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The Sound Recordings series is arranged in two subseries: Digital Audio Recordings and Audio Discs and Tapes.

The Digital Audio Recordings are the heart of the collection, representing the fruits of Walton's work as a folklorist. Included are digitized copies of songs, stories, and remembrances that Walton recorded (or was instrumental in having recorded). The original Walton accession included a number of 12-inch record disks and reel-to-reel audio-tapes. These included a combination of original recordings and various generations of dubs created by Walton and others over the years. Because of the fragile nature of both the discs and the brittle and often-spliced tapes, access to the original recordings had to be restricted. Over the period of 1986-1989 the library undertook to transfer the Walton collection of folk songs onto audio-cassettes, with assistance from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center and WUOM radio station, Ann Arbor, Michigan. As audio technology developed, the library turned again to the American Folklife Center, and in 2011-2012 the Center digitized the entire collection of recordings, excepting only dubs of other recordings in the collection, dubs of commercial recordings, and two discs that had deteriorated to an extent that they could not be played.

The American Folklife Center (AFC) assigned an alpha-numeric identifier to each original disc and tape as part of the digitization process and the identifier also serves as the digital filename. Each digital file corresponds to one side of an original disc or tape.

This finding aid contains links to the digital audio files. As a service to researchers who have used the recordings in their earlier disc, tape reel, and audio cassette formats, a concordance is appended to this finding aid to connect the current digital file numbers with earlier tape and disc numbers.

A track listing of the contents of these digital audio files forms a part of this finding aid. An index arranged alphabetically by the title of the song accompanies this listing as well as a performer index and index to place of recording. Each index cites the digital audio file numbers. In using the title index, the researcher will find that Walton, over a period of twenty-five years recorded songs with similar titles (e.g. "Jessie Monroe" and "Young Jessie Monroe" or "In wild Amerikay" and "Wild Amerikay"). As Walton and others used this collection, the song inventories became a mixture of the singer's original titles and standardized folklorists' titles. The index includes all alternate titles, but there is little uniformity in the usage. The researcher should thus examine the index closely for songs of a similar character or content

The researcher should note that the quality of the recordings varies significantly. Walton's recordings were not studio quality, nor were the individuals being recorded professional musicians. The recordings made in the 1950s are of a decidedly better caliber than those recorded earlier. The researcher is encouraged to read the manuscript lyrics (when available) when listening to the recordings.