Here are our suggestions for holiday gifts at every budget. Proceeds from every purchase go directly to help our partner artists — Southern musicians who live on the edge of poverty, but keep our music alive.

For the folk music or acoustic blues fan:

Etta Baker – Railroad Bill LP – $20

A landmark, essential piece of vinyl for folk music and acoustic blues fans, which includes a digital download of three additional albums. Taj Mahal said, “This gracious grandmother was the source of a great deal of joy and surprise when I found out that she still played guitar after I heard her early recordings in the ’60s. This was the first guitar picking style I ever learned.”

For the lover of southern culture, outsider art, deep history, and fine art photography:

Hanging Tree Guitars – $28 (book), $35 (book & CD package), $75 (signed book & CD package)

To meet Freeman Vines is to meet America itself. An artist, a luthier, sculptor, and a spiritual philosopher, Vines’ life is a roadmap of the truths and contradictions of the American South. For over 50 years, Vines has transformed materials culled from a forgotten landscape in his relentless pursuit of building a guitar capable of producing a singular tone that has haunted his dreams. When Vines acquires a mysterious stack of wood from the site of a lynching, Vines and Music Maker’s Tim Duffy find themselves each grappling with the spiritual unrest and the psychic toll of racial violence living in the very grain of America. The CD is a powerful compilation of acoustic blues, electric blues, and sacred soul on the topic of race in America. It includes songs by Guitar Gabriel, Adolphus Bell, The Glorifying Vines Sisters, and more.

Delight your loved one and support our artists year-round:

Listener’s Circle Subscription – $300

Members of the Listener’s Circle receive a limited-edition compilation CD and download every other month, curated exclusively for Circle members. Circle compilations feature unreleased tracks, previews of upcoming albums, and interesting musical material from the Music Maker stacks. These compilations are not available for sale, and once they are sent out to members, they go away forever. Each album comes numbered, so you know just how many were made, along with a note from Tim.

For the blues music fan:

Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy’s Southern Photographs hardcover book – $65 (book & CD package), $60 (book)  

Blue Muse is a remarkable retrospective on a quarter-century of work done by the Music Maker Foundation to sustain and preserve the roots of American music. In this collection of extraordinary tintype photographs, Timothy Duffy brings new vitality to this old form, capturing powerful images of musicians who represent the roots of American music. These American blues, jazz, and folk artists are living expressions of our cultural legacy, made and remade by everyday people and passed down through generations. The CD artfully places the work of important musicians you’ve never heard alongside rock stars and longtime Music Maker supporters Taj Mahal, Eric Clapton, and Dom Flemons.

To keep your head warm:

Dr. Burt Hat – $25

Celebrate 25 years of Music Maker with our limited edition trucker hat! This baseball cap features an adjustable snap back and an embroidered patch of our dear partner artist, the late Dr. G.B. Burt. Comes in gray or navy blue.

Stocking stuffers:

Both the Hanging Tree Guitars and Blue Muse compilation albums are available separately for $10 apiece.