Search - Various Artists :: Fonotone Records

Massive 5CD set of American Primitive music unearthed for the first time (in various styles: Jug Band, Country, Old Time, Blues and Bluegrass), recorded and documented by Joe Bussard's 78-RPM Fonotone label, 1956-1969 -- not one track previously on CD before. Incredible package featuring 131 tracks over 5 discs, 160-page perfect-bound book, 17 full-color postcards, 3 record label reproductions in souvenir folder and a nickel-plated Fonotone Records bottle opener(!) -- all packaged in a deluxe cigar box. The label that gave us one of the most elaborate packaging presentations of the modern era (Goodbye Babylon, DTD's first release from 2004). What started as a conversation about Fonotone Records metamorphasized into this 5CD box set, for which no stone went unturned. Master reel-to-reel tapes, unplayed for decades but still pristine, were painstakingly remastered; forgotten Kodak slides in old cigar boxes were dusted off and retouched; and musicians! of all stripes who had disappeared more than 35 years ago were tracked down. Their stories, and the story of Fonotone, the last 78-RPM record label in the land, are told here with words, pictures and music. Take a look-see, give it a listen, and get a rare portrait of a long-gone America.