Folkways Records

Ella had decided to devote her life to music.

She brought a few songs to Folkways Records in New York City, run by Mo Ash, who was influential in popularizing folk in America.

Mo Ash was, like, famously picky.

When Bob Dylan came a few years later and said, here, I'd like to record for you, Mo Ash said, no, thank you, young man.

Yeah.

He founded Ash Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records.

So that was a yep, yep, yep, yep.

And he did that until 1986.

I think that has a nice melody as well.

And like passing through a lot of those songs, where it's just Pete and his banjo, the studio recordings, I've since learned doing the podcast that, you know, that was all for like Folkways Records.

Right.

And Folkways was this tiny record company, which was like this.

Because often when you look back at the history, there's some sketchy recordings from the past of this genre.

Well, and people who know this sort of stuff will be familiar with all these names, the Seegers, the Smithsonian, the Folkways Records.

There's been this sort of area where they're sort of recording, none such records, they're recording these musics, keeping them alive.

So like our next track, Freight Train, is an old track written by someone named Elizabeth Cotton.