Smithsonian Folkways Dusts Off Titles With New Technology

The major music companies may fret over falling revenue, but one label saw its business jump 33 percent last year — thanks in part to the recordable compact discs that the industry says are hurting its sales.

The label, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, is using recordable CD's, or CD-R's, to ensure that each release in its extensive catalog is always available. And in doing so, the label best known for dusty recordings by Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly is taking initial steps toward creating a 21st- century "celestial jukebox," where nothing recorded ever goes out of print.
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