About

History

Founded by Lance Ledbetter in 1999, Dust-to-Digital is currently operated by Ledbetter and his wife April. Dust-to-Digital’s mission remains the same as when it began: to produce high-quality, cultural artifacts, which combine rare, essential recordings with historic images and detailed texts describing the artists and their works.

Acknowledgments and Articles

The Last Verse: Is there any folk music still out there? — Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker

“The rise of Dust-to-Digital has been perhaps the most important catalyst in exposing younger generations to traditional American folk music since Harry Smith’s Anthology.” — Adam Sheets, No Depression

“Gold-standard reissue label… Although the folklorists lugging around tape recorders (and the performers carrying on ancient traditions) are worthy of much heralding, it’s equally astounding how essential Lance Ledbetter’s work at Dust-to-Digital has been to the preservation of traditional American folksong. It’s easy to buy and appreciate these sets without realizing that the bulk of the material might have been lost — or, at the very least, tethered to archives, readily accessible only to curious faculty, paper-writing students, and bespectacled researchers — without Ledbetter’s interference.” — Amanda Petrusich, Pitchfork

Awards and Nominations

ARSC Awards
2008
Art of Field Recording Volume I
Nominated for Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

Victrola Favorites
Nominated for Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research

Grammy® Awards
2004
Goodbye, Babylon
Nominated for Best Historical Album
Nominated for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package

2006
Fonotone Records 1956-1969
Nominated for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package

2008
Art of Field Recording Volume I
Winner of Best Historical Album
Nominated for Best Liner Notes

2009
Take Me to the Water
Nominated for Best Historical Album

Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards
2008
How Low Can You Go?
Nominated for Reissue/Historical Box Set of the Year

Living Blues Awards
2007
Desperate Man Blues Soundtrack CD
Winner of Best Historical Reissue

Lance Ledbetter
Winner of Historical Producer of the Year