From the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff, selected and updated each season. Listen to what we're listening to this fall 🍁🍂

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated every season. Listen to what we're listening this spring 🐛🌷

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated every season. Listen to what we're listening this winter.

Take a deep dive into the massive & diverse Folkways collection with a cappella tracks from around the world. From sea shanties, sorrow songs, and yodels to ballads, work songs, songs of worship, and much more, Folkways Goes... A Cappella showcases the vibrantly creative ways that people sing.

To celebrate our shared proletarian history this Labor Day, Kim Kelly brings together songs from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog about struggle, solidarity, joy, organizing, and work.

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated every season. Listen to what we're listening this summer.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Jeffrey Silverstein.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Bonny Doon.

When you listen to anything released by Arhoolie Records, you’re hearing the heart of a community being sung into life. Chris Strachwitz, Arhoolie’s founder who passed away earlier this year, was one of the 20th century’s most enthusiastic and prolific documentarians of traditional music, whose …

Celebrate the first buds of summer with Smithsonian Folkways. Each playlist from this bi-monthly series features 25 diverse songs and sounds - including deep cuts and long-time favorites - from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Dougie Poole.

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated bi-monthly. Listen to what we're listening to.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Sunny War.

Folkways presents an ode to motherhood through a collection of songs and poems from the catalog. To all of the mother figures, with utmost gratitude - Happy Mother’s Day!

A deep dive for casual listeners // a shallow swim for deep listeners. 25 diverse songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog to get you into it. Updated bi-monthly.

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated bi-monthly. Listen to what we're listening to.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Fruit Bats.

Explore and learn about the world of sound and music found in the Smithsonian Folkways collection from the comfort of your little device.

A deep dive into the massive & diverse Folkways collection. In this edition, let your mind wander with instrumental tracks from around the world.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Slaughter Beach, Dog.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we’ve collaborated with the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum to curate a playlist celebrating women’s diverse voices, unique perspectives, and endless perseverance. The tracklist features voices like Angela Davis, Barbara Dane, Fannie Lou Hamer, …

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated bi-monthly. Listen to what we're listening to.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Cornelia Murr.

In celebration of Black History Month, Dom Flemons curates this playlist featuring songs and sounds that showcase Black love and joy, including "Slow Dance With You" from his upcoming album, Traveling Wildfire.

A deep dive for casual listeners // a shallow swim for deep listeners. 25 diverse songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog to get you into it. Updated bi-monthly.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Mali Obomsawin.

Finding connections and conversations between different, sometimes diverse recordings in the Smithsonian Folkways catalog. Quetzal Flores and Martha González of Quetzal curate this iteration.

A glimpse into the rich tradition of Christmas and holiday music of Puerto Rico and its diaspora from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Horse Lords.

Staff Jams comes from the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff, selected and updated bi-monthly. In this edition, we're rounding up our favorite songs of 2022.

A deep dive into the massive & diverse Folkways collection, this time exploring songs of festivity, celebration, and togetherness from around the world.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by David Pajo.

A deep dive for casual listeners // a shallow swim for deep listeners. 25 diverse songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog to get you into it. Updated bi-monthly.

Explore and learn about the world of sound and music found in the Smithsonian Folkways collection from the comfort of your little device.

Sam Amidon chooses tracks from the Smithsonian Folkways collection for this iteration of People's Picks.

Andy Cabic of Vetiver shares his People's Picks playlist, drawing entirely from the Arhoolie Records collection.

The concept of Afrofuturism is central to Jake Blount's The New Faith album. In this playlist, Blount shares some of the Afrofuturistic music and sounds that spark his creativity, as well as a Q&A.

A deep dive into the massive & diverse Folkways collection, this time exploring the music that makes our bodies move.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Squirrel Flower.

Staff Jams comes from the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff, selected and updated bi-monthly. Listen to what we're listening to, from August 2022.

A deep dive for casual listeners // a shallow swim for deep listeners. 25 diverse songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog to get you into it. Updated bi-monthly.

Patrick Shiroishi curates this iteration of People's Picks.

Explore and learn about the world of sound and music found in the Smithsonian Folkways collection from the comfort of your little device. A Field Guide to... North Carolina was curated by Steve Weiss of the Southern Folklife Collection and Interim Music Librarian of UNC Chapel Hill.

Isik Kural curates this iteration of People's Picks.

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated bi-monthly. Listen to what we're listening to.

Curated by Pharis & Jason Romero, a journey through one man’s banjo obsession. Jason moves slowly through the deep and beautiful forest of North American banjo music, meeting the greats and the obscure along the way.

Lee Buford of The Body curates this iteration of People's Picks.

A deep dive for casual listeners // a shallow swim for deep listeners. 25 diverse songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog to get you into it. Updated bi-monthly.

Take a walk through the wilderness of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog in collaboration with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and Smithsonian Earth Optimism initiative.

Justin Gage of Aquarium Drunkard curates this iteration of People's Picks.

Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage staff selected and updated bi-monthly. Listen to what we're listening to.

Producer Helen Rees curates and annotates a playlist of songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog that resonate with He Jinhua's 'Songs of the Naxi of Southwest China'.

