Dust-to-Digital was started in 1999 by Lance Ledbetter, a radio disc jockey at WRAS -- the student-run voice of Georgia State University. Having been recently introduced to vintage 78 rpm records by the reissue of the Anthology of American Folk Music in 1997, Ledbetter decided to set out on a search for rare gospel recordings.
Four and a half years later, Goodbye, Babylon was released. The 6CD box set was accompanied by a 200-page book and hand-packed with raw cotton in a wooden box. The response from music fans around the world was astounding, and it won a Grammy® award for Best CD Box Set in 2004. Since then, the label has consistently released high-quality, handsomely packaged, accolade-winning material.
Dust-to-Digital's mission is to produce high quality cultural artifacts, which combine rare, essential recordings with historic images and detailed texts describing the artists and their works.
"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." -- Pitchfork
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DTD 058CD
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Bolinus Brandaris takes the listener to the Bay of Cadiz, which is often referred to as "cuna del cante" ("cradle of song"). This southernmost part of mainland Spain is considered the birthplace and heartland of flamenco, where many song styles originated then radiated out through the rest of Andalusia. Expertly recorded with modern technology in informal and natural environments, this is flamenco culture as it is being lived today. Generally speaking, modern flamenco recordings have often missed the mark for two reasons: either they were live recordings in which the recorded sound was a by-product of a staged concert event, or they were studio recordings that leaned heavily on studio techniques to make the music sound contemporary (i.e. isolation booths, added effects, multi-tracking). Bolinus Brandaris gives flamenco's fundamental elements -- voice and guitar -- their overdue spotlight. By excluding the often-overemphasized component of flamenco dance, this release provides context which will enrich any flamenco experience. Featuring Trini de la Isla, Juani de la Isla, Jesus Castilla, Ana Polanco, Victor Rosa, Pedrín de la Isla , Jesus Guerrero, and El Niño del Parque. Comes with a 96-page, 9.25" x 6.25" x 5" hardcover book printed on artbook-quality paper with 46 color photos.
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DTD 055CD
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It begins with a South African choir from 1930 and a song about police brutality; it ends in Cuba with dreamy innuendo. This collection is about music that is often invisible in today's world, the incredible world of global recordings that aren't jazz, blues, country, rock n' roll, R&B, or "classical." This physical edition of the box set, eight years in the making, contains 100 tracks and 100 stories in an extensive, illustrated 184-page book with detailed, contextual mini-histories about both musical origins and the beginnings of the industry, touching on the complexities of colonialism, economic agendas, and cultural tourism. With nearly all of the tracks never before reissued, this collection expands upon and acts as a companion to Jonathan Ward's Excavated Shellac website, a unique repository of music, history, and data on 78 rpm recordings from around the world, rarely heard and seldom seen. 100 recordings on 4 CDs; 184-page hardcover book printed on artbook-quality paper; Packaged in a deluxe gloss-laminated box.
Jonathan Ward is a Grammy-nominated producer and compiler of early recordings from around the world on CD and LP, and the founder of the Excavated Shellac website, a resource on early global music history. His releases include the 4CD box set Opika Pende: Africa at 78rpm (Dust-to-Digital, nominee for Best Historical Album, DTD 022CD), and the ongoing Excavated Shellac series on LP and CD. His writing can be found on his website, and his work has been featured on NPR, and in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, as well as Mojo, Uncut, Signal to Noise, and other music-related magazines and journals.
Features Caluza's Double Quartet, Los Chinacos, Itokazu Kame, Cheikh Saïd Relizani, Enosse Kuhanya Muni, Bonfiglio de Oliveira, Giovanni Vicari, K. S. Narayana Ayyengar, Hosseingholi Tatayy, Ne'matjon Qulabdullaev, Che Ta'seah, Demka dhe Hajro e Shoket, Liam Walsh, Sule Radosavljevič-Sapčanin, Klaudiya Kotok and E.M. Shishova, Fr. Dukli Wiejska Banda, Triki-Trixa de Zumarraga, Margarida, Cantadeira de Paredes, Andrés Chazarreta y su Orquesta Tipica de Arte Nativo, Cuadro Gitano La Coja, Concha Maya, Cuarteto Caraquita, Sein Bo Tint, Park Booyong, Ali Muhammadi, Hanns in der Gand, Chimudon, Mashibato, and Togus Ziguradan, Muhammad Rashid al-Rifa'i, Negatoua, Picoğlu Osman, Miyagi Michio, Yoshida Kyoko, Miyagi Kiyoko, Paulos Dikito, Saez y Hermanos Ascuez, Grupo Istmeño, Orchestre Franco-Creole, Khaledi and Zahedi, Mita Stoyecheva, Myskal Omurkanova, Miss Thông, Vassyl Yemetz, Abaimbi be Kanisa Lutiko eye Namirembe, Nicholas De Heer, Tamarii-Tahiti, Count Lasher, Paykān, Zohra El Fassia, Gavino de Lunas, Coro de Ruada, Crimean Tatar Orchestra, Júlio Silva, Salim Abdullah, Adja Mint Aali, Siddiq and Party, Khan Shushinski, J. Joseph and Mary, Ewert Åhs, Orchestre Créole Delvi, Trio Medellín, Pasquale Taraffo, Cayla and Demay, Dachauer Bauernkapelle "Strassmaier", A. Megrelidze and the Georgian Radio Folk Song Ensemble, Tiwonoh and Sandikola, Sears Orchestra, Pov Siv Nou and Pov Van Chorn, Toba Batak ensemble, Emmanuele Cilia, Mayfair Band, Wei Zhongyue, Subeit bin Ambar, Koni Coumaré, Yusuf Taj, Monks of the Maru Monastery at Lhasa, Francis Salomon, Philip Tanner, Hernández Brothers, Sigbjørn B. Osa, Durban Lions, Tunde King, El Haja Rouïda, Margareta Radulescu, Tom Clough, Superba Molassana, Valentin Eugenio, San Salvador, Rakotondrasoa and Manjakaray, Elenkrig's Orchestra, Ahmet Hulûsi Bey, Setrak Sourabian and George Shah-Baronian, Miss Phuaphan and Miss Pleng with the Organ-Phinphat Ensemble of Bang Khun Phrom Palace, Angus Chisholm, Kolompár Peti Cigánybandája, Atan and Sak Ena, Al Hadj Taha Abu Mandour, Gonxhe Manakovska, Saramacca Band, Kawîs Axa, Garifulla Kurmangaliyev, Ishmulla Dilmukhametov, Abrew's Portuguese Instrumental Trio, and Sexteto Habanero.
