Anthology of American Folk Music

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Anthology of American Folk Music
Compilation album by
various artists
ReleasedAugust 9, 1952[1]
Recorded1926–1933
Genre
Length252:30
LabelFolkways
ProducerHarry Smith
Anthology of American Folk Music chronology
Anthology of American Folk Music
(1952) 		Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4
(2000)

Anthology of American Folk Music is a three-

78 rpm records
.

Upon its release the Anthology sold relatively poorly and had no notable early coverage besides a minor mention in Sing Out! in 1958. It is now, however, generally regarded as a landmark release in the history of the album as well as an influential release during the 1950s and 1960s American folk music revival. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 276 on their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,[3] and, in 2005, the album was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.[4]

Background

Harry Smith was a West Coast filmmaker,

blues, jazz, country, Cajun, and gospel records and accumulated a large collection of recordings,[6]
78s being the only medium at the time.

In 1947, he met with Moses Asch, with an interest in selling or licensing the collection to Asch's label, Folkways Records.[7] Smith wrote that he selected recordings from between "1927, when electronic recording made possible accurate music reproduction, and 1932, when the Great Depression halted folk music sales."[8] When the Anthology was released, neither Folkways nor Smith possessed the licensing rights to these recordings, many of which had initially been issued by record companies that were still in existence, including Columbia and Paramount. The anthology thus technically qualifies as a high-profile bootleg. Folkways would later obtain some licensing rights, although the Anthology would not be completely licensed until the 1997 Smithsonian reissue.[9] Folkways founder Moses had a "reputation for releasing copyrighted songs without going through the proper legal channels."[10]

Sequencing

Clarence Ashley playing "The Coo Coo Bird", the first track of the third volume of the Anthology

The compilation was divided by Smith into three two-album volumes: "Ballads," "Social Music," and "Songs." As the title indicates, the first "Ballads" volume consists of ballads, including many American versions of Child Ballads originating from the English folk tradition. Each song tells a story about a specific event or time, and Smith may have made some effort to organize to suggest a historical narrative, a theory suggested by the fact that many of the first songs in this volume are old English folk ballads, while the closing songs of the volume deal with the hardships of being a farmer in the 1920s.

The first album in the "social music" volume largely consists of music that was likely performed at social gatherings or dances, with many of the songs being instrumentals. The second album in the "Social Music" volume consists of religious and spiritual songs, including some Gospel songs.

The third "Songs" volume consists of regular songs, dealing with everyday life. Critic Greil Marcus describes its thematic interests as being "marriage, labor, dissipation, prison, and death."[11]

Smith's booklet in the original release makes reference to three additional planned volumes in the series, which would anthologize music up until 1950.[8] Although none were released during his lifetime, a fourth volume was released posthumously in 2000.[12] Entitled "Labor Songs", this volume is themed around songs about work and mainly featured union songs. The album contains later material then the original three volumes, anthologizing material recorded as late as 1940.

Design

King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O" by Chubby Parker, a song about a mouse marrying a frog, Smith notes: "Zoologic Miscegeny Achieved in Mouse Frog Nuptials, Relatives Approve."[13]

Each of the three two-record sets carried the same cover art, a

Theodore de Bry etching of an instrument Smith referred to as the "Celestial Monochord,"[14] taken from a mystical treatise by scientist/alchemist Robert Fludd. This etching was printed over against a different color background for each volume of the set: blue, red and green. Smith had incorporated both the music and the art into his own unusual cosmology, and each of these colors was considered by Smith to correspond to an alchemical classical element: Water, Fire, and Air, respectively. The fourth 'Labour' volume (released later by Revenant
) is colored yellow to represent the element earth.

Release and reissues

Cover for 1960s reissue
Folkways FA 2951, featuring a poor Depression-era farmer

The Anthology was originally released as three

double-LP box sets on August 9, 1952.[15] It sold relatively poorly when it was first released – by 1953, Folkways had sold only fifty albums, forty-seven of which went to libraries and colleges – and for a time, it was out of print because of copyright issues.[10]

One of the first notable reissues was in the 1960s, released as three individual volumes like the original release. Irwin Silber replaced Smith's covers with a Ben Shahn photograph of a poor Depression-era farmer, over Smith's objections, although others have considered this a wise commercial choice in the politically charged atmosphere of the folk movement during that decade.[16]

In 1997,

40th Grammy Awards, the reissue won awards for Best Album Notes and Best Historical Album.[17]

In 2006,

Shout! Factory and the Harry Smith Archive released a tribute album titled The Harry Smith Project: The Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited, a 2-CD/2-DVD box set culled from a series of concerts staged by Hal Willner that took place in 1999 and 2001.[18] The album features artists such as Beck, Nick Cave, Elvis Costello, Steve Earle, Beth Orton, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, Richard Thompson, Wilco
and others, covering the songs of the original anthology.

