The six LPs and 84 songs are always revelatory and often magical. Artist Bruce Conner encountered the collection in a Wichita public library and heard it as ‘a confrontation with another culture, or another view of the world . . . hidden within these words, melodies, and harmonies . . . but it’s here, in the United States!’ A scene seemingly emerged overnight sown from its seeds and the AAFM’s devotees include Dylan, Woody Guthrie, John Fahey, Joan Baez, the Grateful Dead, and a litany of others well into the 21st century, such as Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, DJ/rupture and Beatrice Dillon. As Fahey once put it: ‘The Anthology of American Folk Music is a religion.’
Writing about the set’s cumulative effect, Greil Marcus noted: ‘For the first time, people from isolated, scorned, forgotten, disdained communities and cultures had the chance to speak to each other, and to the nation at large.’ To its listeners, it presented a vision of America never quite glimpsed before. An acolyte of Aleister Crowley, Smith liked to frame ‘Anthology’ as a cast spell.”
Read the whole jawn: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/harry-smith-bsides-anthology-american-folk-music/2020/10/20/2f752944-0fdd-11eb-8a35-237ef1eb2ef7_story.html.
ps photo by my friend, the late David Gahr – there’s a great shot from the same session of Harry giving the Sign of Shu.