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4CD BOX/BOOK
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DTD 051CD
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Restocked; The Harry Smith B-Sides box set contains the flip side of every 78-rpm record that Harry Smith included on the Anthology of American Folk Music. In 1952, Folkways Records published the legendary six-LP series entitled the Anthology of American Folk Music, compiled by eccentric record collector, filmmaker, artist, and anthropologist Harry Smith. Many historians cite Smith's reissue, with its recordings of country, blues, and gospel music from the 1920s and '30s, and its booklet containing idiosyncratic liner notes, esoteric artwork, and handmade design as a major impetus for the folk music revival of the 1950s and '60s. 68 years later, The Harry Smith B-Sides offers both a resonant listening experience and the closing of a collector's circle. Sequenced in the identical order that Smith created, this new box set offers the flip-side of each record selected by Smith for the original Anthology of American Folk Music. Newly-remastered audio under license from Gennett Records, Paramount Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group. This box set represents a mirror image of the Anthology of American Folk Music's tracklist. However, the producers have omitted the following tracks due to lyrics containing racist language: track 5 on disc 1, track 4 on disc 2, and track 16 on disc 4. Cigar box, full-color 144-page book featuring original artwork by Harry Smith and four CDs; 84 newly-remastered tracks on four CDs with a full-color 144-page book featuring archival images, original artwork by Harry Smith, and essays by John Cohen, Lance Ledbetter, and Eli Smith. Transcriptions and annotations for each track by more than 80 artists, writers, and musicians that have been inspired by Harry Smith's work including Daniel Bachman, Devendra Banhart, Sarah Bryan, Rosanne Cash, Dom Flemons, Steve Gunn, Will Oldham, Amanda Petrusich, Steve Roden, Art Rosenbaum, Nathan Salsburg, and Peter Stampfel.
Features Dick Justice, Nelstone's Hawaiians, Clarence Ashley, Coley Jones, Buell Kazee, Chubby Parker & His Old-Time Banjo, Uncle Eck Dunford, Burnett and Rutherford, Buster Carter and Preston Young, Carolina Tar Heels, G.B. Grayson, Kelly Harrell, Edward L. Crain, Carter Family, Williamson Brothers & Curry, Frank Hutchison, Charlie Poole with the North Carolina Ramblers, Mississippi John Hurt, William & Versey Smith, Furry Lewis, The Masked Marvel, Uncle Bunt Stephens, J.W. Day, Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers, Delma Lachney and Blind Uncle Gaspard, Andrew & Jim Baxter, A.C Eck Robertson and Family, Hoyt Ming and His Pep-Steppers, Henry Thomas, Jim Jackson, Columbus Fruge, Joseph Falcon, Breaux Freres, Cincinnati Jug Band, Frank Cloutier and the Victoria Cafe Orchestra, Rev. J. M. Gates, Alabama Sacred Harp Singers, Middle Georgia Singing Convention No. 1, Sister Mary Nelson, Memphis Sanctified Singers, Elders McIntorsh and Edwards, Rev. Moses Mason, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, Blind Willie Johnson, Ernest Phipps & His Holiness Singers, Rev. F.W. McGee, Rev. D.C. Rice and His Sanctified Congregation, Cannon's Jug Stompers, E. Segura & D. Herbert, Richard "Rabbit" Brown, Dock Boggs, Mr. & Mrs. Ernest V. Stoneman, Stoneman Family, Memphis Jug Band, Joseph Falcon & Cleoma Breaux, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell, Ramblin' Thomas, Julius Daniels, Uncle Dave Macon, J.P. Nestor, and Ken Manyard.
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PT 3002LP
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2024 restock. 2019 Grammy award winner: Best Historical Album and Best Liner Notes! Voices of Mississippi encapsulates the life's work of William Ferris, an audio recordist, filmmaker, folklorist, and teacher with an unwavering commitment to establish and to expand the study of the American South. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the roots of the blues. This LP features blues and gospel field recordings made by Ferris between 1966 and 1974; all tracks are available on vinyl for the very first time. In addition to being a groundbreaking documentarian of the American South, Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris co-edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989) and is the author of multiple books. Printed inner sleeve.
