Appleseed Recordings is an American folk music record label founded by Jim Musselman in 1997.

History

Appleseed's first album was a tribute to Peter Seeger. Musselman approached musicians and others (writer

Studs Terkel Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral his ...

, actor

Tim Robbins Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film ''The Shawshank Redemption ''(1994), and has won an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards for his role ...

) to record a song written, adapted, or performed by Seeger. The result was ''Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger''. The album included versions of Seeger-related songs by Bruce Springsteen,

Jackson Browne Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 18 million albums in the United States. Emerging as a precocious teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he h ...

& Joan Baez,

Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ec ...

, Terkel, Robbins, and Ani DiFranco. The album won the American Federation of Independent Music Award for Top Independent Release of 1998". The duet by Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt on " Kisses Sweeter than Wine" was nominated for a 1999

Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals The Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality pop songs on which singers ...

. In 2007, Appleseed worked with the Give Us Your Poor organization at UMass Boston to release '' Give Us Your Poor'' to raise funds and public awareness about homelessness in America. Among its exclusive tracks was the first collaboration between Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger.

Heritage artists

Many formerly high-profile musicians from the Sixties and Seventies have had their first studio recordings in years, sometimes decades, released on the Appleseed label. The worldwide icon of the spirit of the Sixties, Donovan, came to Appleseed to release his first CD in eight years, 2004's '' Beat Cafe''. Tom Rush, one of the first artists to record songs by

Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...

, Jackson Browne and

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, havi ...

, returned to the recording studio for the first time in 35 years and emerged with ''What I Know'', his Appleseed debut, which was named 2009 Album of the Year by the International Folk Alliance organization based on airplay. David Bromberg had retired from recording in 1990 before cutting ''Try Me One More Time'' for Appleseed in 2007; the CD was nominated for a

Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album was awarded from 1987 to 2011. Until 1993 the award was known as the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording. An award for Best Contemporary Folk Album was also presented. Prior to 1987 ...

. The Native American singer/songwriter/artist/activist Buffy Sainte-Marie released '' Running for the Drum'', her first new CD in 13 years, on Appleseed in 2009. Jesse Winchester, another well-established performer from the Sixties, hadn't released a new studio album in ten years before 2009's ''Love Filling Station'' was issued by Appleseed. His CD was named one of the year's best by VH1's Bill Flanagan on the CBS Sunday Morning television show,

Historical releases

Some of the label's other releases were intended to keep important traditional music alive, such as Kim and Reggie Harris's ''Steal Away:

Songs of the Underground Railroad Songs of the Underground Railroad were spiritual and work songs used during the early-to-mid 19th century in the United States to encourage and convey coded information to escaping slaves as they moved along the various Underground Railroad rout ...

'' and ''Get On Board: Underground Railroad & Civil Rights Freedom Songs, Vol. 2'', which have been used as teaching tools by various black history museums and schools. In 2000, Appleseed released two discs of "field recordings" of traditional American folk songs collected by Anne and Frank Warner on trips down the Eastern Seaboard starting in 1938, ''Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still'' and ''Nothing Seems Better to Me: The Music of

Frank Proffitt Frank Noah Proffitt (June 1, 1913 – November 24, 1965) was an Appalachian old time banjoist who preserved the song " Tom Dooley" in the form we know it today and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the trad ...

and North Carolina''. To celebrate its ten-year anniversary in 2007, Appleseed issued ''Sowing the Seeds – The 10th Anniversary'', a two-CD sampler of catalogue highlights that also included exclusive new recordings by Pete Seeger & Bruce Springsteen (a second historic second collaboration), Donovan, Ani DiFranco, Kim and Reggie Harris, and several more new Pete tracks. In early 2009, Appleseed won its first Grammy Award – for Best Traditional Folk Recording for Pete Seeger's 2008 ''At 89'' release.

Label's mission

As a longtime activist who worked with consumer advocate

Ralph Nader Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...

to champion various safety and environmental causes, including the mandatory installation of airbags in motor vehicles, Musselman finds great satisfaction in combining his commitment to social justice with his passion for music: "I started ppleseedbecause I had seen a void in music tied to social justice and social change, and also seen people not recording folk songs anymore...I wanted to put out music with a message of hope and healing and to record these folk songs...and we were in danger of them being lost forever...I think music can reach people in ways that other mediums can't. Music touches an emotional chord in someone and tends to speak to people in a lot of ways...Music can break down walls and build bridges between people with different political and social views."Questions and Answers with Jim Musselman , Crawdaddy!
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Roster

The Appleseed catalog includes music by

Eric Andersen Eric Andersen (born February 14, 1943) is an American folk music singer-songwriter, who has written songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, Linda Ronstadt, the Grateful Dead and many others. Early in his career, in the 1960s, he ...

