Harry Smiths's Anthology of American Folk Music

I began before Christmas an attempt at getting ILXors to cover songs from the Anthology in whatever manner they chose. I got a few submissions, but would love it if we could really work that out. So please do it, send me an mp3 of yourself singing.

"Is Vol. 4 really that difficult to find now?"

I believe it's in print so the answer is no.

timely revival, I listened to all of Vols 2 and 3 on the iPod for our (GF and I) very subdued NYE celebrations. Probably the first time I've done that in almost ten years, and it was just as fucking fantastic as I remembered.

and yeah, Vol. 4 is worth it just for the great notes and the Memphis Jug Band tracks alone.

Is Vol. 4 really that difficult to find now?

vinyl is hard to find. i picked a copy of american primitive instead of it once and really regret it. expensive, too, BUT with a harry smith POSTER!

volume four vinyl is beautiful. they did a wonderful job on that whole package.

So this thing is really incredible. It took me a few years to really get into it, but it's such an essential document and just packed with brilliant performances.

yeah it is an amazing listen, that's for sure. totally withstands all the hype.
hey, this thread mentions that American Pop: An Audio History box set -- is that available anywhere? Totally expensive through marketplace sellers on amazon currently. could anyone hook me up w/ cd-rs or anything?

Checking this out from the public library in high school was a total game changer for me.

Actually, I talked a very long time ago on ILM about Buell Kazee and got one of the best emails ever, from one of his grandkids, about Buell's life and music. The craziest thing in it was Buell's wife had the same first name as me, spelled in a less than common way that is also the same as my spelling (Abb13). Other than that, it was mostly generic stuff about "I remember he'd take me on his knee and sing to me when I was a little boy," but still one of those rare, cool experiences where an internet stranger reaches out to you with wonderful anecdotes.

^^ love these experience, great story!

So I've devoured both the Anthology and American Pop. where do i go next?

I don't really know what American Pop is, but you could just dive into the Yazoo & County records catalogs for some of the finest stuff available imo.

Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume IV
American Primitive Vol 2
The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Good For What Ails You: Music of the Medicine Shows

I wish I was a mole in the ground

that music of the medicine shows comp is great--"I heard the voice of a porkchop"!

Snrub, after American Pop (A.A.P. = you life will never be the same again), I started exploring the artists that really made the deepest impression. But here are some other suggestions:

Pop Music: The Early Years 1890-1950 is definitely your next stop because it's wall-to-wall American Pop unlike American Pop.

The Golden Age of Entertainment - Reader's Digest box on vinyl. Not sure if it's on CD but it's findable at thrift stores for cheap. Lotsa cheesy Hollywood tunes.

Make your peace with Broadway and explore one of the Great American Songbook dudes. I dig I Got Rhythm: The Smithsonian George Gershwin Collection. In general, stick with cheesy, old, and Hollywood when it comes to the GAS dudes.

I have some Frémeaux & Associés twofers that you'd dig like From Cake-Walk To Ragtime and, esp. Rock N' Roll 1927-1938 with The Boswell Sisters gulping title track and Louis Armstrong's proto-punk "Swing That Music" particular standouts.

Anything on Archeophone, esp. from the great, biopic-ready Bert Williams.

You Ain't Talkin' to Me: Charlie Poole and the Roots of Country Music

White Country Blues, 1926-1938: A Lighter Shade Of Blue

I love the Art Deco series, esp. the Fred Astaire, Eddie Cantor, and Al Jolson ones.

And pick up a copy of the three-DVD box of The Jazz Singer (do this first, actually).

And see Palmy Days starring Eddie Cantor if you can.

I started exploring the artists that really made the deepest impression.

Actually, that didn't turn out to be so fruitful, e.g. James Reese Europe (Reid Badger's biography is fantastic, though, Geechie Wiley, Alec Wilder (ugh, that GAS book of his is the PITS!!), etc. Which only serves the further augment the genius of American Pop.

