Rounder Records

Pokey LaFarge - Something In The Water (2015) {Rounder Records 11661-36919-02}
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© 2015 Rounder Records / Concord | 11661-36919-02
Americana / Jazz / Blues

Some artists who evoke the styles of the past seem to have spent every waking moment of their adult lives struggling to sound as if they were born in a different decade. Pokey LaFarge, on the other hand, makes music that suggests he somehow passed through a wrinkle in time from 1929 to 2015, complete with his banjo in hand; LaFarge's music never seems forced, but flows from him naturally with an easy grace, a playful insouciance, and a confidence in his talent that stops well short of arrogance.

James Booker - Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah: Live at the Maple Leaf Bar (1977-82) {Rounder Records CD 2118 rel 1993}
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© 1977-82, 1993 Rounder Records | CD 2118
Blues / Jazz / Piano Blues / Acoustic New Orleans Blues / R&B

For a man of such talent and influence, New Orleans piano legend James Booker is amazingly under-recorded. This disc and its partner (Spiders on the Keys) offer up some measure of what the folks of the Big Easy might have heard if they caught Booker on one of his "on" nights (he was a known drug user and inconsistent in his playing). He is at his best here (recorded at the Maple Leaf between 1972-1982), focused and intense in his playing, wildly passionate on both keyboards and vocals.

Sun Ra and His Arkestra - Strange Celestial Road (1979) {Rounder Records 125742 rel 2019}
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© 1979, 2019 Rounder Records / Concord / Enterplanetary Koncepts | 125742
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Jazz Funk / Experimental Big Band / Progressive Jazz

These recordings originated at the same Variety Studio sessions that resulted in the 1979 Saturn release SLEEPING BEAUTY (a.k.a. Door of the Cosmos). Based on known departures and arrivals of various players in the Arkestra, Sun Ra historians have cited a likely recording date of June 1979. These three tracks were sold to Rounder and issued on LP in 1980; Sun Ra retained "Springtime Again," "Door of the Cosmos," and "Sleeping Beauty" for release on Saturn.

Singer/songwriter JD McPherson's 2010 debut album, Signs & Signifiers, is a rockin', bluesy, forward-thinking album that subtly breaks the conventions of most vintage rock projects. Produced and recorded with the retro expertise of bassist/guitarist Jimmy Sutton, the album is a gold mine of '50s-inspired rock and R&B, with some rockabilly twang thrown in for maximum effect.

John Fahey - Popular Songs Of Christmas & New Year's (1983) {Rounder–Varrick CDVR012 rel 1994}
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© 1983, 1994 Rounder Records / Varrick Records | CD VR 012
Finger-Picked Guitar / Christmas / Contemporary Folk / Progressive Folk

The famously abrasive and eccentric John Fahey – a brilliant guitarist and composer who once recorded under the name Blind Joe Death – is not the first person one would expect to make a sweet and apparently unironic album of Christmas instrumentals. Being the bloody-minded coot that he was, he made several, all of them wonderful. Popular Songs of Christmas & New Year's is the second of them, this one recorded with the help of fellow guitarist Terry Robb.

Woody Guthrie - The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie In Performance 1949 (2011) {Rounder 11661-1167-2}
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© 1949, 2011 Rounder Records / Woody Guthrie Foundation / Concord | 11661-1167-2
Folk / Political Folk / Traditional Folk / Folksongs / Spoken Word

Reissue of this live archive release from the Folk music legend. In 2001, The Woody Guthrie Archives received two spools of wire recordings from a live Woody Guthrie performance held in Newark, New Jersey in 1949. With the help of many talented recording engineers, the Woody Guthrie Foundation transferred this rare live performance from a delicate wire recording to digital audio, and, with state-of-the-art technology, restored it to near-perfection.

Alan Lomax presents - Caribbean Voyage: Tombstone Feast - Funerary Music of Carriacou (1962) {Rounder 11661-1727-2 rel 2001}
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© 1962, 2001 Rounder Records | 11661-1727-2
Folk / World Music / Funerary Music / Blues / Caribbean Traditions / Field Recordings / Work Songs

Funerary Music of Carriacou Presented here are the magnificent Big Drum songs from Carriacou, Grenada, a font of African and European musical traditions. This is music for the ancestors, or “Old Parents,” performed at Tombstone Feasts held years after death and burial, when the body is finally entombed and the spirit of the departed may at last rest in peace. Caribbean Voyage Released for the first time, Alan Lomax’s legendary 1962 recordings of the rich and many-stranded musical traditions of the Lesser Antilles and eastern Caribbean: work songs, pass-play and story songs, calypso, East Indian chaupai, and steel band music, reflecting the Central and West African, French, English, Celtic, Spanish and East Indian contributions to Caribbean culture. The Alan Lomax Collection The Alan Lomax Collection gathers together the American, European and Caribbean field recordings, world music compilations, and ballad operas of writer, folklorist, and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax.

Branford Marsalis Quartet - Romare Bearden Revealed (2003) {Marsalis Music–Rounder 11661-3306-2}
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© 2003 Marsalis Music / Rounder Records | 11661-3306-2
Jazz / Mainstream Jazz / Post Bop / Saxophone

Conceptualized around the visionary paintings of Harlem-born artist Romare Bearden (1911-1988), saxophonist Branford Marsalis' Romare Bearden Revealed celebrates the obvious as well as the less tangible connections between the jazz Bearden loved and the artwork it inspired. Reflectively performing some of the songs Bearden co-opted as titles for paintings, Marsalis also includes original compositions inspired by the bluesy, organic quality inherent in Bearden's art. Featuring his working quartet of pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, the album also includes appearances by the whole Marsalis family. Brother Wynton Marsalis revisits his post-bop "J Mood" from his 1985 album of the same name, which featured cover art by Bearden.