Anthology of American Folk Music

The Anthology of American Folk Music is a compilation of several dozen folk and country music recordings that were released as 78 rpm records in the 1920s and 1930s. The compilation was released in 1952. Although the choice of music is idiosyncratic, the collection is famous due to its role as a touchstone for the US folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s.

Harry Smith was a bohemian who lived in Berkeley, California in the late 1940s and 1950s. Although he considered himself an abstract-expressionist, with a special interest in film, he had a hobby collecting old folk and country records. At a time when many people considered these records to be ephemeral, he took them seriously and accumulated a collection of several thousand recordings.

In 1952, Smith compiled 84 of his favorite records on a collection of six LPs. The music on the compilation provided direct inspiration to much of the emergent folk music movement. The Anthology made widely available music which previously had been largely the preserve of marginal social economic groups. Many people who first heard this music through the Anthology came from very different cultural and economic backgrounds from its original creators and listeners. Many previously obscure songs became standards at hootenannies and folk clubs due to their inclusion on the Anthology. Some of the musicians represented on the Anthology saw their musical careers revived, and made additional recordings and live appearances. Selections were chosen by Harry Smith from his personal record collection, and chose records from 1926-1932 for the reasons that, as he stated himself, "1927, when electronic recording made possible accurate music reproduction, and 1932, when the Depression halted folk music sales."

The album is divided into three sections: Ballads, Social Music, and Songs. A fourth collection, including union songs and some songs recorded after World War II, was created but not released until 2000. Harry Smith created the liner notes himself, and these notes are almost as famous as the music. Smith used a fragmented, collage method that presaged some postmodern artwork, and he wrote narrative summaries of all the songs. Smith incorporated the music into his own unusual cosmology. Each of the four albums is associated with a color (Blue, Red, Green, and Yellow respectively), and an element (Water, Fire, Air, and Earth). In the 1960s, Irwin Silber replaced Smith's covers with a Ben Shahn photograph of a poor farmer.

The Anthology has had enormous historical influence. Smith's methodology of sequencing tracks, along with his inventive liner notes, called attention to the set, imbuing it with a talismanic aura (the cover image is a monochord drawn by Robert Fludd). This reintroduction of near-forgotten popular styles of rural American music from the selected years had impact on American ethnomusicology, and was both directly and indirectly responsible for the aforementioned folk music revival. By extension, along with other factors such as the civil rights movement, the emergence of the Beats, the rise of rock and roll, and the invention of the Pill, the counterculture of the 1960s would not have happened, or would have been vastly different without the release of Smith's seminal archival document.

The Anthology originally appeared on the Folkways label established by Moses Asch. In 1997, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings republished the collection on six CDs. In 2000, Revenant Records released the fourth collection on two CDs and two LPs.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 276 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Track listing

Ballads

Track	Song Title	Performed By
1.	Henry Lee	Dick Justice
2.	Fatal Flower Garden	Nelstone's Hawaiians
3.	The House Carpenter	Clarence Ashley
4.	Drunkard's Special	Coley Jones
5.	Old Lady and the Devil	Bill & Belle Reed
6.	The Butcher's Boy	Buell Kazee
7.	The Wagoners Lad	Buell Kazee
8.	King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O	"Chubby" Parker
9.	Old Shoes And Leggins	Uncle Eck Dunford
10.	Willie Moore	Burnett and Rutherford
11.	A Lazy Farmer Boy	Buster Carter and Preston Young
12.	Peg and Awl	The Carolina Tar Heels
13.	Ommie Wise	G.B. Grayson
14.	My Name Is John Johanna	Kelly Harrell
15.	Bandit Cole Younger	Edward L. Crain
16.	Charles Guiteau	Kelly Harrel
17.	John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man	The Carter Family
18.	Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand	Wiliamson Brothers and Curry
19.	Stackalee	Frank Hutchison
20.	White House Blues	Charlie Poole w/ North Carolina Ramblers
21.	Frankie	Mississippi John Hurt
22.	When That Great Ship Went Down	William & Versey Smith
23.	Engine 143	The Carter Family
24.	Kassie Jones	Furry Lewis
25.	Down On Penny's Farm	The Bently Boys
26.	Mississippi Boweavil Blues	The Masked Marvel
27.	Got the Farm Land Blues	The Carolina Tar Heels

