Tommy Johnson

Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. Created by black musicians who lived and worked on the farms in north Mississippi, these men and women drew on influences from church songs, prison songs, African rhythms, and early American folk traditions to fashion a new form of music. Unbeknownst to them, the music created in this relatively small area that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers would spread the world over and shape musical history.

A unique strictly limited (500 only!) three CD set! This collection of pre-war Blues, Country, and Folk, expertly compiled illustrates the beginnings of what we now call AMERICANA. Disc one highlights Blues, disc 2 Country, and disc 3 Folk.

AMERICAN EPIC, a film series produced by Allison McGourty, Duke Erikson and Director Bernard MacMahon, explores the pivotal recording journeys at the height of the Roaring Twenties, when music scouts armed with cutting-edge recording technology captured the breadth of American music and discovered the artists that would shape our world. The recordings they made of all the ethnic groups of America democratized the nation and gave a voice to everyone. Country singers in the Appalachians, Blues guitarists in the Mississippi Delta, Gospel preachers across the south, Cajun fiddlers in Louisiana, Tejano groups from the Texas Mexico border, Native American drummers in Arizona, and Hawaiian musicians were all recorded. It was the first time America heard itself.