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Frontiers

Various Artists
Frontiers

This album, created for the Scholastic Book Service, features songs and stories about the American frontier. The recording opens, in fact, with “The Frontier,” a 15-minute medley of songs from the Folkways recordings library. Among the songs is the children’s classic counting song “This Old Man” and original compositions sung by Keith Clark for his 1957 album Ballads of La Salle County, Illinois. The recording includes sounds made by various animals commonly found in frontier areas and soundtracks of various weather events such as thunderstorms and flash floods. Lyrics and background information for all tracks are included in the liner notes.

*Content Advisory: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings holds a large volume of sound recordings, some of which were recorded almost a century ago. This album reflects ideas that are discounted today, especially depictions of Indigenous people, but are a window into the discourse of its time. See more information on discussions of the American Frontier at the National Museum of American History, and an Indigenous perspective on the Frontier from the National Museum of the American Indian.
For our policy on controversial recordings, please see our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Track Listing

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101
Bill Bonyun, Pete Seeger, Logan English, Keith Clark
15:07
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102
Fort Wingate Indian School children, Keith Clark, Louie Nine Pipe, Ambrose Roanhorse, Chester Roanhorse, Tom Roanhorse
06:07
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103
Frontier folk singers and a narrator
03:55
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201
Sam Hinton
00:55
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202
Hermes Nye
02:03
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203
Logan English
01:30
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204
Pete Seeger
03:40
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205
Sam Hinton
01:21
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206
Pete Seeger
01:31
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207
Keith Clark
03:15
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208
Sam Hinton
02:32
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209
Robert Emmett
01:44