VARIOUS ARTISTS | ART OF FIELD RECORDING, VOL. 2

By DAVID DAY

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GENRE | ESSENTIAL SONG

VERDICT | CRUCIAL CHOIRS

RELEASE | 1.6.09

LABEL | DUST-TO-DIGITAL

DUST-DIGITAL.COM

It takes a bit of a nut to catalog the insane amount of American folk music. Both Harry Smith, editor of the Anthology of American Folk Music, and Art Rosenbaum are a few cards short of a deck, and thank Christ for that. This impressive collection is merely the second box set from Rosenbaum, with plans for a third. Packaged with care from the archivists at Dust-to-Digital, we have four discs of assembled stunners: Accompanied, Unaccompanied and Sacred, plus a Survey CD. The music is rough-hewn, but as important to preserve as America's most expensive masterpieces. Whether grannies singing a cappella ("the way my pa used to sing it"), gospel choirs that no longer exist or string-plucking that, in our time, is as rare as hen's teeth, Art Rosenbaum and his wife Margo have been cataloging the songs of our grandparents, which is as valuable as cultural contributions get.