This fall, the 92nd Street Y is offering a 10-session course on American Roots Music: The Song of Rural America, covering everything from Robert Johnson to Leadbelly to the Carter Family to Bill Monroe.

Before taking the class, check out some of the sounds.

· The Library of Congress offers hundreds of free MP3s of American roots music for downloading, divided into collections. Highlights: “Now What a Time”: Blues, Gospel, and the Fort Valley Music Festivals, 1938-1943; Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection and Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip.

· Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on MSN Music is an iTunes for roots music: A large portion of the legendary Smithsonian Folkways catalogue is available for download at 99 cents per song.

· Pre-War Blues is a blog devoted to, you guessed it, pre-World War II blues songs.

· While not strictly devoted to roots music, WFMU’s Thomas Edison’s Attic plays nothing but music on wax cylinder from 1888 to 1929. How did DJ Jerry Fabris find them? Simple; he’s the audio curator at the Edison National History Site. All shows are available for streaming in multiple formats.

· The Honking Duck offers over 700 RealAudio reproductions of antique 78 rpm records, divided into subcategories like ”Songs About Money” and ”Covered by Bob Dylan.”