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PARADES AND PANORAMAS is a celebration of American poet Carl Sandburg's the American Songbag (1927), a meticulously indexed and illstrated book described in the introduction as "280 ballads, hobo songs, spirituals, steamboat, railroad and lumberjack songs, close harmony ditties, colonial songs, love songs." in his varied and rough-hew 21st century folk style, Zanes revives 25 of these selections with his various collaborators to bring these songs forward in time with a graceful handmade modern folk style. PARADES AND PANORAMAS is luxuriously packaged with a 60-page booklet offering lyrics, chords, blurbs about the songs and historical photos of musicians to help make the point that playing music was once much more integrated into American society than it is today.