The Cover Art of Folkways Records | Smithsonian Folkways Magazine - Smithsonian Folkways

Skip to main content

Spring/Summer 2012

The Cover Art of Folkways Records

Cover Story
The Look of the Listen: The Cover Art of Folkways Records

The Look of the Listen is a website that explores the breadth and diversity of Folkways cover art...

more

Artist Spotlight
Transparency as Authenticity?

Ronald Clyne designed approximately 500 covers for Folkways Records...

more
Archive Spotlight
Covering the Revolution: Paredon Records Album Art

In these interview excerpts, founders Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber talk album cover art...

more
Tools for Teaching
The Look of the Listen: Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Lesson Plan

Opportunities for teaching and learning about how music is aligned with visual art...

more

video spotlight

"Freight Train" by Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten performs “Freight Train.” Cotten (1895-1987) built her musical legacy on a firm foundation of late-19th- and early-20th-century African American instrumental traditions and fine musicianship. The Smithsonian Folkways album Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes (a reissue of her first 1958 LP) features a cover photograph of Cotten by David Gahr.

Albums

From the Collection

Satchmo at the National Press Club: Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours

Louis Armstrong, Tyree Glenn, Tommy Gwaltney
The Complete Bowdoin College Concert, 1960

Pete Seeger
Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology

Various Artists
Woody at 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection

Woody Guthrie
Uncle Bouqui of Haiti: By Harold Courlander

Augusta Baker
Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes

Elizabeth Cotten

.