Nashville at Newport: Folk Festival / Various

A fascinating illustration of the changes wrought by the waning folk revival, this ample set culls 31 performances from the Newport Folk Festivals from 1963 to '68, surely the event's most vital and traditionally grounded years. While the urban folk culture long looked at commercial country music with suspicion (the feeling was mutual), musical affinities gradually won out. This set captures the excitement of those changes. Hearing Mother Maybelle Carter introduce and then steam through "Cannonball Blues" is alone worth the asking price. The recording quality is rugged in places, but where else can you hear live performances from Ike Everly and son Don, and six full band cuts from Roy Acuff and his Smokey Mountain Boys (including a thrilling "Dixie Breakdown," a banjo set piece for Larry McNeely)?--Roy Kasten