I began before Christmas an attempt at getting ILXors to cover songs from the Anthology in whatever manner they chose. I got a few submissions, but would love it if we could really work that out. So please do it, send me an mp3 of yourself singing.

― ian, Friday, January 2, 2009 3:22 PM

sent you a buell kazee cover iirc

can't believe more ppl didn't take you up on this awesome offer tbh

Oh and I'm waaay down to trade American Pop for That Devilin' Tune.

yeah, i think i only got two songs! maybe i should try again.

i will do one. i'll have to recruit some friends and get drunk, but it would be a good time.

deserves its own thread imo

yes plz

some great reccs. let me also throw out:
http://www.amazon.com/Jewface-Various-Artists/dp/B000J3Q0Y8

Some other good stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/Afro-American-Spirituals-Work-Songs-Ballads/dp/B00000DC6N
http://www.amazon.com/Awake-My-Soul-Two-Disc-Special/dp/B0012IU2FW

don't forget about alan lomax's "sounds of the south" box. not only did moby not kill it, but shirley collins assisted in the recording! (read "america over the water" for some interesting if somewhat unrevealing anecdotes about this time)

i would do a cover of one of these songs!

I like the CD of Bascom Lamar Lunsford's that they put out on Folkways, "Ballads, Banjo Tunes And Sacred Songs Of Western North Carolina." Mermaid Song is one of my favorite songs.

^^^

yes! bascom was a one-of-a-kind dude. like, i got the feeling he's the guy harry smith wanted to be, but he was too late and too far removed.

Oh yeah how could I forget Jewface??? Totally classic comp as is Mocean Worker's amaaaaaaaaaazing house (or 'Jewtronica') remix of Ada Jones' "Under The Matzos Tree."

Sounds of the South boxset is amazing!

has anybody seen this site: http://www.folkstreams.net/pub/FilmsByTitle.php kind of gave me more of a visual perspective on some of this stuff

I began before Christmas an attempt at getting ILXors to cover songs from the Anthology in whatever manner they chose. I got a few submissions, but would love it if we could really work that out. So please do it, send me an mp3 of yourself singing.

― ian

Deserves its own thread. Did I send you mine? (Don't worry, it's better than the wire cover was)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4Kb-h3o7c9I/Sc1AVUjbWsI/AAAAAAAAAIU/daoE-eqV62c/s400/White+Spirituals2.jpg
http://homepage2.nifty.com/zzz-blues/lp-va-new/va-new115.jpg

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/200b/music_phases3.jpg

http://www.oldhatrecords.com/images/MtnBalladsLP.jpg

<IMG SRC=http://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/assets/Uploads/Creations-from-the-Collection/CMF-Records/Bristol-Sessionslrg.jpg>;

http://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/assets/Uploads/Creations-from-the-Collection/CMF-Records/Bristol-Sessionslrg.jpg

http://www.wirz.de/music/rbf/grafik/064.jpg

Some gorgeous, haunting stuff (and novelty tunes of varying mileage) on this compilation:
http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Ragtime-Offshoots-Various-Artists/dp/B000007QGR/

dem white folks in that top picture up dere is in a church not a field!

is sounds of south lp tracks the same as the cd series? i think there is some stuff on those thats on the anthology as well iirc..

jug one is a favourite - my flatmate had once and i tried unsuccessfully to lift it. it's great party music too!

i thought the anthology was made entirely of commercial recordings, the lomax recordings being a separate entity altogether.

maybe its just that moby track fucking with my brain... will pull lp and have a look later... i get confused kinda easily with alot of these comps

i thought the anthology was made entirely of commercial recordings, the lomax recordings being a separate entity altogether.
this is correct -- lomax released field recordings of people singing on their porches etc. shirley assisted!

