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Music is ill-suited to being described in words, so I'll use an entirely different experience to try and convey what listening to this Anthology is like.

I once knew a fellow who had grown up on Bechtel construction project sites around the world. As a kid playing in the dirt at these sites, he'd collected a box full of those stone tools that humans made and used for something like three million years. I found that once I had turned one of these slips of chipped obsidian or shale over for a moment, it settled naturally into my hand. There was a spot for my thumb, another spot for my forefinger, and my hand was making a scraping or digging motion with the thing. The tool and my hand still remembered their ancient partnership, without any volition from me. This sensation was simultaneously disturbing and satisfying and made the hair stand up on my neck.

This sensation is very close to what I feel listening to this anthology. You will not hear the familiar, highly produced music we're now so comfortable with. You will hear the voice and sound of music as it has been for millions of years -- and you will recognize what you are hearing as being utterly, essentially human.

These recordings were, of course, made only 75 years ago in the 1920's, surely part of the modern era. Yet this was the last moment in time between the old world and the new world. We still sing and play music for the same reasons we always have, but the way we used our voices and instruments for millions of years has been changed by technology. So if these not very old recordings feel strangely like a link to something ancient and mysterious, that's because they actually are.

There is a great beauty in the voices on these recordings, many of which are almost shrill, almost off-key -- unfamiliar to our pampered contemporary ears -- but also perfectly right. There is a mystery in the odd and sometimes fragmentary lyrics, whose once important meaning is now lost.

We can still share the depth of feeling through the music itself, sometimes so strongly that your heart leaps as though you'd been kicked from inside. But, as it says in the booklet of notes, while we can share in the emotions that impelled someone to sing about The Coo Coo Bird in the first place, we'll never know why it was important to live on a mountainside in order to see Willie go by.

Perhaps the true power of this Anthology is that every recording is genuine in a way that is no longer possible. I recommend it.


I Hate to be a Contrarian, However....   November 22, 2000
 136 out of 188 found this review helpful

Simply said, I awaited this set with great anticipation and was terribly disappointed. The reason is not because of the precarious sound quality on many of the songs, but rather the overall lack of diversity of the music. Perhaps I'm not as scholarly as many of the previous reviewers in terms of the historical nuances of American Folk Music, and possibily that academic perspective is necessary to fully savor this set. All I know is that the vast majority of these songs sounded exactly the same to me and only one or two caught my attention as being poignant in the way I expected the majority of them to be. I don't think there was a single song that actually got my foot tappin' or a hum goin'. I've been compiling a blues/folk collection and I expected this to be one of the crowning jewels and I assure you it fell far short of that.

However, I can recommend another set that is along the same lines and is, in my opinion, vastly better. Title: "Roots 'N Blues Retrospective 1925-1950" on Sony/Columbia. It is a four CD set (it still has much more music than this Anthology set; the six CD's here are not that long) and there isn't a bad song on any one of them. It has a broader scope: folk, bluegrass, acoustic blues, and lots of very unique stuff that is somewhere between vaudeville and burlesque. It has all the charm and humor of a simpler and more genuine era in American life. That set proved to be what I expected this set to be. (I won't mention that it is only two-thirds the price as well, because if you're seeking out music of this genre the cost is probably of incidental concern.)

The Retrospective set has only a few reviews behind it but please don't let that chill you. If you get it and strongly agree/disagree with me, I'd be interested in knowing as I'm really curious why this set has the notoriety and that set does not. But I'm confident that if you throw a few logs on the fire and pour yourself an icy cold beverage of your choice and put one of the Retrospective CD's on, you'll have a glowing smile on your face in no time at all. With this Anthology set some other state of mind will predominate, one less visceral and ultimately less fun.


The first great collection of American folk song recordings   March 14, 2002
 57 out of 61 found this review helpful

The "Anthology of American Folk Music" put together by Harry Smith was originally issued in 1952 in three volumes of 2 LPs each, with a total of 84 tracks collected from old records. It is said that this collection played a seminal role in the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, influencing and inspiring the generation of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Once you listen to these songs you will have little doubt that was indeed the case. The three volumes focus on Ballads, Social Music, and Songs respectively. I did not recognize enough of these 84 songs to use all of the fingers on my guitar picking hand and I could not care less. You can look over the playlist above and see if anything looks familiar, but, obviously, that is beside the point here. These songs involve a definition of "folk" that is expansive enough to include blues singers like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Richard "Rabbit" Brown. The authenticity of these songs is overpowering, transporting you to a time and place when radio was just starting to make inroads into the backwoods of America.