Curated picks for curious listeners. This iteration chosen by Claire Rousay.

A deep dive for casual listeners // a shallow swim for deep listeners. 25 diverse songs and sounds from the Smithsonian Folkways catalog to get you into it. Updated bi-monthly.

Explore and learn about the world of sound and music found in the Smithsonian Folkways collection from the comfort of your little device. A Field Guide to... Appalachia was curated by Smithsonian Folkways head curator Jeff Place.

African Americans have historically been a people in motion. The Africans who arrived in the thirteen colonies were forced to leave their homes in various African kingdoms and empires, where they were citizens, to become non-citizens in the chattel slavery of the United States.

Jake Xerxes Fussell curates this iteration of People's Picks.

I immersed myself in the World of Sound Catalog and gravitated towards the scientific, sacred, psychological, and spoken word corners of the collection.

What a joy to look through the Folkways catalogue! I picked a lot of music that’s really influenced me, music from my own regional and cultural backgrounds, and some songs from people who mentored my friends.

I've spent a great deal of time sifting through old recordings of Black vocal music over the past two years. Fond as I am of our instrumental performances, there's a special magic that happens when we reach for harmony together without an established chord structure to guide us.

As a record label proprietor trading in diverse repertoire, there is no greater influence or inspiration than Folkways. For those of us releasing archival and new works in the remote ‘folk’ world, we are all standing on the shoulders of this giant.

I first learned about Smithsonian Folkways through my dad's record collection. He had picked up a number of those records while working as a gigging folk musician around the Virginia and D.C. area in the 60's and 70's.

I tend to listen to more guitar music than other types, even though I make a very conscious effort to include a lot of different sounds in my listening, the sounds that the guitar is capable of are still my favorite. Today these are my essential guitarists, making sounds with the instrument that …

The initial inspiration for this playlist was the work of one of my heroes, the recordist Tony Schwartz. There was something in the stillness and isolation of Covid that drew me back to his street recordings of New York specifically.

This mix is all Caribbean music, with a focus on stringed and melodic instruments and only including music from the islands, no continental countries on this playlist. I love this music so much, and have been doing a deep dive into Caribbean history...

This playlist focuses on Black music throughout the centuries, from the heart of Africa to throughout the diaspora, and includes various genres and emotions, from black pain to black joy.

I love making playlists. Always have. Total mixtape kid growing up with an unhealthy allegiance to the movie High Fidelity through my college years. Putting this together for Folkways’ Spotify page is a real honor.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to make this playlist. Mining their vast catalogue, I chose many of my favorites from their repertoire and placed them alongside various other songs that not only have inspired me, but that I feel are a continuation of those same traditions.

On this list is a title borrowed by Yo La Tengo, original versions of songs I first heard covered by pre- and post-punk bands, and a pork chop number that’s not the one that Michael (“Mike”) Hurley did.

I decided for this mix I would concentrate on some of the more bizarre recordings in their catalog, as well as digging deep into the Cook Laboratories archive which has thankfully been acquired by Smithsonian Folkways. Hearing these sounds out of context are fascinating on the basis of their …

Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D. Johnson, and Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman curate picks for curious listeners of Folkways and beyond.

Sometimes it’s the warm hum of folk records with socialist leanings that really soothes the spirit, other times it’s the romantic serenades of Luiz Bonfa & his trusted guitar. Take a break from the noise with a collection of tracks that offer us a glimpse of comfort and verity in time uncertain.

Before commodification took over, we had a wealth of truly unique women and men creating eerily beautiful songs that dealt with all matters of peril and uncertainty, of faith and fear, and of life and death.

I think this playlist is an accurate depiction of the music I listen to on any given day- some new some old, all hovering around folk with storytelling at the center. All of these songs have been crucial to my development as an artist.

Just hearing these voices from other lands and languages (and other times) I find hugely reassuring and encouraging. All these humans, all getting on with what they do. And so beautifully. Highly inspiring.

Because of the size of the catalog, and the humbling idea of “choosing my favorites” from such a large field of work. I figured I’d approach it in one of two ways. One, to pick a favorite subsection…and delve deeply into that specific group of records. Or, jump around, picking favorites from a …

Folk songs of all kinds, from all over the world, stories and funnies told and sung by men, women, and children, from all kinds of different backgrounds is what you’ll encounter on this compilation. I hope that you’ll enjoy listening to these gems.

As I was gearing up to write new music for my debut on the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, I was delving into the music of my youth, while at the same time discovering music new to my ears. This playlists is some of that music that perhaps influenced my writing.

These songs are at the root of everything I know and love about American music: Wandering heart songs that speak the truth. Listen and get right!

Traditional Appalachian music may have reeled us in, but everything from early experiments in electronic music to Lappish Joik songs of Northern Norway to field recordings of an office fax machine to the sweet sad panpipes of Quecha music of Peru - keeps us agape at the vast creativity and …

Members of Our Native Daughters share tracks that inspired the recording of Songs from Our Native Daughters.

The Grateful Dead, celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2015, have inspired a passionate and enduring fan base that stretches around the world. The band’s repertoire reveals myriad influences from traditional American (and a few non-American) genres, and band members frequently cited Folkways …