Various

Based on four years of fieldwork throughout the state, the Florida Folklife Program released the two-album, 27-track LP Drop on Down in Florida: Recent Field Recordings of Afro-American Traditional Music in 1981. The album was intended to highlight African American music traditions for a statewide public audience, particularly blues and sacred traditions. When the Folklife Program sought the opportunity to produce an expanded reissue of the album that would include previously unissued fieldwork recordings and photos, Dust-to-Digital, an award-winning record label known for specially packaged re-releases of American vernacular music, agreed to release it. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork materials now housed in the State Archives of Florida, the expanded edition includes all of the recordings from the original double LP, plus nearly 80 minutes of audio available for the first time on 28 new tracks. Complimenting the two CDs is a 224-page hardback book containing the original liner notes, plus new essays, annotations and 60 images (most of which are published for the first time). Notable among the previously unreleased tracks are additional musical selections and personal narratives from one-string musician Moses Williams, four-shape-note Sacred Harp singing from an African American community in the Florida Panhandle, and recordings from the Richard Williams family in the blues and gospel-blues traditions. The reissue also includes new track notes from respected music scholars David Evans and Doris J. Dyen; reflective essays from past and present folklorists with the Florida Folklife Program, including Peggy A. Bulger, Dwight DeVane, Doris J. Dyen, and Blaine Waide; and an extensive essay on African American one-string instrument traditions by David Evans. This edition highlights the significance of the previously unreleased material. In addition, it calls attention to the importance of the original LP and makes it available once again, this time to a larger audience.