Smithsonian Folkways Special Series

Songs from the Bardo is a transporting experience, meant to draw the listener into the present moment and provide a framework for inner exploration.

Composer, arranger, and pianist Mary Lou Williams’ musical career rejected the history of American jazz from the late 1920s through the 1970s.

Happy Woman Blues is the second album, and first of original songs, from the great Lucinda Williams.

Elizabeth Cotten’s 1958 debut album on Folkways is best known for containing the earliest recording of her classic Freight Train.