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DTD 054DVD
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Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, folklorist William Ferris toured his home state of Mississippi, documenting the voices of African Americans as they spoke about and performed the diverse musical traditions that form the roots of the blues. This DVD features seven films made by Ferris between 1968 and 1975.
Films included:
Black Delta, Part I (1968) (b/w)
Black Delta, Part II (1968) (b/w)
Parchman Penitentiary (1968) (b/w)
Give My Poor Heart Ease: Mississippi Delta Bluesmen (1975) (color)
I Ain't Lyin': Folktales from Mississippi (1975) (color)
Made in Mississippi: Black Folk Art and Crafts (1975) (color)
Two Black Churches (1975) (color)
In addition to being a groundbreaking documentarian of the American South, Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris co-edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989) and is the author of multiple books. In 1991, Rolling Stone named him among the top ten professors in the United States. DVD in digipak; NTSC format and region free.
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DTD 052CD
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Legendary ethnomusicologist and field-recording pioneer, Hugh Tracey founded the International Library of African Music (ILAM) in 1954. Today, ILAM preserves thousands of historical recordings and has become the greatest repository of African music in the world. Dust-to-Digital partner with ILAM to present Listen All Around: The Golden Age of Central and East African Music -- a compilation of newly-transferred and remastered recordings that Hugh Tracey made between 1950-1958. The recordings presented here were made in central and eastern Africa -- specifically, the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Kenya, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar (now Tanzania). The genre of music Tracey documented, and the focus of this double-CD and book is rumba and its variations -- Congolese rumba, dansi, and benga. The recordings, photographs and detailed liner notes included in this set provide a rich point of immersion into the mid-20th-century music of eastern and central Africa. Including 47 newly-transferred and remastered recordings that Hugh Tracey made in central and eastern Africa between 1950-1958, Listen All Around includes 84-page hardcover book and two CDs.
Listen All Around features Kalenga Antonance, Ilunga Patrice, Misomba Victor and Friends, Vijana wa Mbeya with Jim D. Gondwe, Henri Bembele and Orchestra Tinapa, Dar es Salaam Jazz Band, Lang Obiero, Joseph Eluka and Soldiers, Yemba Jean Batiste and Soldiers, Société Edemi de Stanleyville, Bakia Pierre, Morris Kalala, Tauni Mwenasasu and Friend, Coast Social Orchestra, Chemutoi Ketienya and Kipsigis Girls, Sunderland String Band, Lang Obiero, ORCLOS, Kimambo Brothers, ECO African Band, Norbert de Magaro, Ezekiel Kamenga and Luba Men, Mwenda Jean Bosco and Singers, Samuel Colon and Baninga Baye, Chipukizi Rumba, Vijana wa Mbeya, Merry Black Birds, Katanga Dance Orchestra, Salum's Brass Band with Salum Seliman, Chibanda Baudouin, Lake Victoria Band, and Kamwema Jean and His Friends.
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3CD/DVD/Book
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DTD 053CD
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Reprinted! 2019 Grammy award winner: Best Historical Album and Best Liner Notes! This watershed release represents the life's work of William Ferris, an audio recordist, filmmaker, folklorist, and teacher with an unwavering commitment to establish and to expand the study of the American South. William Ferris was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi in 1942. Growing up on a working farm, Ferris began at a young age documenting the artwork, music, and lives of the people on the farm and in his local community. The archive of recordings that he created and the documentary films that he had a hand in producing have served as powerful tools in institutions of higher learning for decades. Dust-to-Digital present these films and recordings. The label's hope is that the enjoyment and educational value that has been received by Ferris's students over the years will be transmitted to listeners around the world and further the understanding of Southern culture. Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris includes: a 120-page hardcover book in full color edited by William Ferris Writings by Scott Barretta, David Evans, and Tom Rankin; three CDs -- two of the CDs feature blues and gospel recordings (1966-1978), and the final CD features interviews and storytelling (1968-1994); and one DVD featuring documentary films (1972-1980). Transcriptions and annotations are provided for each track. Comes in a cigar box.
In addition to being a groundbreaking documentarian of the American South, William Ferris is Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ferris co-edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989) and is the author of multiple books. In 1991, Rolling Stone magazine named him among the top ten professors in the United States.
The recordings feature James "Son Ford" Thomas, Lovey Williams, Wallace "Pine-Top" Johnson, Maudie Shirley, and Jasper Love, Scott Dunbar, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Louis Dotson, Sonny Boy Watson, Sam Myers, Tom Dumas, Unidentified Musician with Mississippi Fred McDowell, Walter Lee Hood, Wash Heron and "Big" Jack Johnson, James Hughes, Leland Musician, Inmates at Parchman Farm, George Lee "Sun Bud" Spears, James "Son Ford" Thomas with Sonny Boy Watson, Mary and Amanda Gordon, The Southland Hummingbirds, Lovey Williams, Reverend Smith and Family, Liddle Hines, Providence Missionary Baptist Church, Church of God in Christ, Fannie Bell Chapman, Mary Alice and Alan Mcgowan, Reverend Ott and Family, Rose Hill Church, Lovey Williams and Family, Fannie Bell Chapman and Family, Reverend Isaac Thomas and Rose Hill Church, Barry Hannah, Alice Walker, Alex Haley, Ray Lum, Bobby Rush, Joe "Skeet" Skillet, Joe Cooper, Shelby "Poppa Jazz" Brown, B.B. King, Allen Ginsberg, James "Son Ford" Thomas, and Bill Ferris, Robert Penn Warren, Pecolia Warner, Victor Bobb, and Pete Seeger.
