Sunday, December 10, 2006

The Harry Smith Project: The Anthology Of American Folk Music Revisited


I got "The Harry Smith Project: "The Anthology Of American Folk Music Revisited (2 CD/2 DVD BOX SET)" from Amazon. Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music" is the album which Bob Dylan was very interested in around 1960, before his debut. Harry Smith was an ethnologist, born in 1923 in Portland, Oregon, and in the end of his 20s, collected 78 EPs of 1920s, 1930s blues, hillbilly, folk songs, spiritual or instrumentals. He edited them to 6 LPs, with classification of Ballads, Social Music, Songs and released them in 1952 from Folkways Record.

"The Harry Smith Project: The Anthology Of American Folk Music Revisited (2 CD/2 DVD BOX SET)" is named "Revisited" and recorded live performance of "The Hal Wilner's Harry Smith Project Concert" in London, New York, and Los Angeles in 1999 and 2001. Performers are Beck, Kate& Anna McGarrigle, Garth Hudson, Geoff Muldaur, Van Dyke Parks, or Lou Reed, etc. I like it, but Hal Wilner should have invited Bob Dylan.

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