaven." The Bently Boys: "Down on Penny's Farm." Blind Lemon Jefferson: "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," "Prison Cell Blues," "Christmas Eve Blues," "Mosquito Moan," "Rising High Water Blues."

David "Honeyboy" Edwards: "Stagolee," "Roamin' and Ramblin' Blues." Mississippi John Hurt: "Stockwell," "Wade In The Water," "Frankie," "Pay Day." "I Shall Not be Moved." De Ford Bailey: "Ice Water Blues." Charley Patton: "A Spoonful Blues," "Prayer of Death." The Skillet Lickers: "Pretty Little Widow," "Hell Broke Loose In Georgia." Leadbelly: "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"

Doc Watson: "In the Pines." The Charioteers: "Flying Clouds." Henry Thomas: "My Creole Bell," "Railroadin' Some." Dock Boggs: "Fishing Blues," "Country Blues." The Carter Family: "Single Girl, Married Girl," "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow," "Will the Circle be Unbroken?" "No Depression In Heaven." Jimmie Rodgers: "Whippin' that Old TB."

VOLUME TWO - THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
Volume two takes the story of American folk music from the 1930s through the 1950s. In the depression of the 1930s, John Lomax found convicted murderer Leadbelly in a southern jail. Leadbelly's music was never quite as pure and untouched by pop as Lomax believed, but it set a new agenda for folk music, redefining it as the voice of protest, the voice of the outsider and the oppressed.

Dustbowl drifter Woody Guthrie fitted the mold perfectly and the two of them teamed up with Lomax's son Alan, Pete Seeger and Josh White - a group of friends who believed "they could make a better world if they all got together and just sang about it." Their songs and their radical politics took them to high places of influence, but brought about their downfall in the blacklisting 1950s.

Interviews include: Pete Seeger, Rambling Jack Elliot, Anna Lomax, Tom Paxton, Roger McGuinn, Woody Guthrie's sister and daughter and Josh White's son.

Music includes: The Carter Family: "When The World's On Fire." Sonny Terry: "Pick a Bale of Cotton. Leadbelly: "Goodnight Irene," "Blind Lemon Blues," "Alberta," "Irene," "Mother's Blues (Little Children Blues)," "East Rider," "4, 5 & 9," "Bourgeois Blues," "There's A Man Going Around Taking Names." Woody Guthrie: "This Land is Your Land," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Do-Re-Mi," "So Long It's Been Good to Know You," "Train Blues," "Sleep Eye," "I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore."

Uncle Dave Macon: "Sail Away Ladies." Aunt Molly Jackson: "Kentucky Miner's Wife." The Skillet Lickers: "Ride Old Buck to Water." Josh White: "Blood Red River," "Uncle Sam Says," "Howling Wolf Blues," "Baby Baby." The Almanac Singers: "Union Maid," "Billy Boy," "Washington Breakdown," "Dear Mr President," "Round and Round Hitler's Grave."

David 'Honeyboy' Edwards: "Water Coast Blues," "Just a Spoonful," "Roamin' and Ramblin' Blues." Pete Seeger: "The Bells of Rhymney," "We Shall Not Be Moved," "There Once Was a Woman Who Swallowed a Lie," "My Oklahoma Home Blowed Away." Bob Dylan: "Song to Woody."

VOLUME THREE – BLOWIN' IN THE WIND
Volume three brings the story of American folk music to the 1960s with music from Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Grateful Dead. In the 1960s a new generation, spearheaded by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, took folk to the top of the charts and made it the voice of youthful protest. While the northern folk revivalists helped bring civil rights to the south, the Newport Folk Festival brought the old music of the south to the college kids in the north. However, when Dylan turned up at Newport in 1965 with an electric guitar, things would never be the same again.

Interviews include: Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Robbie Robertson, Stephen Stills, Country Joe McDonald, Roger McGuinn, Odetta and Tom Paxton.

Music includes: Bob Dylan: "Highway 61 Revisited," "Corrina Corrina," "Masters of War," "Maggie's Farm." Bob Dylan & Joan Baez: "When The Ship Comes In." Joan Baez: "With God on our Side," "The Virgin Mary Had One Son." Bob Dylan & the Band: "Like A Rolling Stone." Mississippi John Hurt: "Frankie." Robert Johnson: "Walking Blues."

Roger McGuinn: "The Water is Wide," "Turn, Turn, Turn." The Byrds: "Mr. Tambourine Man." The Mamas & Papas: "California Dreamin'" The Grateful Dead: "The Morning Dew." Phil Ochs: "I Ain't Marching Anymore." Pete Seeger: "The Midnight Special," "Oh Had I A Golden Thread." Peter, Paul and Mary: "If I Had a Hammer." Judy Collins: "Bob Dylan's Dream."

Mississippi John Hurt: "Candyman." Barry McGuire: "Eve of Destruction." Johnny Cash: "There's A Mother Always Waiting At Home." Canned Heat: "Going Up The Country." The Band: "The Weight." Country Joe: "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin-to-Die."

Note: This title comes on two discs.

FOLK AMERICA - VOLUMES 1-3 documentary on DVD

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