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Smithsonian set preserves influential music

From some of the smallest, poorest and most isolated towns of the country came some of the most significant music. In the bleak tracts of rural America, the roots of folk music managed to take hold – but it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when this occurred.

American folk songs drip with history and tradition, but the stories and characters found throughout them seem as though they have simply always existed – no one knows who these people were or when they were alive, but they know their stories and the tune to which to tell them. It’s as though folk music wasn’t taught or learned, but instead was passed through the blood of generations of musicians.

This blurry line of creation exists because it was only when technology caught up with these musicians that the public was exposed to the raw, untouched talent of these artists. Because of this, the full story of folk music can never be known. Many historic folk songs have no known authors, yet all folk singers know the music and words without ever knowing exactly how they know. The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, however, helped fill in a little more of music’s rich history by compiling the earliest recordings of American folk music.

Originally released in 1952, the Anthology of American Folk Music is an assemblage of rare folk and blues. Editor Harry Smith sought out the obscure music of the 1920s and 1930s and brought it together in three volumes of double LPs. When it was released, it exposed not only a genre of music many were unfamiliar with, but a way of life few had experienced.

The songs are a haunting glimpse of small-town American life told by those who have truly lived it, and the 84 tracks enlightened and inspired a generation, bringing about the folk and blues revival of the 1960s.

The three volumes are divided into "Ballads," "Social Music" and "Songs," and the collection introduced the general, or at least the generally uninformed, public to the immeasurable talent of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, The Carter Family and Mississippi John Hurt. The Anthology offers something the majority of modern music lacks. It is music in its truest form – before musicians sought fame or recognition, before the technological advances that allow for sound manipulation and enhancement, and before musicians’ goals were to create radio-friendly songs devoid of depth and meaning.

The musicians featured on the Anthology sang of what they knew, which often wasn’t pleasant, and they certainly weren’t looking to broadcast what was the musical culmination of their hardships, joys, lifestyle and culture to the masses.

Soon after its initial release, however, the collection became hard to find. It would be more than 40 years before the Anthology was digitally re-mastered and re-released. In 1997 the collection could again be found and is now accompanied by a 100-page booklet of essays and liner notes.

The Anthology of American Folk Music once inspired a generation of musicians, which in turn inspired another. Unfortunately, somewhere down the line much of the original intent was lost, and the re-release of the collection a decade ago was long overdue. The six-disc set beautifully preserves not just a type of music, but the history and culture of a large portion of our country. Without the Smithsonian’s collection, much of the talent and tales found on the albums would have been lost, to the detriment of the music industry and music lovers alike.

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