Anthology Revisited - A Journey through Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music
TL;DR -- A brief introduction to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, my own obsession with the collection, and the Anthology Revisited series, with links to all pieces to date.
(INTRODUCTORY NOTE: If you’re not new here and want to get to the articles, this helpful link will bypass the introduction and take you straight to the articles.)
Welcome to Anthology Revisited, the song-by-song journey through Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology of American Folk Music that was released by Folkways Records in 1952 and reissued in 1997 by Smithsonian Folkways.
If you’re entirely unfamiliar with the Anthology of American Folk Music (aka the “Harry Smith Anthology” or just “the Anthology” in this series), here’s the quick scoop. The Anthology consists of recordings that were commercially released between 1926 and 1932 on such labels as Victor, Columbia, Gennett, and Paramount, to name a few. When originally released, the Anthology was 84 songs in three volumes of two LP’s apiece. Each volume focuses on specific types of songs, each volume contains multiple themes, and subthemes, along with myriad connections between the songs and performers which weave the collection into a stunning musical tapestry.
Who is Harry Smith?
Apart from a few biographical facts below, I won’t go deep into the details of Harry Smith’s life in this post, as he’ll be discussed in greater detail throughout the series. For now, here are some basics. Harry Everett Smith was born in Portland Oregon in 1923, and was a polymath whose interests and knowledge spanned multiple disciplines. As a young man, Smith made field recordings of ceremonies by the Lummi indigenous people on the coast of Washington state, and displayed a keen interest in anthropology. He moved to San Francisco in his twenties and was heavily into music, as a regular audience member at live jazz performances and an avid record collector with a keen interest in pre-depression recordings. Harry Smith also made avant-garde short films back when such a craft was a tedious process that involved creating each frame individually. His filmaking efforts earned him a Guggenheim grant in 1950, and he moved to New York City.
Once in New York, Smith assembled the Anthology of American Folk Music from the records he had collected over the years. The 84 songs explore a swath of commercial recordings from that era including Americanized versions of old English and Scottish ballads, Acadian music, fiddle tunes and other dance music, religious music, as well as other old time, hillbilly, and race recordings (the predecessors of the country and blues music).
The songs in the Anthology are organized around styles and were released in three volumes, each focusing on a particular type of folk music. Each volume features the same artwork on the sleeve, and on the CD reissue, the background is a different color for each volume. Furthermore, the volumes are meticulously assembled, with Smith’s intricate and brilliant track sequencing adding yet another dimension to the collection.
Volume One - Ballads (green) opens with a few American versions of Child Ballads, then explores other ballads of both US and foreign origin before closing the set with songs about current events of the early twentieth century.
Volume Two - Social Music (red) starts with dance music and ends with religious music. I like to think of this as the Saturday Night / Sunday Morning volume. The first part of Volume Two is devoted to dance music, and includes such styles as Acadian music, square dance music, and large group performances. The second part of Social Music explores religious music and showcases such forms as shape note singing, lined hymn sermon singing, among others.
Volume Three - Songs (blue) explores various song forms that existed in the folk music of the time. Smith showcases examples of various songwriting styles and themes that were common in the era, and does a good job introducing the concept of floating verses (verses that appear in various folk songs and can show up just about anywhere).
After assembling the collection and compiling the legendary liner notes (which can be downloaded from this link), Smith got Moses Asch of Folkways Records to release the collection. It’s worth noting that Harry never secured the rights to the recordings, so the Anthology was basically a gigantic six LP bootleg mixtape with exquisite notes. What sets Smith apart from the ordinary profiteering bootlegger is that Smith’s goal wasn’t simply to make money off of these recordings, but to ensure that the recordings would be preserved for future generations.
Smith’s goal was achieved in the most incredible of ways. The Anthology was among the inspirations for the folk music revival that began in the late 1950’s and continued through the first half of the 1960’s. Not only did Smith’s Anthology introduce new audiences and artists to old music and forms of music making, several of the artists whose recordings appeared on the collection enjoyed revivals of their own music careers.
The CD Reissue
The Anthology was released on CD in 1997 with the original liner notes and an additional booklet that included more notes on the songs and essays by folks whose worlds had been rocked by the Anthology in its original form. The reissued collection won Grammy awards in 1998 for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes.
