Sometimes, we preserve history to avoid its repetition; other times, we do so with the express intent of invoking it stalwartly, a single idea becoming a guide rope, bread-crumbing our unlikely threads toward a common lineage — in other words, to come home.
Take, for example, the instant endorphin of a James Brown song exploding through the speakers. The soulful burst of “I Got You” or the rusted groove of “The Payback” are all at once transportive and grounding, household callings that echo through our collective cultural consciousness and back to the doorstep of familiarity. As one of the most sampled artists of all time, Brown may lead us to Kanye or Madonna, Kendrick or Cypress Hill. Upon retracing our steps, The Godfather of Soul may even lead us back to the steepled red brick of a West Atlanta Baptist Church.
Since 2003, Lance and April Ledbetter have produced meticulously curated, Grammy Award-winning works of sonic genealogy through their Atlanta-based label and archival foundation, Dust-to-Digital. At its core, Dust-to-Digital preserves and presents rare, often inaccessible music, transforming historical recordings from dated and disintegrating mediums into engaging multimedia experiences. Although assembling one of their signature compilations may involve a series of collectors, translators, writers, designers, historians, audio engineers and restoration specialists, the Ledbetters remain at the helm of operations, packaging orders and playing liaison for the next big tip-turned-musical-investigation, all from their Ormewood basement home office. To date, Dust-to-Digital has digitized more than 50,000 recordings.
Photo courtesy of the University of Georgia
Photo courtesy of the University of Georgia
The label’s most popular release, “Goodbye Babylon” (proclaimed fans include Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Brian Eno), was also their first release. Consisting of 160 tracks spanning both skin-tingling gospel and chill-rousing sermons, “Goodbye Babylon” traces the threads of sacred Southern song to a much wider sonic and sociopolitical tapestry.
Two such sermons from “Goodbye Babylon” are delivered by Hogansville-born the Rev. J.M. Gates. He served as minister at Mount Calvary Baptist Church in the Adamsville neighborhood of west Atlanta for 26 years, where his dynamic preaching style caught the ear of a Columbia Records talent scout. Recorded live with his resident congregation, the preserved orations of Gates’ sermonizing are stirring and emotive, a cantillating climb of rattling hyperbole steeped in the rhythmic, call-and-response traditions of Black preaching.
“When you hear J.M. Gates, and then you go listen to James Brown, you hear James Brown differently,” Lance said. “You see this tradition that came from the church, and then you hear J.M. Gates doing this recording from 1927, and it’s like, this guy is doing James Brown soul.”
The connection between Black gospel and soul (or blues, or folk, or jazz, or rock ‘n’ roll) is no revelatory finding, and Dust-to-Digital doesn’t purport it to be. Rather, the diffusion of a Southern preacher’s religious address to that of Cypress Hill eventually sampling James Brown on their 1993, career-defining track, “Insane in the Brain,” makes a case for how intricately vital the preservation of roots music history truly is.
“We call it roots, but, during that time, it wasn’t roots, it was current,” April said.
Crucially, its preservation also reveals its proximity. Music history can remind us that turn-of-the-century gospel is more relevant to our modern listening choices than first or second listens may immediately afford. It can also remind us that periods of time, such as the Jim Crow era, are far more recent than we may often care to think.
A vaguely earthy umbrella term at its surface, roots music implicates the foundational, a network of lyrical and sonic modes by which life is told, retold and remembered. Its hyperlocal geographical origins are a living archive of sociopolitical divide, such as the oral passage of Black spirituals in an antebellum South or the protest songs of Appalachian folk. It is the story of technological advancement and globalization, a folkloric throughline cutting through both algorithm and auto-tune to remind us that its impact and influence are still just as current as ever.
April recalls a moment in high school when her parents’ collection of ‘60s rock records led her down an eye-opening rabbit hole (there’s an accidental Jefferson Airplane joke here) of the artists who influenced Janis Joplin. April’s library answered this curiosity with a trove of Bessie Smith reissues.
Photo by Carl Van Vechten, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo by Carl Van Vechten, via Wikimedia Commons
“That’s what I love, following the path and being able to make those connections back, like to James Brown or Janis Joplin.”
As archival institutions like libraries and museums face eroding budgets across the country, the accessibility of these paths grows more narrow. Equipped with the right amount of digital literacy, the internet’s convenience can be more gold mine than minefield when it comes to the average user’s propensity for scholastic sleuthing. Still, its cookie-filled clouds are not always as permanently reachable as we’ve come to rely on; accounts are hacked, hard drives fail and journalistic archives are left to the fate of the Wayback Machine when publications are seemingly shuttered overnight.
Dust-to-Digital aims to navigate the delicate balance between virtual and analog transience, with accessibility at the forefront.
“Archiving is the act of long-term preservation, but it’s not about sealing something away in an underground vault,” said Lance, emphasizing the nature of gatekeeping that is common within many archival institutions. “I think preservation is . . .”
“. . . Goal one,” supplied April, in tandem with Lance. “Nor does preservation mean that something is preserved for the future,” she added.
“I think that’s why a lot of institutes advocate for their space as the place where an archive should exist, firstly as private collectors,” continued April, casting glances at the windows of the duo’s recently renovated basement office. Outside, the sky has, in classic midsummer fashion, turned from a spotless blue to an angry charcoal.
“But also because there are standards in place that are safe, versus, say, something in somebody’s basement.” April gestured from the developing storm clouds to the boxes stacked about the space with a laugh. Some of the boxes contain merchandise. Others contain around a thousand unsorted records acquired from a storage unit years prior, an LP barricade of not-yet-tapped opportunity. “You never know what could happen. Will there be a flash flood or a hurricane?”
For those who fret about analog’s potential for physical decay, fear not. From tediously compiled box sets and hardcovers to downloadable albums and photo book PDFs, there’s a medium in the label’s library for every curious listener.
Alongside accessibility, thorough consideration is paramount to the Dust-to-Digital process. Making potentially sensitive material accessible also requires a certain curatorial due diligence, one that the Ledbetters observe with inquisitive reverence.
“It’s recognizing that there are always things to learn,” said April. “That’s a big part of starting a project, working with the right people that you do feel are sensitive and knowledgeable. If that’s not there, it really changes the shape of a project, or maybe that project doesn’t happen.”
Lance said, “It’s also thinking about the person that will be unpacking what you pack in,” weighing the appeal of education vs. entertainment within the music economy. “With the history of our label, it proves that there are people out there like me who want to go on these musical journeys. They want to hear what came before, so they get the fuller version of what they’re hearing today.”
Photo courtesy of Dust-to-Digital
Photo courtesy of Dust-to-Digital
That desire to travel unfamiliar paths toward familiar sounds is also part of the reason the Ledbetters offer both physical and virtual mediums. When Dust-to-Digital released “Excavated Shellac: An Alternate History of the World’s Music” in late 2020, production of the physical box sets was interrupted by supply chain slowdowns amid the COVID pandemic. “We just put it out digitally, and it did amazing,” said April. “People loved it because it’s such an eclectic release, one that people all over the world could buy and get it immediately, without shipping nightmares.”
Although “Excavated Shellac” was later released in its originally intended physical form, supply chain hiccups make a positive case for the benefits of digital format.
In 2009, Dust-to-Digital had planned to release “Art of Field Recording Volume II,” their collaboration with folklorist Art Rosenbaum, just in time for the holidays.
“We got bumped at the production plant for the ‘Sex and the City’ season 2 DVD box set,” Lance said with a shrug.
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