''My Dusty Road'' is a 4 CD box set of
Woody Guthrie music containing 54 tracks and a book. It is a collection of the newly discovered
Stinson master discs. It was released by
Rounder Records
Rounder Records is an independent record label founded in 1970 in Somerville, Massachusetts by Marian Leighton Levy, Ken Irwin, and Bill Nowlin. Focused on American roots music, Rounder's catalogue of more than 3000 titles includes records by Al ...
in 2009.
Discovering the Stinson Masters
According to the album liner notes by
Ed Cray and
Bill Nowlin
Bill(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
* Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
* Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
* Bill, a bird or animal's beak
Plac ...
, the master discs were housed in the basement of the
Brooklyn apartment of Lucia Sutera.
In June 2003, Boston music manager
Micheal Creamer was informed by
Jim Farrow that he had made contact with Mrs. Sutera, who had inherited a collection of recording masters from her friend Irene Harris.
Irene Harris died of a heart attack in 1999; she was the wife of Robert Harris, the son of the founder of Stinson records,
Herbert Harris
Herbert Eugene Harris II (April 14, 1926 – December 24, 2014) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia. His district included part of Fairfax County.
Early life
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Harri ...
. Harris had founded Stinson records in 1939 and during the 1940s, he had been in partnership with
Moses Asch, the founder of
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.
History
The Folkways Records & Service ...
in New York City. During
World War II, Stinson had helped Asch to procure
shellac, the raw material for manufacturing
78 rpm records
A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...
which was in short supply due to wartime restrictions.
Ultimately, the recordings of artists like
Woody Guthrie,
Lead Belly
Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...
and
The Almanac Singers
The Almanac Singers was an American New York City-based folk music group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Millard Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie. The group specialized in topical songs, mostly songs advocating an ant ...
were released under three different labels: Asch, Stinson and Disc.
When Moses Asch went bankrupt in 1947 with the Disc label, some master discs fell to Harris as part of the bankruptcy settlement.
In the years later Asch released the recordings of his artists under the Label Folkways. He also reissued several of the older recordings on his new label. But he could not use the Master discs which were released here for the first time.
Creating the Woody Guthrie recordings
The recordings represented in these Box were made in April and May 1944 in New York City. They were cut partly on aluminum discs or glass masters. The masters were never released on any
Folkways or
Smithsonian Folkways album. They have clearer sound than older compilations of Guthrie's recordings of that time.
The Box consists of 4 CDs:
# Woody's "Greatest" Hits
# Woody's Roots
# Woody the Agitator
# Woody, Cisco, and Sonny Jam the Blues, Hollers, and Dances
Track lists
Footnotes
References
*
{{Authority control
Woody Guthrie albums
Rounder Records compilation albums
2009 compilation albums