Young Bob Dylan and the Harry Smith Anthology [Anthology Revisited Sidebar]

TL;DR -- New Dylan release prompts examination of Harry Smith's Anthology's impact upon Bob Dylan's artistic development.

I’m currently researching the songs that appear on Volume Two - Social Music, and haven’t had much to say for a bit. But I couldn’t let the release of a new Dylan box set go by without discussing the influence of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music on Dylan’s artistic evolution.

How influential was Harry Smith’s Anthology?

Although I am partial to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, I try not to overestimate the collection’s direct impact on the 1960’s folk revival as a whole. Some writers view the Anthology as a cornerstone to the movement, and while I believe Smith’s work absolutely contributed to the folk revival, I also believe the folk movement would have emerged without Harry Smith’s Anthology, although it might have sounded a bit different.

So, it’s safe to say that the Anthology of American Folk Music played a sizable role in the folk revival, and a very significant role in the lives of the artists whose careers were revived because their recordings appeared on Smith’s collection. However, the Anthology is but one piece of a much larger movement from which the 60’s folk revival emerged. While numerous artists who gained prominence during the folk revival were absolutely influenced by the Anthology, they were also influenced by the music of other artists like Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, The Weavers, and many others, and other collections of old time recordings like The Country Blues, compiled by Samuel Charters (who also wrote a book of the same name), along with sets assembled by Ralph Rinzler, the Lomaxes, and others for release on Folkways and other labels.

The 60’s folk revival picked up steam, and the Anthology’s influence grew. Songs from the collection started appearing in the sets of folksingers, and were added of the common well from which these performers drew.

For a high profile example of an artist upon whom Smith’s Anthology had some influence, we have the work of Bob Dylan. Although I cannot say conclusively that Bob Dylan sat with a copy of the Anthology and pored over its contents, I can say with certainty that Bob Dylan became acquainted with the songs on Harry Smith’s Anthology in some way or another, and several songs from the Anthology appeared in Dylan’s early (and later) recordings, and directly influenced his compositions.

Our best example of the Anthology’s influence on young Bob Dylan is in the Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 (BLS18), which was released today (October 31, 2025) by Columbia Records. The 8 CD set includes six songs that appeared on Harry Smith’s Anthology and one of Dylan’s original songs which drew heavily from a song on the Anthology.

The songs from Smith’s Anthology that appear on the new box set are:

• East Virginia Blues (Disc 1 - Track 5)

  Recorded in Madison, WI - Late 1960)
  Anthology Song 58 - performed by Buell Kazee

• K.C. Moan (Disc 1 Track 6)
  Recorded in Madison, WI - Late 1960
  Anthology Song 81 - performed by Memphis Jug Band

• See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Disc 1 - Track 19)
  Live at Gerdes Folk City, NYC - Oct. 1, 1961
  Anthology Song 76 - performed by Blind Lemon Jefferson)

• House Carpenter (Disc 2 - Track 10)
  1961 - Outtake from Dylan’s first album
  Anthology Song 3 - performed by Clarence Ashley

• Hard Times in New York Town (Disc 3 - Track 5)
  Folksinger’s Choice, WBAI-FM Studios, NYC - March 11, 1962
  Based on Anthology Song 25 - Down on Penny’s Farm by The Bentley Boys

• The Cuckoo (Disc 4 - Track 12)
  Live at The Gaslight Cafe, NYC - Oct. 1962
  Anthology Song 57 - performed by Clarence Ashley

• James Alley Blues (Disc 5, Song 16 )
  Informal Recording, NYC, 1963
  Anthology Song 61 - Performed by Richard “Rabbit” Brown.

(NOTE: Not all recordings from the new set are available on YouTube, and I don’t want any strikes against my YouTube account, so I’ll refrain from uploading them myself. All recordings from the new set that are available on YouTube are embedded at the end of this article, and can also be heard on this YouTube playlist.)

Bob Dylan, another link in the chain

Don’t be fooled by the lyrics of “Positively Fourth Street”. Bob Dylan is (and has always been) a master thief. Throughout his storied career, Dylan has borrowed tunes, lines, phrases, structures, and ideas from countless songs (and other sources). It’s not really even thievery, it’s just the folk process, Bob Dylan style. (Though I am prone to sidebars, I’ll resist the temptation to discuss various plagiarism accusations tossed in Dylan’s direction since the turn of the twenty-first century.)

Back in the days before recorded music, a given song could vary wildly in content and style from one region to another, because each performer would learn the song from either a broadside (a large lyric sheet) or from another performer. When the performer started playing the newly acquired song for themselves, they would inevitably put their own spin on things, whether or not they intended to do so. Since there were no recordings to reference, there was no “definitive” performance of any given song. New performers would learn the songs, then create variants by adding or changing lyrical or musical elements. Sometimes, lyrical and musical elements were recycled and repurposed to create an entirely new song. Variants of these new songs would emerge, and later be the sources of other variants or new songs, and so on. The sequence was part of the folk process, and it went on for generations before recorded music came into being.