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2LP
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PT 2007LP
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2019 repress. Double LP in gatefold sleeve with insert and download code. Expanded edition of the soundtrack to the celebrated 2014 documentary film Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll, originally released on CD by Dust-to-Digital in 2015. On April 17, 1975, Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian rock and roll was no more. Its star musicians were targeted and killed, record collections were destroyed, clubs were closed, and Western-style music-making, dancing, and clothes were outlawed. The deaths of approximately two million Cambodians and the horrors of the Killing Fields have been well documented; add to this John Pirozzi's fascinating tale of Cambodia's vibrant pop music scene, beginning in the 1950s and '60s and influenced by France's Johnny Hallyday and Britain's Cliff Richard and the Shadows. Cambodian culture has long been synonymous with a love for the arts. Don't Think I've Forgotten pays homage to the country's rock legends who paid for their creativity with their lives. Punctuating rare archival footage with telling interviews with the few surviving musicians, Don't Think I've Forgotten examines and unravels Cambodia's tragic past through the eyes, words, and songs of its popular music stars of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Compiled by Pirozzi, the soundtrack album is very cinematic in nature -- the sequencing and remastered audio transport the listener through the rock and roll history of Cambodia in a way that parallels the film. It is both entertaining and essential to hear so many tracks that have never before been available outside of Cambodia. Performers include The Royal University of Fine Arts, Sinn Sisamouth, Chhoun Malay, Huoy Meas, Baksey Cham Krong, Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran, Sieng Vannthy, Va Sovy, Drakkar, Pou Vannary, Yol Aularong, and Cheam Chansovannary. Includes two tracks not included on the CD version ("Three Maidens" by Ros Serey Sothea and "Have You No Mercy" by Drakkar).
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DTD 049CD
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Restocked; nominated for two 2018 Grammy Awards: Best Historical Album and Best Liner Notes.
Dust-to-Digital's inaugural release, 2003's Goodbye, Babylon (DTD 001CD), included two recordings by a mysterious gospel musician from Texas named Washington Phillips, who died in 1954. After fielding inquiries about the hauntingly beautiful songs from listeners around the world, in 2013, Dust-to-Digital checked in with Michael Corcoran, the leading researcher on Phillips, to see if any new information had been uncovered. Indeed, Michael had some leads, but he would need a working budget to track them down. Three years later, in 2016, after combing through various archives and talking with the last surviving people from the Simsboro-area who remembered Phillips, the name of Phillips's homemade instrument (the Manzarene) has been revealed, in addition to the time, place, and manner of his death and many anecdotes about his life. Dust-to-Digital now share this story with Washington Phillips and His Manzarene Dreams, a 76-page hardcover book by Michael Corcoran accompanied by a CD of recordings made by Phillips between 1927 and 1929. To ensure a superior listening experience, the label tracked down the most pristine original copies of Phillips's 78-RPM records, created high-resolution transfers, and had the audio expertly remastered for the best-sounding Phillips reissue to date. Hear the sublime, hypnotic, ethereal music of Washington Phillips in clarity like never before. Washington Phillips and His Manzarene Dreams includes song lyrics, label reproductions, and photos, along with liner notes by Michael Corcoran.
"The mystery of Washington Phillips begins the first time you hear his sweetly-sung Christian blues, bathed in a celestial haze of notes from an instrument that sounds like a child's music box. His music is a simple prayer, with the blessing in the asking, the singing, the playing. But his ethereal sound is also highly developed to the point of being almost psychedelic. Where did this strange and moving music come from?" --Michael Corcoran
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DTD 048CD
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Hardcover 84-page book with CD and streaming/download code. Born blind on June 15, 1880, in Floyd County, Virginia, Alfred Reed grew up on a West Virginia farm. In the 1920s, when radio became available in his area, Alfred listened to and enjoyed performances by several of the era's popular singers. Alfred would purchase songbooks and hymnbooks, and his wife Nettie would read the lyrics to him. Because the songs he learned from others did not always express aspects of what he was thinking, feeling, and experiencing, Alfred felt compelled to compose his own songs, and he was exceptionally talented in this endeavor -- a craftsman with many things to say. Relying upon his talent to generate money, he gave music lessons, performed at dances and various social and church gatherings, sold printed copies of his own lyrics, and, in 1927 and 1929, made the commercial recordings included on this set. Also includes performances by The West Virginia Night Owls, Orville Reed, and Alfred and Orville Reed. Compiled by Ted Olson, a scholar, poet, photographer, and musician based in east Tennessee. Olson has written or edited several books on Appalachian music, literature, and folklore, and he has curated book/album sets documenting such Appalachia-related music stories as the 1927-1928 Bristol Sessions, the 1928-1929 Johnson City Sessions, the 1929-1930 Knoxville Sessions, the Joseph Hall field recordings from the Great Smoky Mountains, and the early studio recordings of Tennessee Ernie Ford.
