(3-CD + 120 page booklet) In the one hundred years that folk music has been recorded in the United States, the tradition has embraced ballads - mostly new, but some transplanted from Europe, political statements, personal introspection, and much more. Now the story is here from the 1920s to the 1970s and beyond in four exclusive 3-CD sets. Through this music, we feel it all from the isolation of early twentieth century Appalachia through the economic and political upheavals of the Depression, War, and Civil Rights eras to contemporary west coast singer-songwriters looking within for inspiration. The story is here: original artists and original versions in stunning sound with detailed notes from folk scholar Dave Samuelson. The second set begins with the folk revival that started in the wake of the Kingston Trio's Tom Dooley and continues through the dawn of the singer-songwriter era. It includes early folk revival classics like Walk Right In, Michael, and Green, Green. The second disc begins with Bob Dylan's game-changing classics, Blowing In The Wind, Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, Masters Of War, Mr. Tambourine Man, and The Times They Are A-Changin'. It was the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam era, so the music took on contemporary issues. In Dylan's wake came Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Tim Hardin, Fred Neil, and many others, all of them represented by their finest work.