Description
Book SynopsisReleased in 1952, the Anthology of American Folk Music was the singular vision of the enigmatic artist, musicologist, and collector Harry Smith (19231991). A collection of eighty-four commercial recordings of American vernacular and folk music originally issued between 1927 and 1932, the Anthology featured an eclectic and idiosyncratic mixture of blues and hillbilly songs, ballads old and new, dance music, gospel, and numerous other performances less easy to classify.
Where previous collections of folk music, both printed and recorded, had privileged field recordings and oral transmission, Smith purposefully shaped his collection from previously released commercial records, pointedly blurring established racial boundaries in his selection and organisation of performances. Indeed, more than just a ground-breaking collection of old recordings, the Anthology was itself a kind of performance on the
Trade Review
‘The Anthology of American Folk Music is an extraordinary cultural entity, one that has assumed mythical status. And Ross Hair and Thomas Ruys Smith’s fascinating collection manages to preserve our wonder at the music and at the eccentricity of its curator, while bringing new insights and fresh arguments to its history. Just as the Anthology is full of strange delights, so too is this book.'
John Street, University of East Anglia
'The Anthology of American Folk Music is a talismanic casket of musical treasures, containing the key to decoding the tangled patterns of Harry Smith’s interests in multiple art forms. This valuable essay collection offers invigorating and learned perspectives on the Anthology and its connections with folklore, magic, and hidden histories of America. It’s a celebration of Smith’s maverick verve and shamanic energy, reinstating him as a wonder-working polymath whose occult activities rippled out widely into 20th century culture.'
Rob Young, The Wire
Table of ContentsPart I Introductions
1 Introduction: America changed through music
Ross Hair and Thomas Ruys Smith
2 "Spun in a wheel of vertigo": Harry Smith and the magic of history
Geoff Ward
3 Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music: the critical heritage
Rory Crutchfield
Interlude 1. "This unknown body of Americana": Alan Lomax’s List of American Folk Songs on Commercial Records and the Anthology of American Folk Music
Nathan Salsburg
Part II "The whole bizarre package"
4 Harry Smith, the Anthology, and the artist as collector
Justin Parks
5 Collage, politics, and narrative approaches to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music
Dan Blim
6 Harry Smith: collecting thought-forms and programming the aerial computer
R. Bruce Elder
Part III Deep cuts
7 "Fatal Flower Garden": the execution of a Child ballad
Robin Purves
8 Smith’s Amnesia Theater: "Moonshiner’s Dance" in Minnesota
Kurt Gegenhuber
9 Dead Presidents: "Charles Guiteau," "White House Blues," and the histories of Smithville
Thomas Ruys Smith
Interlude 2. How weird is folk?
Sharron Kraus
Part IV "Other lives"
10 "Volk Roots and Hiart Leaves": John Fahey and the Anthology of American Folk Music
Ross Hair
11 Recycling the South: contemporary literature and the Anthology of American Folk Music
Phil Langran
12 The "other lives" of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music
Paola Ferrero
Afterword
Rani Singh