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DTD 050CD
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The third in composer and artist Brian Harnetty's series of recording projects stemming from the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives, Rawhead & Bloodybones combines samples of music and folk tales with live instruments. The historic archival recordings of children recounting folk tales were made by Leonard Roberts in the 1940s and '50s. The combination of the children's youthful voices and the often gruesome stories they tell offers a striking and dramatic contrast. These recordings, along with other archival samples from Berea, are woven into a larger musical world, with additional instrumental parts added as a counterpoint to the stories. Working closely with archivists, historians, musicians, and the families of those sampled, Rawhead & Bloodybones respectfully re-contextualizes traditional music and folk tales into a unique, beautiful, playful, and haunting whole. Six-panel foldout case.
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DTD 047CD
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Legendary collector Joe Bussard is putting records out once again! After running the last 78-RPM label in the US (RIP Fonotone Records, 1956-1974), Bussard had relegated his efforts to promoting old-time music by making cassette tapes for people hungry to hear his rare treasures and producing his Country Classics radio show for stations in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. But in 2014, Bussard and his daughter Susannah Anderson had the idea to produce a compilation of Civil War tunes; they rang the office of Dust-to-Digital to gauge interest in distributing such a compilation. It was an easy decision for DTD. CD in digipak with 36-page booklet. Includes introductory essay by Kevin Fontenot and liner notes by Tony Russell. Includes tracks by Ernest Stoneman, Blue Ridge Mountain Singers, Grant Brothers & Their Music, Red Mountain Trio, Buell Kazee, G. B. Grayson - Henry Whitter, Ward & Winfield, Chubby Parker & His Littleold-Time Banjo, Da Costa Woltz's Southern Broadcasters, Capt. M. J. Bonner (The Texas Fiddler), Cherry Lane Express, Henry C. Gilliland and A. C. (Eck) Robertson, The Foreman Family, Asa Martin & James Roberts, McGee Brothers & Todd, and Fiddlin' John Carson & His Virginia Reelers.
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PT 2006LP
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2021 restock; LP version. Includes eight-page booklet and download code. Reed instruments are capable of some of the most impassioned music on the planet, due to the malleability of the reeds themselves -- historically made of plant tissue -- which vibrate when air hits them. The origin of most reed instruments is steeped in rural, pastoral culture. Many insistent, loud, often joyful reed instruments have always been played outdoors as traditional accompaniment for dancing and celebrations. This compelling album is the second volume in the Excavated Shellac release series, featuring rare, never-before-issued 78-RPM records from around the world centered on a unique theme. The previous volume (Excavated Shellac: Strings (DTD 044CD)) focused on stellar stringed-instrument performances. This release examines some of the most intense and hypnotic music set to disc during the early years of international recording, all featuring reed instruments.. All records have been carefully transferred and mastered. Featuring rare and historic photos, jaw-dropping graphics from the 78-RPM era, and extensive liner notes by compiler Jonathan Ward, founder and author of the acclaimed Excavated Shellac website. Includes tracks by I Tre Antonio della Basilicata (Italy), Sylvain Poujouly & Achille Marc (Auvergne, France), Karzana Oyun Havasi (Turkey), Tufanpur Orchestra (Iran), Ahn Ki-Ok and Kin Yin Kuan (North Korea), Guangdong Troupe with Da Kai men (China), T. Rajarathnam Pillai (India), Selim (Albania), Obdulia Alvarez, "La Busdonga" (Asturias, Spain), Jhande Nath (India), Hoseynkali was Roofakah (Kurdistan), Mohamed Efendi Baz (Upper Egypt), Ngoma Ya Kitokomire (Tanzania), Mqonga Sikanise (South Africa), Musicians of Radio Studio Skopje (Macedonia), uncredited musicians (Tajikistan), and Parush Parushev (Bulgaria).
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DTD 044CD
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Mesmerizing performances from the four corners of the world played on stringed instruments and recorded and released 78-RPM records circa 1920-1950. Featuring fiddles, shamisen, charango, Paraguyan harp, Indian vina, Lebanese oud, Persian violin, Vietnamese moon guitar, and more. All previously unreleased on CD, with three bonus tracks not available on the now-out-of-print 2010 LP. All records have been carefully transferred and mastered and are presented in a digipak with a 20-page booklet featuring rare photos, graphics from the 78-RPM era, and extensive liner notes by compiler Jonathan Ward, founder and author of the acclaimed Excavated Shellac website. Includes tracks by Sogoman Seranyan (Armenia), Sundaram Balachander (India), Alberto Ruiz y su Lira Incaica (Bolivia), Nzila Joseph et son ensemble (Congo), Tấn and Đồng (Vietnam), Tatyana Makharadze & G. Bugadze (Georgia), Abol-hasan Sabā (Iran), Trio Tipico Paraguayo de Félix Pérez Cardoso (Paraguay), Brača Kapugi Tamburica Orchestar i Pjevački Zbor (Croatia), Kjetil Flatin (Norway), Yamaura Toyoko (Japan), Chahadé Effendi Saadé (Lebanon), Galabuzi and Party (Uganda), Kemanî Amâ Recep (Turkey), Feliciano Delgado (Panama), Grupo Irmãos Borges Barros (Brazil), and Eyyubi Mustafa Sunar (Turkey).