(hey, who's "if you can believe your eyes and ears"? ya sent me a webmail about american pop, but i can't seem to find you here to reply back ... )

Do any of you know anything about this album?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51elAE0O-nL._SL500_AA280_.jpg

I found it while hunting down Clarence Ashley / Gwen Foster songs I don't have and it looks really really cool.

Also, I started looking for any collections thematically arranged around prohibition. This is the only thing I could find tho,

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519YY8NMF6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

And tbh, the tracklist for that is kinda weak. I mean, great songs, but I was hoping for something more than a bunch of Duke Ellington + Louis Armstrong songs I've already heard. Do any of you know anything that's kinda thematically like this but better? (There was this great New Yorker piece a few years ago about Jake Walk + the Blues: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/09/15/030915fa_fact_baum)

The known jake leg songs: http://www.ibiblio.org/moonshine/drink/jakesongs.html

I wish this was available as a compilation somewhere.

Have we talked about making an early American music thread yet?

xxpost The New Lost City Ramblers did an album of prohibition & moonshine songs. Not quite real old-time, but old-timey enough.

I began before Christmas an attempt at getting ILXors to cover songs from the Anthology in whatever manner they chose. I got a few submissions, but would love it if we could really work that out. So please do it, send me an mp3 of yourself singing.

― ian

I didn't see this one...

I have that People Take Warning set, and it's... ok.
The tracks are mostly on topical subjects, commentaries on recent news events and suchlike - they were cash-in discs at the time so weren't generally amazing examples of music even when new. I haven't spent loads of time with the set, so there may be some gems in there for all I know, but what I've heard has mostly been underwhelming. The selections are more of historical and cultural interest rather than musical for the most part.

I don't think the Goodbye Babylon set has been mentioned, but man alive, there's some astounding music in that collection, and the packaging is beautiful.

Ian OTM

I second this motion and hereby move to close this argument in favor of the anthology.

i actually find it kind of fascinating to hear what works/doesn't work for certain listeners. it's interesting to me, because the reactions are so varied to this stuff. and there such a wide variety of styles on the collection, that i guess it's only natural that certain sections are less appealing to some people. i am just a huge fan of this music. you can quibble all day long about it, of course -- why did Smith include those cajun songs and not, say, Amede Ardoin or Dennis McGee? Who knows? Maybe they were the only ones he had. Maybe they were the ones he had in the best condition, or that fit his criteria for inclusion, or maybe that was just a choice he made.

i like this anthology a lot. it's one of the best anthologies out there IMO.

This was one of the first things I downloaded ten years ago, when I started down that road to perdition. Burned it all onto CD, got through it, but I was consuming a lot of stuff back then. It's something I need to go back to.

This collection was my gateway into American old-time music. As a result, I now own a shitload of CDs/LPs and four banjos...... Absolute classic.

sorry to derail, but I love the Dubliners' version of the "Drunkard's Special" - i.e. their "Seven Drunken Nights".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db03QGHwvtU

As I went home on Monday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a horse outside the door where my old horse should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that horse outside the door where my old horse should be?

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a lovely sow that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more
But a saddle on a sow sure I never saw before

And as I went home on Tuesday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a coat behind the door where my old coat should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that coat behind the door where my old coat should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a woollen blanket that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more
But buttons in a blanket sure I never saw before

And as I went home on Wednesday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a pipe up on the chair where my old pipe should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that pipe up on the chair where my old pipe should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a lovely tin whistle that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more
But tobacco in a tin whistle sure I never saw before

And as I went home on Thursday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw two boots beneath the bed where my old boots should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns them boots beneath the bed where my old boots should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
They're two lovely Geranium pots me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more
But laces in Geranium pots I never saw before

And as I went home on Friday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a head upon the bed where my old head should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that head upon the bed where my old head should be

Ah, you're drunk,
you're drunk you silly old fool,
still you can not see
That's a baby boy that me mother sent to me
Well, it's many a day I've travelled a hundred miles or more
But a baby boy with his whiskers on sure I never saw before