Anthology of American Folk Music
| Anthology of American Folk Music | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Compilation album by Various Artists | ||||
| Released | 1952 | |||
| Recorded | 1926-1933 | |||
| Genre | Country, folk, blues | |||
| Length | 252:50 | |||
| Label | Folkways | |||
| Producer | Harry Smith | |||
| Anthology of American Folk Music chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| Entertainment Weekly | A |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Spin | 10/10 |
| The Village Voice | A+ |
The Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records (catalogue FP 251, FP 252, and FP 253), comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.
Experimental filmmaker Harry Smith compiled the music from his personal collection of 78 rpm records. The album is famous due to its role as a touchstone for the American folk music revival in the 1950s and 1960s. The Anthology was released for compact disc by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings on August 19, 1997, as pictured to the right.
Harry Smith was a West Coast filmmaker, bohemian, and eccentric, who, around 1940, developed a hobby of collecting old blues, jazz, country, Cajun, and gospel records, 78s being the only medium at the time. While mainstream America often considered these records to be ephemeral, he took them seriously and accumulated a collection of several thousand recordings, and over time began to develop an interest in seeing them preserved and curated.
In 1947, he met with Moses Asch, with an interest in selling or licensing the collection to Asch's label, Folkways Records. Smith wrote that he selected recordings from between "1927, when electronic recording made possible accurate music reproduction, and 1932, when the Depression halted folk music sales." When the Anthology was released, neither Folkways nor Smith possessed the licensing rights to these recordings, many of which had initially been issued by record companies that were still in existence, including Columbia and Paramount. The anthology thus technically qualifies as a high-profile bootleg. Folkways would later obtain some licensing rights, although the Anthology would not be completely licensed until the 1997 Smithsonian reissue.
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