Fragile, dignified performances by two of Cajun music’s finest and most unusual artists, originally released on 78 in the late 1920s. French vocals accompanied by guitar or fiddle, or sometimes both. Impeccable ballads and breakdowns. Old school tip-on cover.

‘A startling twist on English folk revivalism. Dynamic and earthy, surreal and dreamlike, lean and direct; cavernously introspective and vividly pastoral. Playful, intricate, story-telling songs, with guitar, violin, and hand-percussion accompaniment. Check it out if you like Davy Graham, The Godz, Smelly Feet, Martin Carthy…’

‘Ghost musick… operating in the margins and intersections of folklore, experimental electronics, dreams and nightmares… Think of it as a rampant yearning, a manic laughter, but mostly as a feeling of some somnambulistic thirst for adventure and journeys into the unknown, a feeling that is grounded deep inside the heart of the continent.’

‘Shines a light on a little-heard, spooked German underground, working below the radar on mostly small-run releases. Lower Franconia’s Baldruin lays the mystery on thick, his fevered tracks here using flutes, electric organs and shaken children’s toys to create an opaque ambience. Close neighbours Brannten Schnüre voyage into similarly uncharted territory, providing laceworks of fragile folk melodies and sloshes of breathy drone offset by detached vocals. Like Brothers Grimm armed with analogue synths, Freundliche Kreisel supply the title track’s sinister fairy tale, while the oblique textures of Kirschstein’s mystically-themed efforts betray roots in Amon Düül’s hallucinogenic psychedelia and Novy Svet’s neo surrealism. A very dark delight’ (Mojo).

With Arthur Russell, Bob Dylan, Anne Waldman, Perry Robinson, David Amram and co, having a whale of a time in sessions which sound like the best kind of parties, between 1971 and 1981.
‘Rags, Ballads & Harmonium Songs. Chanteys, Come-All-Ye’s, Aborigine Song Sticks. Gospel, Improvisations, Renaissance Lyrics, Blake Hymns, Bluegrass, Hillbilly Riffs, Country & Western, 50’s R&B, Dirty Dozens & New Wave.’
The first-ever full vinyl reissue; gatefold sleeve. Photography by Robert Frank!

Previously-unreleased recordings from the same period as Dead Deer.

Blazing, hardcore bluegrass from 1967, including covers of the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers, the Delmore Brothers, and the Carter Family. Written for the duo by the father of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe, and saturated in blues music, closer The One I Love Is Gone is the killer blow.

Their monumental 1965 debut. Driving, full-strength bluegrass, with magnificent accompaniment by fiddler Chubby Wise, David Grisman on mandolin, and Lamar Grier from the Blue Grass Boys playing banjo.

Riveting 1965 review of his own staggering classics like Death Letter and John The Revelator, rinsed by everyone from Captain Beefheart to Jack White.

His lovely Folkways LP from 1965, when he was just 22, with classics-in-the-making like Blue Mountain and The Werewolf Song.

First-time-out for these early-seventies recordings — countrified drafts of some classic Hurley, with backing from Vermont mates the Fatboys, aka the Deranged Cowboys.

Precious 1964 recordings, top-notch though never previously released, part of the First Songs sessions for Folkways.

‘Pure pleasure is what it is,’ writes Byron Coley. ‘This was probably the first time Hurley brought his band out of the hills. Guitar, bass, drums, piano and trumpet, all of them beautifully in sync and swinging like the rural hippie boogie band they were — tested by long nights in halls filled with rowdy snowmobilers and the women who love them. Hurley & the Redbirds were more than ready to bowl over the city slickers who filled Folk City this hot mid-summer evening. Snock’s voice is limber and strong, flipping easily into falsetto and yodels, and the music is faultless. Something like the Platonic ideal of what ‘bar rock’ can be. They only do one tune from Have Moicy!, but nobody could have minded. The music rolls out like the sweetest-ever guzzle of maple syrup laced with Mello Corn Whiskey. So loaded, so powerful, you’re likely to shit the bed if you listen lying down.’
Recorded in NYC in 1976.

Laid-right-back — with old buddies Dave Reisch and Lewi Longmire, and Tara Jane O’Neil; a Blind Willie McTell and a Lightning Hopkins; and unmissable goes at favourites like Light Green Fellow. One of the very best Hurleys of them all.

Wildly entertaining sixties outsider Americana from this one-man band out of south Georgia. With songs like I’m So Depressed, Cocaine, Vietnam and The Reason Young People Use Drugs.

45s and LPs spanning the period 1964-1973, including his long-lost album debut. The original material here trumps the folk chestnuts. Alasdair Roberts does Lord Randall a lot better, has to be said.

A kind of greatest hits of the one-man-band, albeit all rare now, or previously unreleased.
An early version of Abner’s signature song I’m So Depressed, on LP for the first time, is followed by four unreleased recordings, on electric banjo, drums played by his feet, and harmonica.
The second side features Abner’s charged, mournful last recordings, not for the faint of heart, made two months before his death. These were released by Mississippi as a ten-inch EP back in 2011, entitled Last Ole Minstrel Man.