The collection includes a 100-page booklet that features harry Smith's original handbook of songs, an essay by critic Greil Marcus, along with other essays, song notes, photos, graphics, and recollections by legendary artists about how this anthology inspired their own careers. The overall effect is like taking a college course on American Folk Music. Whether your interest in this type of music comes from listening to the Weavers, Peter Paul, & Mary, or the soundtrack to "Brother, Where Art Thou?" hopefully your enjoyment of folk music will lead you back to this seminal collection. Additional Note: There is also an excellent website put together by the Smithsonian Folkways that will tell you for not only alternate titles (e.g., "The Wagoner's Lad" is also known as "Loving Nancy" and "My Horses Ain't Hungry"), but other recorded versions organized by styles (e.g., traditional American Folk, Folksong revival, Post revival, Country/String Band, Bluegrass, and British). Like everyone else, I have been greatly impressed by the way the Smithsonian Institute has been protecting our nation's heritage when it comes to folk music. They take their job seriously and they are very, very good at it.


Necessary.   May 28, 2003
 26 out of 28 found this review helpful

I dont think there is a need to go into to much detail about this *6 CD* set. If you can fork over the cash, just buy it. If you have any interest in roots music, just buy it. If you thought ol' Bobby Dylan and the Band made some great weird music in the basement of big pink in '67 .. for the love of god, BUY THIS! strange, unadorned, raw music , just buy it.


Absolutely essential for too many reasons to name here   December 23, 2000
 25 out of 25 found this review helpful

My review title says it all. Of course, that won't stop me from saying more...

Let's just say I wouldn't trust a musician that did not have at least a passing familiarity with one of the following: 1. The Anthology of American Folk Music; or 2. An artist that appeared on The Anthology of American Folk Music; or 3. At least a few songs from TAAFM.

That said, I feel very strongly that even if you are not a musician, regardless of the style of contemporary music you listen to (and I ravenously devour current music), whether it be Radiohead, Fishbone, Wilco, D'Angelo, Dr. Dre WHATEVER, if you listen to this collection, you will hear the roots of modern music. Somewhere I read a review of TAAFM and it called it a "genetic code" for modern music, which is entirely appropriate.

As a collection of songs and performances, this collection is entertaining, educational, shocking, delightful, scary (try listening to the first few tracks of disc 2-B alone in the dark...) revelatory, essential. As a stand-alone document, The Anthology is a kind of Rosetta Stone, having influenced every aspect of popular music through the years both directly and indirectly (subconsciously, even).

It makes me think that perhaps these songs already exist in everyone's psyche...they are there, but you do not know it until you hear them. The songs are both familiar and strange, and at times some selections seem so fragile and precious, they might crumble if you listen too hard (yet you always do).

And by the way, even if initially you absolutely HATE a FEW selections (and trust me, you will...I did!), they will be internalized nonetheless, and you will subsequently embrace them, and come to love them. Like a blemish on your lover's otherwise perfect breast, they are as much a part of the collection as the selections you love, and just as essential to the whole.

The packaging is perfection, by the way. From the huge book of essays and analysis, to the repro of Harry Smith's original book, to the way they organized the selections on the CD's (resisting the temptation to condense the music onto fewer discs, even though they would have fit), it is all true to Harry's original vision. There could be no more appropriate way to present this material other than what Smithsonian Folkways has done. I have played this for people, and when they ask me to record it for them (and they always do), I steadfastly refuse. Not because I work for RIAA or anything like that, but because a document this grandiose, this important and this properly packaged, should not be trivialized by being disassembled in such a fashion. It needs to be consumed as a harmonious whole to be fully appreciated. It would be like emailing someone a JPG of the Mona Lisa's smile and expecting them to fully dig it and appreciate the whole.

If you have not noticed, I admit that I have acquired a near religious obsession with this collection. Having owned it now for two and a half years, I find myself still seeking any and all information about this remarkable collection.