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DTD 045CD
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Reed instruments are capable of some of the most impassioned music on the planet, due to the malleability of the reeds themselves -- historically made of plant tissue -- which vibrate when air hits them. The origin of most reed instruments is steeped in rural, pastoral culture. Many insistent, loud, often joyful reed instruments have always been played outdoors as traditional accompaniment for dancing and celebrations. This compelling album is the second volume in the Excavated Shellac release series, featuring rare, never-before-issued 78-RPM records from around the world centered on a unique theme. The previous volume (Excavated Shellac: Strings (DTD 044CD)) focused on stellar stringed-instrument performances. This release examines some of the most intense and hypnotic music set to disc during the early years of international recording, all featuring reed instruments. All previously unreleased on CD, with three bonus tracks not available on the LP version (PT 2006LP). All records have been carefully transferred and mastered. Digipak with 20-page booklet featuring rare and historic photos, jaw-dropping graphics from the 78-RPM era, and extensive liner notes by compiler Jonathan Ward, founder and author of the acclaimed Excavated Shellac website. Includes tracks by I Tre Antonio della Basilicata (Italy), Sylvain Poujouly & Achille Marc (Auvergne, France), Karzana Oyun Havasi (Turkey), Tufanpur Orchestra (Iran), Ahn Ki-Ok and Kin Yin Kuan (North Korea), Guangdong Troupe with Da Kai men (China), T. Rajarathnam Pillai (India), Selim (Albania), Obdulia Alvarez, "La Busdonga" (Asturias, Spain), Jhande Nath (India), Hoseynkali was Roofakah (Kurdistan), Mohamed Efendi Baz (Upper Egypt), Ngoma Ya Kitokomire (Tanzania), Mqonga Sikanise (South Africa), Musicians of Radio Studio Skopje (Macedonia), uncredited musicians (Tajikistan), and Parush Parushev (Bulgaria).
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5CD/DVD/BOOK
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DTD 043CD
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Folksongs of Another America is a compilation of field recordings made in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin between 1937 and 1946. Armed with bulky microphones, blank disks, spare needles, and cumbersome disc-cutting machines, several folklorists had the foresight to document and preserve a significant but overlooked part of the nation's musical heritage, made by immigrant, Native American, rural, and working-class performers. Almost all of these restored dance tunes, ballads, lyric songs, hymns, laments, versified taunts, political anthems, street cries, and recitations are issued here for the very first time. This five-CD set is filled with African-American, Austrian, Belgian, Cornish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French-Canadian, German, Ho-Chunk, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Irish, Italian, Luxembourger, Norwegian, Ojibwe, Oneida, Polish, Scots-Gaelic, Serbian, Swedish, Swiss, and Welsh performers, recorded by Sidney Robertson, Alan Lomax, and Helene Stratman-Thomas. The bonus DVD includes the documentary film The Most Fertile Source: Alan Lomax Goes North, with never-before-seen footage shot in Michigan in 1938. It combines digitally restored silent color film footage, related field recordings, voice-over readings from Lomax's correspondence and field notes, and onscreen text to create an audiovisual narrative featuring the performers and scenes that captivated Alan Lomax during his 1938 Upper Midwestern foray. The accompanying 456-page hardcover book includes extensive liner notes, lyric transcriptions, and translations by James P. Leary, co-founder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This project is a co-production between Dust-to-Digital and the University of Wisconsin Press in collaboration with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Association of Cultural Equity/Alan Lomax Archive.
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CD
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DTD 042CD
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2017 repress. On April 17, 1975, Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge and Cambodian rock and roll was no more. Its star musicians were targeted and killed, record collections were destroyed, clubs were closed, and Western-style music-making, dancing, and clothes were outlawed. The deaths of approximately two million Cambodians and the horrors of the Killing Fields have been well-documented; add to this John Pirozzi's fascinating tale of Cambodia's vibrant pop music scene, beginning in the 1950s and '60s, influenced by France's Johnny Hallyday and Britain's Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The filmmaker has assembled rare archival footage, punctuating it with telling interviews with the few surviving musicians. Cambodian culture has long been synonymous with a love for the arts. Pirozzi's 2014 film Don't Think I've Forgotten pays homage to the country's rock legends who paid for their creativity with their lives. Through the eyes, words, and songs of its popular music stars of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll examines and unravels Cambodia's recent tragic past. This soundtrack to Pirozzi's important film, compiled by the director, is very cinematic in nature. The sequencing and newly-remastered audio transport the listener through the rock and roll history of Cambodia in a similar fashion as Pirozzi's documentary film. It is both entertaining and essential to hear so many tracks that are available outside of Cambodia for the very first time. Includes tracks by The Royal University of Fine Arts, Sinn Sisamouth, Chhoun Malay, Huoy Meas, Baksey Cham Krong, Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ran, Sieng Vannthy, Va Sovy, Drakkar, Pou Vannary, Yol Aularong, and Cheam Chansovannary.
