Dust-to-Digital was started in 1999 by Lance Ledbetter, a radio disc jockey at WRAS -- the student-run voice of Georgia State University. Having been recently introduced to vintage 78 rpm records by the reissue of the Anthology of American Folk Music in 1997, Ledbetter decided to set out on a search for rare gospel recordings.
Four and a half years later, Goodbye, Babylon was released. The 6CD box set was accompanied by a 200-page book and hand-packed with raw cotton in a wooden box. The response from music fans around the world was astounding, and it won a Grammy® award for Best CD Box Set in 2004. Since then, the label has consistently released high-quality, handsomely packaged, accolade-winning material.
Dust-to-Digital's mission is to produce high quality cultural artifacts, which combine rare, essential recordings with historic images and detailed texts describing the artists and their works.
"Gold-standard reissue label ... Although the folklorists lugging around tape recorders (and the performers carrying on ancient traditions) are worthy of much heralding, it's equally astounding how essential Lance Ledbetter's work at Dust-to-Digital has been to the preservation of traditional American folksong. It's easy to buy and appreciate these sets without realizing that the bulk of the material might have been lost -- or, at the very least, tethered to archives, readily accessible only to curious faculty, paper-writing students, and bespectacled researchers -- without Ledbetter's interference." -- Pitchfork