In August, Bitter Southerner published Hanging Tree Guitars, a book of photographs documenting the work of Freeman Vines, a musician and luthier who crafted guitars from repurposed wood — mule troughs, barns, etc. A stack of wood from a lynching site led Vines to a special series of guitars, and a lot of stories. The book has inspired an accompanying compilation album filled with songs meaningful to Vines and important to the story of Black music. We’ve got a stream of the entire thing below, followed by a few pages from the Hanging Tree Guitars book, which is available now.
—Josh Modell, Executive Editor