In 2020, Dust-to-Digital released a compilation containing the B-Sides of the records included on the Anthology entitled The Harry Smith B-Sides. Some songs were not included due to the racist or offensive nature of the lyrics,[19] which drew criticism from reviewers.[20]

Reception and legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[21]
Entertainment WeeklyA[22]
Pitchfork10/10[23]
Rolling Stone[24]
Spin10/10[25]
The Village VoiceA+[26]

Writing for AllMusic, critic John Bush wrote the compilation "could well be the most influential document of the '50s folk revival. Many of the recordings that appeared on it had languished in obscurity for 20 years, and it proved a revelation to a new group of folkies, from Pete Seeger to John Fahey to Bob Dylan... Many of the most interesting selections on the Anthology, however, are taken from [obscure] artists... such as Clarence Ashley, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and Buell Kazee."[21] In his review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau wrote "Harry Smith's act of history... aces two very '90s concepts: the canon that accrues as rock gathers commentary, and the compilations that multiply as labels recycle catalogue. In its time, it wrested the idea of the folk from ideologues and ethnomusicologists by imagining a commercial music of everyday pleasure and alienation—which might as well have been conceived to merge with a rock and roll that didn't yet exist... Somebody you know is worth the 60 bucks it'll run you. So are you."[26] Jon Pareles, writing in The New York Times, said that the songs "still sound marvelous and uncanny."[27]

In 2003, the album was ranked number 276 on

1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die,[29] as well as the 2009 book 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music.[30] In 2012, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[31]

Though relatively little was written about the Anthology during the first years after release (the first known press reference to the collection was in the folk music magazine

Dave van Ronk had earlier commented that "we all knew every word of every song on it, including the ones we hated."[34]

The Anthology has had major historical influence. Smith's method of sequencing tracks, along with his inventive liner notes, called attention to the set.[35] This reintroduction of near-forgotten popular styles of rural American music from the selected years to new listeners had impact on American ethnomusicology and was both directly and indirectly responsible for the American folk music revival.[36]

Sing Out! published a full article on the whole release in 1969.[32]

In surveying the critical writing on the Anthology, Rory Crutchfield writes, "[t]his is one of the strangest aspects of the critical heritage of the Anthology: its emergence from relative obscurity to prominence as a revivalist manifesto without much transition. In terms of academic credibility, this partly came from the work of [Robert] Cantwell and [Greil] Marcus, which was published fairly close to the reissue of the collection."[37]

Track listing

Volume One: Ballads (Green Singing)
No.TitleArtistLength
1."
North Carolina Ramblers
3:31
21."Frankie" (1928)Mississippi John Hurt3:25
22."When That Great Ship Went Down" (1927)William and Versey Smith2:55
23."Engine 143" (1927)The Carter Family3:16
24."Kassie Jones" (1928)Furry Lewis6:13
25."Down on Penny's Farm" (1929)The Bently Boys2:47
26."Mississippi Boweavil Blues" (1929)The Masked Marvel3:07
27."Got the Farm Land Blues" (1932)The Carolina Tar Heels3:16
Volume Two: Social music (Red Singing)
No.TitleArtistLength
1."Sail Away Lady" (1926)
Dry Bones" (1929)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford2:58
25."John the Revelator" (1930)Blind Willie Johnson3:18
26."Little Moses" (1932)The Carter Family3:11
27."Shine on Me" (1930)Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Singers3:01
28."Fifty Miles of Elbow Room" (1931)Rev. F.W. McGee2:40
29."I'm in the Battle Field for My Lord" (1929)Rev. D.C. Rice and His Sanctified Congregation3:19
Volume Three: Songs (Blue Singing)
No.TitleArtistLength
1."
Spike Driver Blues" (1928)
Mississippi John Hurt3:14
25."K.C. Moan" (1929)The Memphis Jug Band2:31
26."Train on the Island" (1927)J.P. Nestor2:57
27."The Lone Star Trail" (1930)Ken Maynard3:12
28."Fishing Blues" (1928)Henry Thomas2:44

[38]

Production personnel

  • Moses Asch: Liner Notes, Transfers
  • Peter Bartok: Transfers
  • Joe Bussard: Transfers
  • Philip Coady: Producer
  • Pat Conte: Transfers
  • Evelyn Esaki: Art Direction
  • John Fahey: Liner Notes
  • David Glasser: Mastering, Audio Restoration
  • Amy Horowitz: Executive Producer, Reissue Producer
  • Luis Kemnitzer: Liner Notes
  • Kip Lornell: Liner Notes
  • Michael Maloney: Producer, Production Coordination
  • Greil Marcus: Liner Notes
  • Mary Monseur: Producer, Production Coordination
  • Steve Moreland: Producer
  • Jon Pankake: Liner Notes
  • Charlie Pilzer: Mastering, Audio Restoration, Transfers
  • Chuck Pirtle: Liner Notes
  • Jeff Place: Liner Notes, Reissue Producer, Transfers, Annotation
  • Pete Reiniger: Mastering, Transfers, Compilation Producer
  • Neil V. Rosenberg: Liner Notes
  • Lucy Sante: Liner Notes
  • Peter Seitel: Editing
  • Harry Smith: Producer, Editorial
  • Stephanie Smith: Research
  • Peter Stampfel: Liner Notes
  • Alan Stoker: Transfers
  • Scott Stowell: Art Direction, Design
  • Jack Towers: Transfers
  • Eric Von Schmidt: Liner Notes