Every artist who appeared on Harry Smith’s Anthology, and every artist who performed these songs (before the Anthology’s release and in the years since), are links in the chain that has kept these songs alive. In this way, Bob Dylan is just another link in a very long chain.

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Dylan does selections from Harry Smith’s Anthology

Throughout his career, Dylan has performed multiple songs from Anthology of American Folk Music or variants of songs that appear on Smith’s collection. Here are some examples, and comments, arranged in the order the songs appeared on the Anthology.

“Love Henry” - Variant of “Henry Lee” (Song 1)

This variant of “Henry Lee” appears on Dylan’s criminally underappreciated¹ 1993 album, World Gone Wrong*. While this isn’t the exact same song Dick Justice recorded, it tells the same story, and a very close relative of “Henry Lee”.

The liner notes to Dylan’s 1963 album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan include the following quote from Dylan regarding his song “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”.

It’s a hard song to sing. I can sing it sometimes, but I ain’t that good yet. I don’t carry myself yet the way that Big Joe Williams, Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Lightnin’ Hopkins have carried themselves. I hope to be able to someday, but they’re older people. I sometimes am able to do it, but it happens, when it happens, unconsciously. ²

On World Gone Wrong, Bob Dylan has become the man to which younger self alluded.

“The House Carpenter” (Song 3)

In this outtake from the recording sessions for Dylan’s 1961 debut album, we’ve got a fantastic reading of "The House Carpenter”, which was performed by Clarence Ashley on the Anthology of American Folk Music. Dylan has done his homework on this song, and in the spoken introduction mentions the supernatural elements that were part of the song before it came to the west side of the Atlantic Ocean. Not only does the song feature an intro that references the song’s supernatural components, it includes verses that don’t appear in Ashley’s recording.

”The Butcher’s Boy (Railroad Boy)” (Song 6)

Dylan has been caught on tape performing The Butcher’s Boy a few times over the years. The first version below recording came from 1961 and is followed by a performance from 1976 with Joan Baez.

”Froggie Went a Courtin’” - Variant of “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O” (Song 8)

Unlike Chubby Parker’s version of “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O”, Dylan’s take of “Froggie Went a Courtin’” from 1992’s Good as I Been to You doesn’t include nonsense lyrics or whistling.

Good as I Been to You and the aforementioned World Gone Wrong were Dylan’s first solo acoustic albums in almost 30 years, and featured Dylan performing versions of songs he didn’t write. Good as I Been to You featured selections from several musical genres, while World Gone Wrong focused on folk and blues numbers.

”Ballad of Omie Wise” - Variant of “Ommie Wise” (Song 11)

While not the exact same song as G.B. Grayson’s “Ommie Wise”, Song 11 on Harry Smith’s Anthology, this 1961 recording tells the same story, just told a little differently.

“John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man” (Song 17)

If you read the piece on “John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man”, you’re already well aware of my absolute love for this recording. These rehearsal sessions with the Grateful Dead marked a turning point in Bob Dylan’s musical journey. Prior to these sessions (which were rehearsals for the brief Dylan and the Dead tour, wherein the Grateful Dead served as Dylan’s backing band), Dylan seemed to be struggling musically. His live performances weren’t bad, but lacked the power that had been present just a few years before³.

These rehearsals awoke something in Bob Dylan, and in this version of “John Hardy was a Desperate Little Man”, (with Jerry Garcia on banjo), Dylan’s vocal renaissance is already underway, with spectacular results.

After completing his tour with the Grateful Dead, Dylan assembled a new band, and embarked on the Never Ending Tour, which included some of the greatest performances of his career and which, depending on who you ask, may still be going on today.

”Stackalee” (Song 19)

Along with the variant of “Henry Lee”, World Gone Wrong included Dylan’s take on Frank Hutchinson’s “Stackalee”. Unlike “Love Henry”, which is a variant of a song from the Anthology, this is Bob Dylan’s interpretation of a song that appears on the Anthology of American Folk Music.

”Frankie and Albert” - variant of “Frankie” (Song 21)

This recording from 1992’s Good as I Been to You is a variant of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Frankie”. Dylan’s guitar work on this performance is pretty sweet, not quite as sweet as Mississippi John Hurt’s playing. As much as I love the music of Bob Dylan, few things in this world are sweeter than the sound of Mississippi John Hurt’s guitar.

”Hard Times in New York” - rewrite of “Down on Penny’s Farm” (Song 25)

While this recording doesn’t feature any lyrics that appeared on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, the melody and phrasing for this song are lifted directly from the Bentley Boy’s “Down on Penny’s Farm” that closes Volume One - Ballads.

“Little Moses” (Song 53)

From here on out, the descriptions will be a little bit lighter. While these songs are on the Anthology of American Folk Music, I’ve only completed Volume One in the Anthology Revisited series, and don’t want to spoil too much of what will be in future installments.

