More Than Thirty Albums Available Digitally Today, Including Kenny Hall, Vivian Williams
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the nonprofit record label family dedicated to preserving cultural heritage, today announced its acquisition of two record labels that documented unique musical traditions on the West Coast. Voyager Recordings operated from 1967 to 2023, releasing fiddle music and other traditional music of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Smithsonian Folkways also acquired Bay Records, focused on Northern California old-time, traditional folk, bluegrass, fiddle, and string band music, with records spanning 1972 to 2005. Selections from the two collections are available to download or stream on digital platforms today, with additional titles planned for future release.
Voyager Recordings and Bay Records join a growing group of label acquisitions at Smithsonian Folkways that also includes Arhoolie Records, Cook Records, The Mickey Hart Collection, Young People’s Records, Minority Owned Record Enterprises (MORE), UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music, and many others. Each has been selected for their cultural significance and unique contribution to Smithsonian Folkways’ expansive archive of sound and music from around the globe. The new acquisitions further Smithsonian Folkways’ mission of making out-of-print recordings available to the public in perpetuity.
Director and Curator of Smithsonian Folkways Maureen Loughran said, “Smithsonian Folkways is honored to bring Voyager and Bay Records back into circulation as part of our collection. These labels both have important roles in documenting the folk music history and traditions of the West Coast, a history that is often overshadowed by the long- storied folk revival of the East Coast. What is found here are vibrant music traditions, fierce fiddle tunes, old folk songs, and a story of two labels with deep connections to the labels already within the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings collection.”
While the two labels are not directly related, both share key artist Kenny Hall, who possessed a deep repertoire of old-time music. A blind mandolin and fiddle- player born in 1923 and based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, Hall developed a distinctive one-finger picking style on the mandolin that became his trademark. By the end of the 1960s, he was playing at universities and in folk fests all along the West Coast. Hall would go on to perform on stages with Utah Phillips and Jean Ritchie and record with the New Lost City Ramblers. Bay Records released Hall’s 1972 and 1977 albums (Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band and Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band, Volume 2, respectively, plus a CD containing tracks from both sessions), both recorded at the same marathon 1972 session in San Francisco. Voyager shared the album Kenny Hall and the Long Haul String Band in 1980. (Smithsonian Folkways previously released Hall tracks recorded in concert on the acclaimed 2021 compilation The Village Out West: The Lost Tapes of Alan Oakes, Field Recordings of the 1960s California Folk Music Scene.)
Hear/share “Kenny’s Farm” (from 1972’s Kenny Hall and the Sweet Mills String Band on Bay Records) here.
Hear/share “Cuckoo’s Nest” by Vivian Williams and Barbara Lamb with Tall Timber fFrom Twin Sisters: Twin Fiddling by Vivian Williams and Barbara Lamb on Voyager Recordings, recorded 1974-75) here.
In fact, Bay Records was founded to release music by Hall. In the 1970s, an old-time music scene emerged in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains at Sweets Mill, a 240-acre former logging camp. That camp became a hub for communal living and the multi-generational West Coast folk music revival, hosting an annual folk music camp beginning in 1963. Label founder MichaelCogan and his family frequented the camp. Cogan, who also served as an engineer for Arhoolie Records and traditional jazz label Stomp Off, ran a studio in Alameda, California, until 2008.
Bay also released music by the “progressive old-time music” group the Arkansas Sheiks; the Latin, jazz, and swing-laced bluegrass outfit The Good Ol’ Persons; Frank Wakefield, who collaborated with Jerry Garcia; Idaho-born folk singer Faith Petric; poly-genre all-women Any Old String Band; fiddle-playing songwriter Hank Bradley; and Otis Pierce, who was born in 1902, owned a bar near the Sweet Mills camp, and claimed to know some 2,000 songs by heart. Dive into Bay Records and see a full discography: folkways.si.edu/bay.
Phil and Vivian Williams, who founded Voyager Recordings, drew influence from Moses Asch’s Folkways Records to release the music of the Pacific Northwest. They went on to put out albums of exemplary fiddlers from the Northwest and Midwest US and Canada, as well as recordings of Seattle jazz and marimba music, local Scandinavian dance tunes, and the music of Phil and Vivian themselves. Vivian was an award-winning, pioneering woman in bluegrass and old-time fiddle circles and a respected composer. She even accompanied – and impressed – Bill Monroe when he came to town. Phil was an in-demand guitarist and bassist and a sought-after recording engineer.
