An Introduction to Indian Music

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In conjunction with the 2006 DVD documentary of record collector Joe Bussard, Dust-to-Digital released this companion CD, featuring 19 tracks in some of the kind of styles – rural blues, jazz, and old-timey country music, mostly from the '20s and '30s – that Bussard loves. Desperate Man Blues: Discovering the Roots of American Music isn't exactly a soundtrack to the documentary, since these records are not featured in their entirety in that film. Rather, it's a survey of some of the highlights of the music in which Bussard specializes, the liner notes featuring track-by-track annotation by Bussard himself. It's an excellent mixture of classics by some of the most esteemed early country and blues giants and the kind of more obscure items that are primarily known only to the type of listeners who covet what Bussard collects. Among the classics are Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues," Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues," Clarence Ashley's "The Coo-Coo Bird," the Carter Family's "John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man," and the very first version of "Stack O' Lee Blues" ever made (by Cleve Reed and Harvey Hull, in 1927).