Anthology of American Folk Music
Anthology of American Folk Music is a three-album compilation, released in 1952 by Folkways Records, of eighty-four recordings of American folk, blues and country music made and issued from 1926 to 1933 by a variety of performers. The album was compiled from experimental film maker Harry Smith's own personal collection of 78 rpm records.
Upon its release the Anthology sold relatively poorly and had no notable early coverage besides a minor 1958 mention in Sing Out!. It is now, however, generally regarded as a landmark release in the history of the album as well as an influential release during the 1950s and 1960s American folk music revival. In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 276 on their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time,[3] and, in 2005, the album was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.[4]
Background[edit]
Harry Smith was a West Coast filmmaker, magickian, bohemian, and eccentric.[5] As a teenager he started collecting old blues, jazz, country, Cajun, and gospel records and accumulated a large collection of recordings,[6] 78s being the only medium at the time.
In 1947, he met with Moses Asch, with an interest in selling or licensing the collection to Asch's label, Folkways Records.[7] Smith wrote that he selected recordings from between "1927, when electronic recording made possible accurate music reproduction, and 1932, when the Great Depression halted folk music sales."[8] 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.[9] Folkways founder Moses had a "reputation for releasing copyrighted songs without going through the proper legal channels."[10]