The first Songcatcher album contained both traditional Appalachian folk ballads and modern songs inspired by the movie of the same name and performed by contemporary female singers, including Iris DeMent, Julie Miller, and Emmylou Harris. The engaging Songcatcher II, however, is a step back in time. The album's 17 recordings date back to the early 1960s folk-music boom, when long-forgotten singers like Dock Boggs, Clarence Ashley, and Almeda Riddle were rediscovered by a new generation of music lovers. They sang ancient English and Scottish ballads that had been brought over to America and passed down through the ages, bleak songs about love, infidelity, God, and murder. Boggs, recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival, offers his bone-chilling version of "Oh Death"; Riddle, who lived her entire life in Greer's Ferry, Arkansas, sings the creepy "Babes in the Woods," in which two children get lost outdoors and die; Roscoe Holcomb, for whom the phrase "high, lonesome sound" was invented, is downright otherworldly as he accompanies himself on banjo on "Little Birdie." The four tracks by Doc Watson, including the lovely "Pretty Saro," come from his early Vanguard albums, which have long been accessible on compact disc, but most of these recordings haven't been available in years, if ever. Culled from Vanguard's extensive archives, they offer a tantalizing glimpse of the label's rich heritage. --David Hill