Certifications

Certifications for Anthology of American Folk Music
Region Certification Certified units/sales
United States (RIAA)[39] Gold 500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Folkways Issues 'Anthology' Series" (PDF). Billboard. 16 August 1952. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  2. ^
    Dennis Publishing Ltd
    . Retrieved April 3, 2023.
  3. ^ a b "500 Greatest Albums of All Time Rolling Stone's definitive list of the 500 greatest albums of all time". Rolling Stone. 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2019.
  4. ^ a b "Librarian of Congress Names 50 Recordings to the 2005 National Recording Registry". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  5. ^ "Hole in the Ace". New York Post. 2011-03-20. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  6. ^ "Full Biography – Harry Smith Archives". Retrieved 2022-04-26.
  7. ^ Asch, Moses. "The Birth and Growth of the Anthology of American Folk Music," liner note essay. Anthology of American Folk Music, 1997 reissue, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
  8. ^ a b Smith, Harry. "Foreword," liner note essay. Anthology of American Folk Music, 1952 edition, Folkways Records.
  9. ^ "Notes on Harry Smith's Anthology," liner note essay. Anthology of American Folk Music, 1997 reissue, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
  10. ^ a b Skinner, 63
  11. ^ Marcus, Greil. "The Old, Weird America," liner note essay. Anthology of American Folk Music, 1997 reissue, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
  12. ^ "Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk MusicVolume Four « Revenant Records". revenantrecords.com. Retrieved 2022-04-28.
  13. ^ Smith, Harry. liner note essay. Anthology of American Folk Music, 1952 edition, Folkways Records.
  14. ^ "Tuning the Terrestrial Monochord". Sothis Medias. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  15. ^ "Folkways Issues 'Anthology' Series" (PDF). Billboard. 16 August 1952. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
  16. ISBN 9780801435416
    . Retrieved 2020-09-07. In the context of the time, when folk music was linked to protest, specifically to the civil rights movement and the 'national shame' of Appalachian poverty ... it was a smart commercial move.
  17. ^ "1998 Grammy Awards". www.infoplease.com. Retrieved 2022-02-18.
  18. ^ "The Harry Smith Project". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  19. ^ Roberts, Randall. "For music archivists, a contemporary dilemma: Should racist songs from our past be heard today?". LA Times.
  20. ^ "Music Review: The Harry Smith B-Sides: Precursor to The Harry Smith C(ensored)-Sides?". The Arts Fuse. 2020-10-31. Retrieved 2022-02-19.
  21. ^ a b Bush, John. "Anthology of American Folk Music > Review". AllMusic. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
  22. ^ Grad, David (September 19, 1997). "Anthony of American Folk Music Review". Entertainment Weekly. No. 397. New York. p. 85. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  23. ^ Currin, Grayson Haver (February 5, 2023). "Various Artists: Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 1–3 Album Review". Pitchfork. Retrieved February 5, 2023.
  24. ^ "Review: Anthology of American Folk Music". Rolling Stone. New York. September 18, 1997. pp. 101–2. 5 Stars (out of 5) – ...it is impossible to overstate the historic worth, sociocultural impact and undiminished vitality of the music in this set, and of Smith's idiosyncratic scholarship and instinctive wisdom....a bedrock of our national musical identity...
  25. ^ Christgau, Robert (October 1997). "Anthology of American Folk Music". Spin. New York. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  26. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (December 30, 1997). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. New York. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  27. ^ Pareles, Jon (December 14, 1997). "Pop/Rock/Soul; A Flurry of Boxed Sets Wraps Up the Year". The New York Times. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  28. ^ Guardian Staff (2007-11-21). "Artists beginning with S". the Guardian. Retrieved 2022-04-28.
  29. ISBN 978-0-7611-3963-8
    .
  30. ISBN 978-0-19-537371-4
    . Retrieved February 22, 2011 – via gobal.oup.com.
  31. ^ "GRAMMY Hall Of Fame | GRAMMY.org". 2015-06-26. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2022-04-23.
  32. ^
    JSTOR 3877543
    .
  33. JSTOR 3877543
    .
  34. ^ Marcus, Greil. "The Old, Weird America," liner note essay. Anthology of American Folk Music, 1997 reissue, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
  35. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved 2022-04-28.
  36. ^ Havers, Richard (2020-04-13). "'Anthology of American Folk Music': Harry Smith And The Music of Mystical Gods". uDiscover Music. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  37. OCLC 965826651
    .
  38. ^ "Anthology of American Folk Music". Archive.org. Retrieved 10 June 2021.
  39. ^ "American album certifications – Various – Anthology of American Folk Music". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved October 27, 2022.

External links

Recordings

Because of their potential public domain status, some of these recordings are legally available on the Web:

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthology_of_American_Folk_Music&oldid=1231089702"