American Street Songs

Album Notes & Community Reviews

Presenting two contrasting yet deeply authentic pillars of the East Coast blues tradition, this split release was crucial in documenting the highly syncopated, ragtime-inflected Piedmont acoustic style. One side features the fiery, immensely complex holy blues fingerpicking of the blind street preacher, while the other highlights the relaxed, highly rhythmic secular narratives of a veteran medicine show performer. The historically vital recordings heavily influenced the repertoire and technique of the impending folk-revival movement.