David Bromberg David Bromberg (born September 19, 1945) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. David Bromberg biographyat Billboard.com An eclectic artist, Bromberg plays bluegrass, blues, folk, jazz, country and western, and rock a ...

Johnny Clegg Jonathan Paul Clegg, (7 June 195316 July 2019) was a South African musician, singer-songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist, some of whose work was in musicology focused on the music of indigenous South African people ...

Donovan Donovan Phillips Leitch (born 10 May 1946), known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter, and record producer. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock and world mus ...

Ramblin' Jack Elliott Ramblin' Jack Elliott (born Elliot Charles Adnopoz; August 1, 1931) is an American folk singer and songwriter. Life and career Elliott was born in 1931 in Brooklyn, New York, United States, the son of Florence (Rieger) and Abraham Adnopoz, a ...

Tim Eriksen Tim Eriksen is an American musician, musicologist, and professor. He is the leader of the band Cordelia's Dad, a solo artist, and was a performer and consultant for the award-winning soundtrack of the film '' Cold Mountain''. Cordelia's Dad C ...

Dick Gaughan Richard Peter Gaughan (born 17 May 1948) is a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs. He is regarded as one of Scotland's leading singer-songwriters. Early years Gaughan was born in Glasgow's Roy ...

John Wesley Harding ''John Wesley Harding'' is the eighth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on December 27, 1967, by Columbia Records. Produced by Bob Johnston, the album marked Dylan's return to semi-acoustic instrumentation and folk ...

Kim and Reggie Harris Kim and Reggie Harris are a folk music duo based in upstate New York. They have released five CDs on the Appleseed Recordings Appleseed Recordings is an American folk music record label founded by Jim Musselman in 1997. History Appleseed's fir ...

Christine Lavin Christine Lavin (born January 2, 1952) is a New York City-based singer-songwriter and promoter of contemporary folk music. She has recorded numerous solo albums, and has also recorded with other female folk artists under the name Four Bitchin ...

Roger McGuinn James Roger McGuinn (born James Joseph McGuinn III; July 13, 1942) is an American musician. He is best known for being the frontman and leader of the Byrds. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with the Byrds. As a ...

Holly Near Holly Near (born June 6, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist. Early years Holly Near was born in Ukiah, California, United States, and was raised on a ranch in Potter Valley, California. She was eight years o ...

Tom Paxton Thomas Richard Paxton (born October 31, 1937) is an American folk singer-songwriter who has had a music career spanning more than fifty years. In 2009, Paxton received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tom Rush Thomas Walker Rush (born February 8, 1941) is an American folk and blues singer, guitarist and songwriter who helped launch the careers of other singer-songwriters in the 1960s and has continued his own singing career for 60 years. Life and ...

Buffy Sainte-Marie Buffy Sainte-Marie, (born Beverly Sainte-Marie, February 20, 1941) is an Indigenous Canadian-American (Piapot Cree Nation) singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. While working in these are ...

Tommy Sands Thomas Adrian Sands (born August 27, 1937) is an American pop music singer and actor. Working in show business as a child, Sands became an overnight sensation and instant teen idol when he appeared on ''Kraft Television Theater'' in January 19 ...

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notably ...

Al Stewart Alastair Ian Stewart (born 5 September 1945) is a Scottish born singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock so ...

John Stewart John Stewart may refer to: Business * John Aikman Stewart (1822–1926), American banker * John Killough Stewart (1867–1938), businessman and philanthropist in Queensland, Australia * John K. Stewart (1870–1916), American entrepreneur and inve ...

Sweet Honey in the Rock Sweet Honey in the Rock is an all-women band, all-woman, African American, African-American a cappella ensemble. They are an United States, American three-time Grammy Award–nominated troupe who express their history as black women through song ...

, Lizzie West, and

Jesse Winchester James Ridout "Jesse" Winchester Jr. (May 17, 1944 – April 11, 2014) was an American-Canadian musician and songwriter. He was born and raised in the southern United States. Opposed to the Vietnam War, he moved to Canada in 1967 to avoid b ...

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control American independent record labels Record labels established in 1996 Folk record labels