The Internet Archive holds one of the world's great collections of folk and traditional music — not just commercial recordings, but field recordings made by ethnomusicologists who traveled into communities to document music before it disappeared. Alan Lomax's recordings for the Library of Congress are among the most famous, but they're part of a much larger tradition of documentation that produced an extraordinary archive of freely available traditional music.
The Alan Lomax Recordings
Alan Lomax spent decades traveling across the United States, the Caribbean, and Europe recording traditional music in its natural context. His American recordings from the 1930s and 40s — made with a portable disc recorder lugged across the South — captured work songs, ballads, field hollers, and blues from musicians who had never recorded commercially. Many of these recordings are now freely available and represent an irreplaceable document of American folk traditions. Browse free folk music →
Appalachian and Mountain Music
The Appalachian Mountain tradition preserved British folk songs brought over by settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries, mixing them with African American musical influences to produce old-time music, bluegrass, and country. Early commercial recordings from the 1920s capture this tradition at a formative moment — before it was packaged for national audiences. Many of these are in the public domain.
The Folk Revival
The 1950s and 60s folk revival brought traditional music to a new generation of urban listeners. Artists like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and later Bob Dylan drew on the archive of traditional songs to write and perform music that felt both ancient and contemporary. Guthrie's recordings, many made for government and commercial projects in the 1940s, are increasingly in the public domain. Browse all free music →
World and International Folk
The Archive's folk collection extends far beyond American traditions. Field recordings from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe document musical traditions from across the globe. These recordings were often made by academic researchers and released with minimal commercial interest, which means many are freely available. Browse free folk music →