Their work with Voyager Recordings and their interest in Northwest musical traditions came at a time when few other folklorists in the US were focused on the region. Throughout their lives, Phil and Vivian fought for recognition of these musical traditions, and laboriously traced them back to their points of origin, from the historical Lewis and Clark fiddle tunes they uncovered to their work with Appalachian fiddlers who had moved to the Northwest looking for work. One of their most fortuitous discoveries was a community of North Carolina Tar Heel musicians who had moved to the small, rural town of Darrington, Washington. In 1983, they expanded the label to tune books based on their own music as well as their collections of historical manuscripts. On Voyager’s website, Phil and Vivian shared much of the extensive research they gathered over the years for their recordings and books. This has been preserved by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in its original form at folkways.si.edu/voyager. See a full discography and learn more about Voyager: https://folkways.si.edu/voyager-recordings.
The Williams home became a gathering place for artists. Everyone from Ralph Stanley to Bill Monroe and Doc Watson visited, often playing with Vivian at the house. Phil recorded many of those sessions, as well as community concerts and fiddle contests. Working with friends and colleagues, the Williams family created the Seattle Folklore Society to bring nationally -renowned folk musicians to Seattle. They were also instrumental in starting the Northwest Folklife Festival in 1972, an annual event that is now one of the largest community festivals in the nation. They supported elders and younger musicians, including a teenage Barbara Lamb, whom Vivian famously taught and mentored before her career in Nashville.
The following Voyager Recordings are available now to stream or download:
VOY00316 – Vivian Williams and Barbara Lamb – Twin Sisters (1976)
VOY00322 – Louis Boudreault – Old Time Fiddler of Chicoutimi, Quebec = Violoneux à l’ancienne mode de Chicoutimi, Québec (1977)
VOY00323 – Vivian Williams – Fiddler (1978)
VOY00325 – Marc Savoy, Dewey Balfa and D.L. Menard – Made in Louisiana (Cajun Accordion Music) (1976)
VOY00328 – Kenny Hall – Kenny Hall and the Long Haul Sting Band (1980)
VOY00332 – Tall Timber – Encore!! (1985)
VOY00336 – Vivian Williams, Harley Bray, Phil Williams – Winter Moon (1989)
VOY00341 – Joe Pancerzewski – Legendary Northwest Fiddler (1996)
VYCD323 – Vivian Williams – Fiddler (1996 Edition) (1996)
VOY00345 – Benny Thomasson – Say Old Man Can You Play the Fiddle (1999)
VOY00347 – Vivian Williams, Phil Williams – Live! (2000)
VOY00349 – Lee Stripling – Hogs Picking Up Acorns (2000)
VOY00350 – Phil and Vivian Williams – Dance Music of the Oregon Trail (2000)
VOY00351 – Vivian Williams – Waltzes (2001)
VOY00358 – The New Columbia Fiddlers – Fiddle Tunes of the Lewis and Clark Era (2002)
VOY00368 – Allen Hart – Old Time Banjo (2006)
VOY00371 – Phil Williams and Vivian Williams – Pioneer Dance Tunes of the Far West (2006)
VOY00373 – Vivian Williams and Phil Williams – Fiddling Down the Oregon Trail (2008)
VOY00374 – Vivian Williams and Phil Williams – Tunes from the Peter Beemer Manuscript: Dance Music from an 1860’s Idaho Mining Camp (2009)
VOY00375 – Vivian Williams; Terry Wergeland; Phil Williams – Tunes from the Haynes Family Manuscript (2011)
VOY00380 – Vivian Williams; Calum MacKinnon – Tunes from the John Neilson Music Book (2016)
VOY00383 – Vivian Williams; Sande Gillete; Karen Iglitzin – Tunes from the Aurora Violin Manuscripts (2019)
The following Bay Records are available now to stream or download:
BAY00727 – Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band – Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band (1972)
BAY00102 – Otis Pierce – Every Bush and Tree (1975)
BAY00204 – Arkansas Sheiks – Whiskey Before Breakfast (1975)
BAY00103 – Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band – Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band, Volume 2 (1977)
BAY00208 – The Good Ol’ Persons – California Old-Time Bluegrass Music (1977)
BAY00216 – Faith Petric – self-titled (1979)
BAY00303 – Hank Bradley – Music of the Poison Coyote Kid (1977)
BAY00214 – Frank Wakefield – End of the Rainbow (1980)
BAY00217 – Any Old Time String Band – Ladies Choice (1980)
BAYCD727 – Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band – Kenny Hall and the Sweets Mill String Band [Vol 1 & 2] (2001)
More titles from Voyager Recordings and Bay Records will be released in the coming months.
About Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings makes available close to 60,000 tracks in physical and digital format as the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian, with a reach of 80 million people per year. As a part of the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the nonprofit label is dedicated to supporting cultural diversity and increased understanding among people through the documentation, preservation, production, and dissemination of sound. Its mission is the legacy of Moses Asch, who founded Folkways Records in 1948 to document “people’s music” from around the world.