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2CD/BOOK
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DTD 041CD
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In 1965 and 1966 Bruce Jackson visited Ramsey State Farm in Rosharon, Texas, where he recorded the remarkable epic songs of Johnnie B. Smith, a prisoner-composer doing a 45-year bid for the murder of his wife. Three of the recordings included on this two-disc set appeared on Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown, an LP produced by John Fahey's Takoma Records in 1965. The other 15 -- traditional work songs and J.B.'s original pieces -- are issued for the first time. Folklorist Bruce Jackson was among the last to record work songs. He met Smith, prisoner #130196, during a 1964 visit to Ramsey State Farm. A native of Hearne, Texas, Smith was 46 years old and on his fourth prison term. In his younger days, Smith toted lead hoe in a flat-weeding gang and led the work songs. But he also sang other songs, different songs -- those he'd made up to occupy himself while chopping sugarcane or picking cotton. He referred to them as his "little ol' songs." The longest stretched to 33 verses, or more than 22 recorded minutes. Although Smith knew and sang a variety of melodies, to an assortment of work songs and sacred pieces, he employed only one tune for his compositions. What changed were the tempo and the ornamentation with which he individualized them. "The Major Special," "No More Good Time in the World for Me," "Ever Since I Been a Man Full Grown" -- each song Smith charged with its own emotional ambience, as a seasoned preacher intuits the particular colors and atmospheres that should imbue each portion of his service. Smith was paroled in 1967, a year after his final session with Jackson. That summer, Jackson arranged for him to sing at the Newport Folk Festival, at which he appeared on stage with Pete Seeger, and, in one of the only photos that survives of him, in the company of Robert Pete Williams and Muddy Waters. No More Good Time in the World for Me includes 18 remastered recordings, 15 of which are previously unreleased, and is presented in a digipak with a 36-page booklet containing liner notes by Nathan Salsburg (curator of the Alan Lomax Archive), full lyric transcriptions, and never-before-published photographs of J.B. Smith. Produced by Nathan Salsburg and Lance Ledbetter, founder of Dust-to-Digital.
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Book
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DTD 039BK
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"Collector and Americana yay-sayer Jim Linderman is an archivist of the obscure. His collections tell vast stories in sotto voce, allowing curios and objects shadowed by mainstream culture and ideology to converse and be heard. What we hear is an enormous American sub-culture speaking in forbidden, marginalized languages: stuff discovered boxed in the attic out of embarrassment or zealotry, smutty ash trays crowing next to religious pamphlets, each claiming a part of the complex, sometimes contradictory, always conflicted American imagination, a chaos of memories that will one day vanish. In The Birth of Rock and Roll, Linderman's arranged a storyboard of sorts that dramatizes the spirit, if not the chronology of rock and roll. Poetically, the photos evoke without naming, and have little to do with conventional iconography of the birth of rock and roll -- i.e., young white men in Memphis, poodle skirts, Alan Freed, Bill Haley's Brylcreem, etc. Instead they document, and celebrate, the pure but indefinable essence of rocking. Ordinary, nameless men, women, and children, some white, some black, are holding guitars and strumming while looking relaxed or frantic, but nearly always blissful. Some of the action takes place in rural fields, some in dance halls, some at civic events, some in living rooms and basements. Wherever there is an urge to make acoustic or electric music -- whether to help at a rent party, busk in front of a crowd, or testify in the name of Jesus -- there's an uncredited photographer there to snap an image" --Joe Bonomo. "I wanted them all to be anonymous, but several were identified, and the Carter Family was included because it is such a lovely snapshot [and it has never been published before now]. I like to think rock and roll emerged from a large collective of unknown folk 'down there' rather than from some stars 'up there'" --Jim Linderman. Includes an introduction by Jim Linderman and an interview with Jim Linderman by Joe Bonomo. Jim Linderman is a writer, art historian, collector, and publisher. He maintains a network of websites on art, photography, and culture. Joe Bonomo is an essayist and music writer. His books include Sweat: The Story of The Fleshtones, America's Garage Band; Jerry Lee Lewis: Lost and Found; and Conversations With Greil Marcus. Book designer: Martin Venezky. 160 pages; 12 x 9.75 inches; 134 images reproduced in full color.
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2CD/BOOK
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DTD 038CD
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What happens when a 78 collector marries a collector of antique photographs? Lead Kindly Light: recordings of rural Southern music: old time, string band music from Appalachia, extremely rare country blues and African American gospel singing from 1924-1939. A portrait of the rural American South between the dawn of the twentieth century and World War II, Lead Kindly Light brings together two CDs of traditional music from early phonograph records and a fine hardcover book of never-before-published vernacular photography. North Carolina collectors Peter Honig and Sarah Bryan have spent years combing backroads, from deep in the Appalachian mountains to the cotton and tobacco lowlands, in search of the evocative music and images of the pre-War South. The music of Lead Kindly Light presents outstanding lesser-known recordings by early stars of recorded country music, as well as rarely- and never-reissued treasures by obscure country, blues, and gospel artists. The photographs, mainly images of the rural and small-town South, are richly textured depictions of family life, work, and fun, and the often accidental beauty of the vernacular snapshot. 159 photographs from the collection of Sarah Bryan reproduced in full color. 46 audio recordings from the 78 RPM record collection of Peter Honig. 176-page hardcover book with 2 CDs. 8.5 inches x 6.5 inches. Debossed and tip-on cover.
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2CD/BOOK
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DTD 037CD
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In 1947, '48 and '59, renowned folklorist Alan Lomax went behind the barbed wire into the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck -- and, in 1959, a camera -- Lomax documented as best an outsider could the stark and savage conditions of the prison farm, where the black inmates labored "from can't to can't," chopping timber, clearing ground, and picking cotton for the state. They sang as they worked, keeping time with axes or hoes, adapting to their condition the slavery-time hollers that sustained their forbears and creating a new body of American song. Theirs was music, as Lomax wrote, that "testified to the love of truth and beauty which is a universal human trait."
