Programme of modern American folk song, arranged and presented by D. G. Bridson , including special recordings made in New York, by Josh White , Leadbelly, Burl Ives , Alan Lomax , Tom Glazer , and the Almanacs
Most people think of America as the country chiefly responsible for modern dance music or what they loosely (and quite wrongly) describe as jazz. But apart from the latest dance numbers which are sung and whistled in the streets of New York no less than in the streets of London, America has given us another popular music. Perhaps no other land has such a richness and variety of folk song or such a vital tradition of folk singing. In America Sings listeners will hear a collection of all types of American folk song, ranging from the Scottish Border ballad ' Sir Henry Martin ' (still sung in the Appalachian backwoods) to blues, spirituals, labour songs, chain-gang songs, and trade-union songs. Many have never before been broadcast in this country. Some of the singers tonight have already been heard in The Man who Went to War and The Martins and the Coys.