Samuel Charters

Although Samuel Charters has seldom received the attention of song collectors like John and Alan Lomax, he nonetheless played a central role in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. UnlikeJohn and Alan, who specialized in traditional folk music from the Appalachians and rural South, Charters specialized in country-blues. His fieldwork, extensive liner notes, production efforts, and books served as an introduction to many who had never heard of artists like Lightnin' Hopkins and Robert Johnson.

Charters was born in 1929 and graduated from Sacramento City College in 1949. In 1951, at the age of 21, he moved to New Orleans. After a two-year stint in the Army (1951-53), he began to study jazz, but soon felt himself drawn to rural blues. Charters also began his work as a field recorder during the '50s, and this research would be poured into his first book in 1959, The Country Blues. "...The Country Blues was the first full-length treatment of the topic," wrote Benjamin Filene in Romancing the Folk, "and its evocative style inspired thousands of whites to explore the music." Unlike the more formal music histories written by Paul Oliver, Charters' book was a popular history designed to pass on his enthusiasm for the blues to others. A companion album, also titled The Country Blues, would simultaneously be released on Folkways.

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