ABSTRACT
Since its release in 1952, Harry Smith’s Anthology of Amer ican Folk Music has attracted a small but influential body of scholarship, situating the collection in the fields of musicology, folklore and modern history. As yet, little attempt has been made to think about these commentaries as a canon, and to examine the connections and tensions that run between them. This chapter, therefore, will examine the history of this critical framework, from early (relatively muted) responses to the Anthology, to seminal readings from commentators like Robert Cantwell and Greil Marcus, to more recent responses stimulated by the Smithsonian Folkways reissue of the Anthology in 1997. In so doing, this chapter will also inevitably be drawn into the tangled question of the relationship between the Anthology and the Amer ican folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. In many ways, it is precisely the question of the cultural work performed by the Anthology at this pivotal moment that forms the central kernel of the ongoing critical debate surrounding Smith’s collection. That said, it must immediately be acknowledged that, in crucial ways, the critical debate surrounding the Anthology is almost entirely a product of the late twentieth century. Most of the earliest critical reactions to the Anthology consisted of little more than brief references and basic descriptions in journal articles. These include Philip L. Miller’s 1952 article “Recorded Amer icana” in the Notes journal of the Music Library Association, which describes the content and style of the collection, and concludes with an exhortation to, “Consider his (Moses Asch) ways and be wise.”1 The following year Mary Brian published “A Bibliography of Audio-Visual Aids for Courses in Amer ican Literature,” which featured some consideration of folk music and culture, as it included some of Carl Sandburg’s records. It also recommends the Anthology, with a short summary that concludes with the phrase “Very authentic.”2 Moses Asch himself also published an article in the Notes journal (possibly the most obvious avenue of publication given his connections to the library world) simply titled “Folk.” In this he discussed his understanding of the term, but the article also functioned as a convenient way of advertising Folkways records, and a Folkways recording accompanied that issue of Notes. The
references to the Anthology largely consist of recommending recordings on the collection as outstanding examples of a particular folk style or tradition.3