"A few strands of wire were all that separated the prison from adjoining plantations. Only the sight of an occasional armed guard or a barred window in one of the frame dormitories made one realize that this was a prison. The land produced the same crop; there was the same work for blacks to do on both sides of the fence. And there was no Delta black who was not aware of how easy it was for him to find himself on the wrong side of those few strands of barbed wire ... These songs are a vivid reminder of a system of social control and forced labor that has endured in the South for centuries, and I do not believe that the pattern of Southern life can be fundamentally reshaped until what lies behind these roaring, ironic choruses is understood." --Alan Lomax, 1958
"Black prisoners in all the Southern agricultural prisons in the years of these recordings participated in two distinct musical traditions: free world (the blues, hollers, spirituals and other songs they sang outside and, when the situation permitted, sang inside as well) and the work-songs, which were specific to the prison situation, and the recordings in this album represent that complete range of material, which is one of the reasons this set is so important: it doesn't just show this or that tradition within Parchman, but the range of musical traditions performed by black prisoners. I know of no other album that does that." --Bruce Jackson, 2013
124-page hardcover book with 2 CDs. 6.25 inches x 9.5 inches (landscape). Includes slipcase and foil stamping. 44 audio recordings, 12 previously-unreleased, all newly remastered; 77 photographs, many published here for the first time; Essays by Alan Lomax, Anna Lomax Wood, and Bruce Jackson. Produced by Lance Ledbetter, founder of Dust-to-Digital, and Nathan Salsburg, curator of the Alan Lomax Archive.
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CD
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DTD 036CD
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For the traveling recording men of the late 1920s, Arkansas offered enticing pickings. The region was thronged with vigorous, idiosyncratic string bands. This album carries the listener from the hillbilly music craze of the '20s to the song-based country music of the late '30s. Scarcely more than a decade, but a period, in music as in all American life, of galvanic change. This CD serves as the soundtrack album to the newly-released photograph book, Making Pictures: Three for a Dime by Maxine Payne. All of the photos in this package are from the same cache of photographs taken by the Massengil family in their mobile photo-booth trailer throughout rural Arkansas in the 1930s-1940s.
"It is indeed gratifying to know our program has made so many minds and hearts drift back to the earlier days when all was well, when the 'hoss hair pullers' of old were in due form and all parties concerned were in a receptive mood for tipping of the fantastic toe... My aggregation from this district claim that their music and songs are not suggestive of anything except good and wholesome exercise ... So everybody come to the Arkansas Ozarks, where you can eat the best fruit in the world; where home-cured meat is found in the smokehouse and corn and hay in the barn; where you can juice your own cow, feed your own chickens, fish in the wonderful White River, meet these men of the Missouri Pacific and natives, and you will then say, 'Yes, indeed, you have the most wonderful country in the world.'" --Henry Harlin Smith, March 1926 on Hot Springs radio station KTHS
Includes a CD digipak with a 32-page booklet with liner notes by country music scholar Tony Russell. Newly remastered 24-bit audio transfers from the Music Memory archive. Features original 78 RPM recordings made between 1928-1937. Last copies...
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DVD
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FURNACE 001DVD
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The Sandman's Garden examines the life and art of Lonnie Holley, a self-taught African-American artist and musician who was based in Birmingham, Alabama at the time this film was originally released (2005). The documentary follows Holley as he builds a sculptural environment out of discarded materials and found objects in the Birmingham Museum of Art's sculpture garden. His art is by turns profound, playful, and deeply moving. As the garden grows piece by piece, Holley is revealed as a man who has overcome a tortured past. Growing up poor and black in the 20th century American South, Holley worked to overcome prejudice and deprivation by using art to explore his life and ideas. The camera captures the artist's process and reflections as he gathers materials, creates pieces, plays music, interacts with others, and relives the joys and sorrows that forged his unique and genuine artwork. NTSC format, region free. Stereo sound, 64 minutes, Aspect ratio: 16:9.
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LP
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PT 4003LP
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Keeping a Record of It is the follow-up to Lonnie Holley's debut album Just Before Music (DTD 026CD). Guest performers include Cole Alexander from the Black Lips, Bradford Cox from Deerhunter, and visual artist Lillian Blades. Gatefold sleeve. "Lonnie Holley sings with an intense, emotional voice and unleashes lyrics without consistent meter or rhyme over gossamer keyboard lines that hang in the ether. His music is a blues nebula, splotched with riffy word jazz that shares in some rappers' collagist aesthetics as well as the runaway passion of a gospel preacher enlivened by the Spirit." --Aquarium Drunkard
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CD
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DTD 029CD
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Fourteen outstanding funky performances of Thai country groove music from the 1950s and early 1960s. All previously un-reissued, carefully transferred and mastered from the original 78rpm records and presented with detailed full-color liner notes. Luk Thung is the down home, funky "country music" of Thailand that blossomed as rural Thais migrated to Bangkok for work in the 1950s and 1960s. Luk Thung evolved out of a complex stew of traditional folk styles and international influences. Wild accordions and Latin horn sections mingle with Thai hand drums and finger cymbals, while exquisite vocalists swagger and sing stories about life's struggles. Compiled by David Murray, with notes by Peter Doolan.
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