Various Artists - Anthology of American Folk Music (Edited by Harry Smith)

Media:	Audio CD
Record label:	Smithsonian Folkways
Release date:	19 August, 1997
List price:	~~$84.98~~
Our price:	$76.49 that is 10% off!

Anthology of American Folk Music (Edited by Harry Smith)

Average rating:

The first great collection of American folk song recordings

The "Anthology of American Folk Music" put together by Harry Smith was originally issued in 1952 in three volumes of 2 LPs each, with a total of 84 tracks collected from old records. It is said that this collection played a seminal role in the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, influencing and inspiring the generation of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Once you listen to these songs you will have little doubt that was indeed the case. The three volumes focus on Ballads, Social Music, and Songs respectively. I did not recognize enough of these 84 songs to use all of the fingers on my guitar picking hand and I could not care less. You can look over the playlist above and see if anything looks familiar, but, obviously, that is beside the point here. These songs involve a definition of "folk" that is expansive enough to include blues singers like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Richard "Rabbit" Brown. The authenticity of these songs is overpowering, transporting you to a time and place when radio was just starting to make inroads into the backwoods of America.

The collection includes a 100-page booklet that features harry Smith's original handbook of songs, an essay by critic Greil Marcus, along with other essays, song notes, photos, graphics, and recollections by legendary artists about how this anthology inspired their own careers. The overall effect is like taking a college course on American Folk Music. Whether your interest in this type of music comes from listening to the Weavers, Peter Paul, & Mary, or the soundtrack to "Brother, Where Art Thou?" hopefully your enjoyment of folk music will lead you back to this seminal collection. Additional Note: There is also an excellent website put together by the Smithsonian Folkways that will tell you for not only alternate titles (e.g., "The Wagoner's Lad" is also known as "Loving Nancy" and "My Horses Ain't Hungry"), but other recorded versions organized by styles (e.g., traditional American Folk, Folksong revival, Post revival, Country/String Band, Bluegrass, and British). Like everyone else, I have been greatly impressed by the way the Smithsonian Institute has been protecting our nation's heritage when it comes to folk music. They take their job seriously and they are very, very good at it.

The Holy Grail

THIS COLLECTION gave spark to the folk/roots revival of the 1950s & '60s, and arguably, was one of the most important influences on 20th Century pop culture, helping to prime the way for the social upheavals of the 1960s. Amidst the flag-waving patriotism of war, and the schlocky optimism of post WWII America, Harry Smith salvaged these forgotten recordings from junk-bins---old 78s that sang to the dark and painful reality of our American heritage---and gave them back to us. Thereafter, as country, folk, and rock music began dominating the airwaves, Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, The Kingston Trio etc., showed white audiences a musical family tree which included not only folks like The Carter Family, The Monroe Brothers, and Jimmie Rodgers, but also names like Arthur Crudup, Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachel, Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson and so many others... Middle-class white kids suddenly found themselves deeply connected to music rooted in slavery, poverty, and anguish, as they learned to play National 'resonator' guitars, banjos, mandolins, and dulcimers. We turned off Ozzie & Harriet, turning on to Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, and The Beatles, eventually finding our way back to the folk/blues roots of American music. We also took to the streets protesting racial injustice, poverty, pollution, and war, and the world was changed profoundly as ordinary people empowered themselves to action. Harry once said of The Anthology... "I felt social changes would result from it, I'd been reading Plato's Republic and he's jabbering on about music, how you have to be careful about changing the music because it might upset or destroy the government". Today, the idealism of the 1960s is overshadowed by crass materialism while democracy itself is threatened by the tyranny of corporate globalization, yet a legacy attributable, at least in part, to Harry Smith's Anthology---the social impact of individual empowerment during the last half of the 20th Century--lives and breathes in millions of activists around the world. Whether advocating human rights, political accountability, corporate responsibility, consumer protection, or ecological awareness, individuals, grassroots groups, and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are speaking out loudly, as we recently witnessed in the mass demonstrations at the Seattle WTO conference and in the very personal commitment of Julia 'Butterfly' Hill to ancient redwoods. The Anthology is in a category by itself and a five star rating is not sufficient, I consider it a perfect 10. So put it on and listen to the experiences of your ancestors---to songs passed down through generations of back-woods, bayou, & delta-dwelling country-folk---and in reverence to them, and Harry Smith, pick up something and bang on it. Let the world know how YOU feel...

Absolutely essential for too many reasons to name here

My review title says it all. Of course, that won't stop me from saying more...

Let's just say I wouldn't trust a musician that did not have at least a passing familiarity with one of the following: 1. The Anthology of American Folk Music; or 2. An artist that appeared on The Anthology of American Folk Music; or 3. At least a few songs from TAAFM.

That said, I feel very strongly that even if you are not a musician, regardless of the style of contemporary music you listen to (and I ravenously devour current music), whether it be Radiohead, Fishbone, Wilco, D'Angelo, Dr. Dre WHATEVER, if you listen to this collection, you will hear the roots of modern music. Somewhere I read a review of TAAFM and it called it a "genetic code" for modern music, which is entirely appropriate.

As a collection of songs and performances, this collection is entertaining, educational, shocking, delightful, scary (try listening to the first few tracks of disc 2-B alone in the dark...) revelatory, essential. As a stand-alone document, The Anthology is a kind of Rosetta Stone, having influenced every aspect of popular music through the years both directly and indirectly (subconsciously, even).

It makes me think that perhaps these songs already exist in everyone's psyche...they are there, but you do not know it until you hear them. The songs are both familiar and strange, and at times some selections seem so fragile and precious, they might crumble if you listen too hard (yet you always do).

And by the way, even if initially you absolutely HATE a FEW selections (and trust me, you will...I did!), they will be internalized nonetheless, and you will subsequently embrace them, and come to love them. Like a blemish on your lover's otherwise perfect breast, they are as much a part of the collection as the selections you love, and just as essential to the whole.

The packaging is perfection, by the way. From the huge book of essays and analysis, to the repro of Harry Smith's original book, to the way they organized the selections on the CD's (resisting the temptation to condense the music onto fewer discs, even though they would have fit), it is all true to Harry's original vision. There could be no more appropriate way to present this material other than what Smithsonian Folkways has done. I have played this for people, and when they ask me to record it for them (and they always do), I steadfastly refuse. Not because I work for RIAA or anything like that, but because a document this grandiose, this important and this properly packaged, should not be trivialized by being disassembled in such a fashion. It needs to be consumed as a harmonious whole to be fully appreciated. It would be like emailing someone a JPG of the Mona Lisa's smile and expecting them to fully dig it and appreciate the whole.

If you have not noticed, I admit that I have acquired a near religious obsession with this collection. Having owned it now for two and a half years, I find myself still seeking any and all information about this remarkable collection.

Top Music products