As founder of both Arhoolie Records and the Arhoolie Foundation, Chris Strachwitz has been collecting, documenting, recording, and promoting regional roots music for over 60 years.

In addition to recording hundreds of albums for Arhoolie Records (now owned and distributed by Smithsonian Folkways), he has taken over 25,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video, corresponded with legendary recording artists, scholars, promoters, and fans, conducted dozens of rare recorded interviews, and collected all manner of ephemera.

Strachwitz has donated much of his collection to the Arhoolie Foundation. We will continue to digitally preserve this rare and invaluable personal archive, and share with you here what we can.