Social music

Track	Song Title	Performed By
1.	Sail Away Lady	"Uncle Bunt" Stephens
2.	The Wild Wagoner	Jilson Setters
3.	Wake Up Jacob	Prince Albert Hunt's Texas Ramblers
4.	La Danseuse	Delma Lachney and Blind Uncle Gaspard
5.	Georgia Stomp	Andrew & Jim Baxter
6.	Brilliancy Medley	Eck Robertson and Family
7.	Indian War Whoop	Hoyt Ming and his Pep-Steppers
8.	Old Country Stomp	Henry Thomas
9.	Old Dog Blue	Jim Jackson
10.	Saut Crapaud	Columbus Fruge
11.	Acadian One Step	Joseph Falcon
12.	Home Sweet Home	The Breaux Freres (Clifford Breaux, Ophy Breaux, Amedee Breaux)
13.	Newport Blues	Cincinnati Jug Band
14.	Moonshiner's Dance Part One	Frank Cloutier and the Victoria Cafe Orchestra
15.	Must Be Born Again	Rev. J. M. Gates
16.	Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting	Rev. J. M. Gates
17.	Rocky Road	Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
18.	Present Joys	Alabama Sacred Harp Singers
19.	This Song of Love	Middle Georgia Singing Convention
20.	Judgement	Sister Mary Nelson
21.	He Got Better Things For You	Memphis Sanctified Singers
22.	Since I Laid My Burden Down	Edwards' Sanctified Singers
23.	John The Baptist	Moses Mason
24.	Dry Bones	Bascom Lamar Lunsford
25.	John the Revelator	Blind Willie Johnson
26.	Little Moses	The Carter Family
27.	Shine On Me	Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Singers
28.	Fifty Miles of Elbow Room	Rev. F.W. McGee
29.	I'm In the Battle Field for My Lord	Rev. D.C. Rice and His Sanctified Congregation

Songs

Track	Song Title	Performed By
1.	The Coo Coo Bird	Clarence Ashley
2.	East Virginia	Buell Kazee
3.	Minglewood Blues	Cannon's Jug Stompers
4.	I Woke Up One Morning In May	Didier Hebert
5.	James Alley Blues	Richard "Rabbit" Brown
6.	Sugar Baby	Dock Boggs
7.	I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground	Bascom Lamar Lunsford
8.	Mountaineer's Courtship	Ernest Stoneman and Hattie Stoneman
9.	The Spanish Merchant's Daughter	The Stoneman Family
10.	Bob Lee Junior Blues	The Memphis Jug Band
11.	Single Girl, Married Girl	The Carter Family
12.	Le Vieux Soulard Et Sa Femme	Cleoma Breaux and Joseph Falcon
13.	Rabbit Foot Blues	Blind Lemon Jefferson
14.	Expressman Blues	Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell
15.	Poor Boy Blues	Ramblin' Thomas
16.	Feather Bed	Cannon's Jug Stompers
17.	Country Blues	Dock Boggs
18.	99 Year Blues	Julius Daniels
19.	Prison Cell Blues	Blind Lemon Jefferson
20.	See That My Grave Is Kept Clean	Blind Lemon Jefferson
21.	C'est Si Triste Sans Lui	Cleoma Breaux and Ophy Breaux w/ Joseph Falcon
22.	Way Down The Old Plank Road	Uncle Dave Macon
23.	Buddy Won't You Roll Down the Line	Uncle Dave Macon
24.	Spike Driver Blues	Mississippi John Hurt
25.	K.C. Moan	The Memphis Jug Band
26.	Train On The Island	J.P. Nestor
27.	The Lone Star Trail	Ken Maynard
28.	Fishing Blues	Henry Thomas

External links

• Anthology page on Smithsonian Folkways website contains notes on the singers / musicians and songs.

Recordings

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

• The Butcher's Boy (The Railroad Boy) by Buell Kazee
• Dry Bones by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
• I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground by Bascom Lamar Lunsford
• White House Blues by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers
• The Coo Coo Bird by Clarence Ashley
• The House Carpenter by Clarence Ashley
• Country Blues by Dock Boggs