Art of Field Recording: Volume II : 50 Years of Traditional American Music Documented by Art Rosenbaum

Art of Field Recording: Volume I"Art Rosenbaum is a folk revivalist of the old school. He believes that traditional ballads, blues, spirituals, and fiddle tunes are among the glories of American culture. Last fall, Dust-to-Digital released Art of Field Recording: Volume I, a four-CD retrospective of Rosenbaum’s work. It contained everything from ring shouts and murder ballads to a song about twenty frogs going to school. It was full of throaty voices and clanging banjos and the incidental music of daily life—babies crying, bar glasses clinking, cicadas on a summer night." — Burkhard Bilger, The New Yorker

Art of Field Recording Volume II is a four disc set with a 96 page book that contains essays and annotations by Art and over 100 illustrations and photographs by Art and his wife Margo. Art took a similar approach to Harry Smith in assembling the music: the discs are divided into Accompanied Songs and Ballads, Unaccompanied Songs and Ballads, Sacred, and a Survey disc that has a little bit of everything.

Audio Interviews about this Title

Philip L. Graitcer profiles Art of Field Recording Vol. II on Weekend America.

Acknowledgments

Art recording Laethe EllerUSA Today: "Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music for a new generation..."

Wall Street Journal: "This four-disc set offers a sweeping survey of the American folk tradition, including blues, work songs, Mexican corridos, and more. Many of the recordings — which range from 94-year-old Sister Fleeta Mitchell's "I Am on the Battlefield for My Lord" to 7-year-old Ray Rhodes's true-crime ballad "Fred Adams" — appear on CD for the first time."

Excerpts from Selected Reviews

Blog Critics: "Art Of Field Recording Volume ll is an amazing collection of music and people that can't help but make you feel better about the world. There are fewer and fewer people today who play music because of what the song means to them in terms of their family's history or the people who taught it to them. To have the opportunity to experience listening to that type of music is a rare treat and one that might not be available to us for that much longer.."

Pitchfork: "...Rosenbaum's work will make you yearn for childhood lullabies, for— precious as it sounds— the songs that you keep in your heart."