Whether documenting the sinking of the Titanic or a long-forgotten local murder, these 70 recordings are audio messages in a bottle, reflecting a lost world where age-old ballads rubbed up against songs inspired by the day's headlines. "In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Depression gripped the nation. It was a time when songs were tools for living. A whole community would turn out to mourn the loss of a member and to sow their songs like seeds....