Dylan never released a studio version of this song, but performed it regularly in his 1992 and 1993 concerts.

The Cuckoo - (Song 57)

Here we have a young Bob Dylan playing his take on the song that opens Volume Three - Songs, “The Coo Coo Bird” by Clarence Ashley.

East Virginia Blues - (Song 58)

The recording of “East Virginia” on Harry Smith’s Anthology was performed by Buell Kazee, and this particular performance is extra special. Not only does it feature Bob Dylan (guitar), Earl Scruggs (banjo), Randy Scruggs (guitar) and Gary Scruggs (bass), we’ve even got it on video.

NOTE: A recording of Dylan performing “East Virginia Blues” also appears on the newly-released Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 but it’s not available on YouTube at the moment. Once it shows up there, it’ll show up here.

“James Alley Blues” - (Song 61)

I’m not gonna go deep into this song here. It’s the 61st song on the Anthology, and I’ll go deep on it when I get there. For now, just know that I find Richard “Rabbit” Brown’s performance of “James Alley Blues” to be among the most potent recordings ever made.

I’ll examine Dylan’s performances in detail when I cover “James Alley Blues” in Anthology Revisited. Below, you will find a recording of Dylan doing the song in 1961.

NOTE: As with “East Virginia Blues”, there is a version of this song on Dylan’s BLS18 that isn’t yet available on YouTube. Once it is, I’ll add it to this piece.

See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (Song 76)

To me, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” is a national treasure along the lines of the Grand Canyon. In the recording, Jefferson expresses a nearly universal sentiment, the desire for someone to keep him alive in their memory by caring for his final resting place.

The first recording below is from Dylan’s debut album, where Dylan’s youth and exuberance were on full display. No restraint, just letting it rip. The second recording is from a party in 1961, and the performances are quite different.

Like the two previous songs, an additional version appears on BLS18, but it isn’t yet available on YouTube.

K.C. Moan (Song 81)

Finally, we’ve got Dylan and Danny Kalb performing the Memphis Jug Band’s “K.C. Moan” in late 1960 in Madison, Wisconsin. This was recorded before Dylan hit New York, and is the earliest Dylan performance to appear in this article.⁴ This is a fun take, and it shows that Dylan was quite familiar with at least one song from Harry Smith’s set before he headed to New York.

Conclusion

I want to wrap up by mentioning a few direct borrowings from the Anthology that appear in Dylan’s work. As has been mentioned, Song 27 “Down on Penny’s Farm” was a template for “Hard Times in New York” and a sort of spiritual ancestor to “Maggie’s Farm”. Dylan borrowed the phrase “Sugar for sugar, salt for salt” for his “Crash on the Levee (Down in the Flood)” from Song 61, Richard ‘Rabbit’ Brown’s “James Alley Blues”, and “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” from Blonde on Blonde features an appearance by railroad men who drink blood like wine. These railroad men also appear in Song 63 “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground”).

I’m sure there are other instances of Dylan borrowing lyrics from the Anthology, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind.

While I cannot state with any degree of certainty how much time young Bob Dylan spent with Harry Smith’s Anthology, it’s clear to me that he spent some time with the songs. Over the years, Dylan has performed at least 15 of the 84 songs from Harry Smith’s Anthology (or variants of those songs), with most of these performances taking place during the early 60’s.

I do believe that Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music had a potent impact on the young Bob Dylan, and by performing these songs, Dylan has shared his appreciation over the years, and turned other people on to these songs in the process.

And Bob Dylan is just one guy.

The Anthology of American Folk Music made an impression on plenty of other people whose names are less well-known than Bob Dylan’s, and Smith’s lovingly assembled set is still being enjoyed and studied nearly seventy five years since its release, and nearly one hundred years since the oldest recordings on the Anthology were made.

But…

The Anthology was just one part of the folk revival. There are a whole lot of songs Bob Dylan performed that he didn’t learn from the Anthology. Despite all the dissection I’ve done here, and the obvious impact of Harry Smith’s work, the 1960’s folk revival was far bigger than just these 84 songs.

That’s it for this installment. I’ll be back in a few weeks to resume the journey through Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, with “Sail Away Lady” by John L. “Uncle Bunt” Stephens, the 28th song in the Anthology, and the first song from Volume Two - Social Music.

1. While Bob Dylan’s album ‘World Gone Wrong’ won the 1995 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album, the record is often overlooked by music press, Dylan fans, and the public at large, and deserves much more love than it gets.

2. Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan liner notes from https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/freewheelin-bob-dylan/

3. For an example of the passion of which I speak, check out this “Mr. Tambourine Man” from Dylan’s 1981 tour).

4. Dylan’s 1960 performance of East Virginia Blues predates this recording of K.C. Moan,, but is not currently available on YouTube.