With this blog, i want to use the Folkways Anthology as a roadmap to explore american folk music and maybe other countries traditions along the way. I’ ll use texts, images, music and videos gathered from my personal collection and from the net to make this work-in-progress enjoyable and educationnal the best i can. Any suggestions, additional informations, comments and critics are welcome…
I’ll use Harry Smith’s numerical order starting from the number one performance in the Anthology, “Henry Lee” by Dick Justice and end (someday…) with “Fishing Blues” by Henry Thomas. Each time, i’ll try to collect interesting links on the artist and on the song performed. There will be other performances by the artist and different versions of the selected song that i have access to. You’re invited to download and enjoy the selections but please, as much as you can, try to support the effort of the small records companies that make this old 78 rpm records available and in print.
I see that you embedded my cocaine cartoon,… I am always searching for interesting music from the public domain,… any mp3s you can send my way would be appreciated.
I really appreciate what you are doing here. I’m a huge fan of Pre-Blues folk.
I have just discovered your blog today. What a wonderful idea & very well executed. I am absolutely thrilled by the prospect of this journey through Harry Smith’s Anthology.
This really made my day.
Hello Harry!
Well, no where on your site do I see your name…! So, it’s “Harry” until I hear otherwise! And, my guess is that’s you in the iconic photo on this site, with the butterfly looking over your shoulder…am I right?
But, on to the business at hand. You say you discovered the Smith Anthology 10 years ago. I had a similar experience, only I found the collection in a Texas public library, thought it “looked interesting”, ripped it to my PC, then began reading the liner notes on the Smithsonian Folkways web site (since removed). The notes listed 1800 or so variants of Harry’s original songs. Hmmmm, thought I, it could be interesting to collect such (on Napster, the P2P of choice at that time). It had taken me a month to gather up the RnR Hall of Fame “Most Influential” 500 list, I guessed, three months should be about right for the variants of Harry’s. OK, six at the outside.
Well, here it is, nine years later. How many of the original 1800 do I have left to locate? 435, is how many! And, just this week, a Dutch friend (a fan of the Child ballads), pointed out your site to me. We have, my friend, both been in pursuit of essentially the same goal, independently, for 9 or 10 years! I did download the songs you have so kindly made available here, I believe I picked up only 5 or so new songs on my original Folkways list from you. However can it be that, with the same essential goal, we have so few variants appear in both our collections? It’s one of the world’s unsolved mysteries, I suppose!
Incidentally, I was in contact with the compiler of the original Folkways list of variants. He was a bit evasive, however, I gathered that he had compiled the list under pressure of time, from printed catalogues, in the mid 90’s, before the net put so much information so readily at our fingertips. Really, his list is very nearly, a meaningless one. Typos abound (Stoney instead of Stony, Jeannie vs. Jeanie, etc.) Many of Ed McCurdy’s variants made his list, but, other McCurdy variants (Stackalee, etc) did not. But, am I going to give up now, after coming so far? What do you think??
Anyhow, I offer you my own collection of Smith variants, should you have an interest. And I look forward to futher DLs from your fantastic site, as they become available!
All the best
Curt in Australia
I keep starting ambitious projects like this one, and only rarely get around to finishing them. I see you’re progressing very nicely, and doing a darn good job of it. Keep up the good work.
I agree with the post above – you should tell us who you are, even though some of us already know.
-Joe Offer, The Mudcat Cafe-
Hi, Joe, thanks for the kind words. I love the mudcat, it’s a great resource for someone like me who like to search for songs… As to tell who i am, there’s no secret, i already wrote somewhere that i’m a french guy, 34 years old, amateur musician (you can see me on the yoube channel under the name “Gadaya” which is the short way for my full name GAel DAvid hAYat…
Great project !
I have modestly been posting about folk songs this week, including “Fatal Flower Garden”
Congrats
Nicolas
I cannot thank you enough for doing this – I do an alt-country/Appalachian music/old-timey show at WSCA FM 106.1 in Portsmouth, NH and this blog is invaluable to me.
Fantastic job!
Thanks. Can we listen to your show through internet, i’d like to hear it…
I just have to say that this is the best thing I’ve found on the internet in YEARS…and that it’s kicked off a project for me to learn all of these songs by heart; first faithfully, and then come up with my own interpretations. I’ve been familiar with the Anthology for years in a passing sense, but now feel compelled to KNOW it. So far I’ve got Henry Lee down…83 more to go. It’ll be interesting, as a clawhammer banjoist, figuring out exactly what I’m gonna do with the Sacred Harp and zydeco songs, but thankfully that’s quite a ways off…
Thanks so much for your efforts. I can’t wait to see more.
Thanks Noah. I’m also a clawhammer banjoist (among other things) and i’m sure we can do a lot of things with this style. If you want to see me play go to youtube and search for Gadaya and you should see me with my many instruments (i’m just an amateur musician and being french i don’t pretend to master all this songs but i sure love to sing and play).
What a fantastic resource you have created. Beautifully put together and curated. Many thanks.
hi!
what an amazing site you have created! i love it!
Slowly but steadily the small hard drive of my laptop is welcoming your compilations. What of joy to rediscover once again the powerful old weird America. Thank you for sharing with us.
Probably who’s browsing around here alredy knows, but just in case i suggest to listen to Smithsonian Folkways podcasts. http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/podcasts.aspx