The Pa’s Fiddle Project, a unique series of recorded music that brings the 127 songs embedded in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books to life, unveils a brand-new website devoted to hearing and learning more about the music, with a wealth of material on the history of the project along with lyrics, liner notes and more.

Music is central to Wilder’s stories, and surprisingly, no professional recordings of this music have ever been available. The Pa’s Fiddle Project was launched to re-voice, in dynamic fashion, the unsung music of these beloved and classic books.

To date, two award-winning CDs have been released (out of a projected series of ten) and one accompanying songbook, along with more talks, lectures, presentations, concerts, articles, lesson plans, interviews, and programs than can be listed here. This summer, The Project will celebrate the release of its newest CD in the series, Charles Ingalls Wilder, American Fiddler.

The autobiographical Little House books by Wilder (1867-1957) are rich in references to music; indeed, there may be no books of comparable standing that document frontier America family music-making so thoroughly. The source of most of that music-making was Charles "Pa" Ingalls, a born entertainer who missed few occasions to sing and play his fiddle, an instrument that accompanied the Ingalls family through times good and bad and came to symbolize the endurance of the family unit in a threatening frontier world.

Although a figure of fiction, Pa Ingalls is perhaps the 19th-century American fiddler about whom we know most. We know the names of many of the tunes and songs he played, where he played them, for whom, and often why he chose them.

This recording, which draws from the instances when Pa is seen playing his fiddle alone, aims to place him among the first rank of old-time fiddlers, whose music is foundational in American music.

Some of the nation’s finest acoustic musicians have been enlisted on these projects and invited to make the music of yesterday fresh, exciting, and vital for today’s audiences, young and old. Those involved since the first CD include acoustic music soul singer John Cowan; Grammy-winning banjo master Alison Brown; Western favorites Riders In The Sky; the talented Andrea Zonn (fiddler and band member with Vince Gill, James Taylor and others); legendary bluegrass stalwart Mac Wiseman; progressive folk and bluegrass stylist Judith Edelman; Grand Ole Opry stalwart Elizabeth Cook; guitar master Bryan Sutton; the late mandolinist Butch Baldassari; the late dulcimer virtuoso David Schnaufer; and more.

Producer Dale Cockrell also celebrates the summer publication of The Ingalls Wilder Family Songbook, an edition of all of the Little House music. This research project took the better part of six years to complete and showcases a comprehensive detailing of each of the 127 songs mentioned in the book series. This scholarly edition of the music is underwritten by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Published by A-R Editions, one of the highest quality publishers of music in the world, this will be volume 22 in the Music of the United States of America series, sponsored by the American Musicological Society.

The goal of The Pa’s Fiddle Project is simple but ambitious: to re-connect generations of readers with the rich musical legacy written into the Little House books. The first installment, Happy Land (2005), was honored with a place on the We the People Bookshelf, a program of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was the first CD ever to be included in the NEH’s highly prestigious program.

The recordings from The Pa’s Fiddle Project are quickly becoming necessary companions to the Little House books. Beyond this, though, these are recordings of great American music by great American performers.

For more information on Pa’s Fiddle: Charles Ingalls: American Fiddler, The Arkansas Traveler: Music from Little House on the Prairie and Happy Land: Musical Tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder, visit

www.laura-ingalls-wilder.com. (Twitter - @pasfiddle; Facebook - Pa’s Fiddle.)