Anthology of American Folk Music |
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Released: 1952 (on vinyl) Released: August 19, 1997 (on CD) Recorded: 1926 to 1933 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: folk/blues |
Tracks:Disc 1 (Ballads):
1. “Henry Lee” by DICK JUSTICE (1932) Disc 2 (Social Music):
1. “Sail Away Lady” by "UNCLE BUNT" STEPHENS (1926) Disc 3 (Songs):
1. “The Coo Coo Bird” by CLARENCE ASHLEY (1929) Total Running Time: 252:50 |
Rating: 4.843 out of 5.00 (average of 9 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Album:Author Chris Smith called this “the most important recording of the 20th century” CS-3 noting its “enormous footprint…on popular music.” CS-3 The set was compiled by the “notoriously eccentric musicologist” JB Harry Smith. He had collected several thousand old folk and country recordings and whittled them down to “his favorite hillbilly, gospel, blues, and Cajun performances” JB for this “quasi-legal set of three double LPs” JB originally released in 1952. It covered American folk recordings from “1927, when electronic recording made possible accurate music reproduction, and 1932, when the Depression halted folk music sales.’” WK This set reintroduced “near-forgotten popular styles of rural American music,” JB songs which, in some cases, “had languished in obscurity for 20 years.” JB Highlights included material from the Carter Family, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Uncle Dave Macon. The collection was integral to “the folk & blues revival of the ‘50s and ‘60s” WK influencing “a new group of folkies, from Pete Seeger to John Fahey to Bob Dylan.” JB Robert Hunter, lyricist with the Grateful Dead, said, “It radically informed and purified our tastes, as well as the tastes of a whole generation of folk performers.” CS-4 Smith divided the music into “three categories: Ballads, Social Music, and Songs. Smith sequenced the three volumes with a great amount of care, placing songs on the Ballads volume in historical order (not to be confused with chronological order) so as to create an LP that traces the folk tradition,” JB moving from English folk ballads through songs dealing with “the hardships of being a farmer in the 1920s.” WK The Social Music set gathered material likely performed at social gatherings or dances as well as religious and spiritual songs while Songs was just a gathering of regular songs. The liner notes written by Smith were “almost as famous as the music.” WK He wrote short pieces about each song, accompanied by newspaper-style headlines such as “Zoologic Miscegeny Achieved Mouse Frog Nuptuals, Relatives Approve” for the song King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O by Chubby Parker. “Smith also edited and directed the design of the Anthology, including an illustration by scientist/alchemist Robert Fludd on the cover…In the 1960s, Irwin Silber replaced Smith’s covers with a Ben Shahn photograph of a poor farmer.” WK Notes:Anthology first appeared on the Folkways label as three separate two-album collections. It was reissued by Smithsonian/Folkways after being out of print for over a decade. The new release was packaged as a six-disc box set with Smith’s original liner notes and “a separate book of new reminiscences by artists influenced by the original and a wealth of material for use in CD-ROM drives.” JBIn 1997, the CD release of the collection saw each two-album set consolidated to one disc. The track listing on this page reflects that release. “In 2000, Revenant Records released a fourth collection (compiled by Smith) that includes union songs and songs recorded as late as 1940.” WK |
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First posted 5/29/2010; last updated 3/15/2024. |
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