And it’s with the CD reissue that I first crossed paths with the Anthology… I worked in music retail when it came out, and still recall the day I bought my first copy of the Anthology. I got home from work, opened the box and was immediately entranced by Smith’s cryptic liner notes. I put on the first disc and spent the rest of the evening listening to the Anthology in its entirety. Throughout the journey, I was introduced to artists, characters, stories, and styles of music that I’d never known existed. It was an incredible amount of music to consume in one sitting, and while it’s the kind of marathon listening session I’d recommend at least once, such sessions don’t allow for much absorption because there’s simply so much to consume, and it’s all mind-blowing in its own way.
Over the years, I’ve gone through phases with each disc, and spent innumerable hours with this set, occasionally finding myself so taken with a particular performance that I’ll scour the Internet to learn more about the artist or to find further versions of the song. During such explorations, I discovered sites like Where Dead Voices Gather: Life at 78 RPM, My Old Weird America, and The Celestial Monochord whose authors had already done their homework on these songs and artists, and shared their findings.
In 2024, I was on such a jag, and encountered information that had only come to light in the past decade or so, that I’d not seen published elsewhere. This got me to thinking that I should stop being a passive consumer of this stuff, and share my own passion for this music with others. So I decided to do my part to revive the discussion of the Anthology, and build upon the work of previous researchers and fans, and Anthology Revisited came into being.
Anthology Revisited
With the Anthology Revisited project, I’ll be writing (at least) 84 more pieces on the Harry Smith Anthology with the goal of creating a comprehensive resource on the Anthology of American Folk Music. In the song-by-song journey, each essay explores the history of the song, the performance that appears on the Anthology, and the artists who appear on the recording. A separate section explores the connections between the songs and the songs which preceded it. By discussing songs in this way and using a separate section to focus on the interrelationships, I’m hoping to crack Harry Smith’s code a little, to reveal the finer details of this glorious mosaic Smith so meticulously assembled for us.
Following the analysis, the articles include links to recordings recommended in Harry Smith’s liner notes, along with further interpretations of the song selected by me, your author. Lastly, each piece also includes a YouTube playlist of songs discussed in the piece, a discography with links to all available recordings by the performer(s), and links to all the sources.
Some final notes that didn’t seem to fit in anywhere else.
NOTE ONE - As I share installments of the Anthology Revisited series, I’ll include links to YouTube videos of the songs so you can hear them. You can purchase the Anthology in all of its glory directly from Smithsonian Folkways. If you’re curious about the music contained on the Anthology and would like to give it a listen now, I maintain an Anthology of American Folk Music playlist on Spotify. Because the Anthology is a bootleg collection of sorts, the rights have always been an issue for the set. As of this writing (March 13, 2025), 76 of the 84 songs on the Anthology are available to Spotify listeners in the United States. I update the playlist linked above regularly because the songs available on Spotify in the US will change periodically.
NOTE TWO - A fourth volume of the Anthology (Labor Songs) was compiled by Smith but not released until 2000. After I’ve wrapped up the series for the first three volumes, I may continue and cover the fourth volume as well. It was not a part of the original release, so I have mixed feelings about its inclusion here.
How to Support Anthology Revisited
This project is a labor of love, and with the exception of block quotes and URL’s, every word in each article comes from my fingertips. Because the Internet is chock full of AI slop, I want to state unequivocally that AI plays no role in the composition of these pieces. The truth is too important, and your time is too valuable.
Throughout this series, the primary goal is to create a work of substance that adds value to the ongoing conversation about Harry Smith’s Anthology and its impact. The secondary goal is to use this series to convince the world that I’m a serious music writer with a whole lot to offer.
Your likes, follows, shares, and comments are tremendously helpful to me, and are most appreciated. If you would like to support my work (or contact me beyond the comments section), here are some actions you can take:
You can subscribe to this Substack. You’ll receive these articles in your inbox, and all you have to do is click the “Subscribe now” button below and enter your email address in the box that appears.
You can pass this article along to someone else who might like it via the “Share” button. I really hope you’ll do this. I know there’s an audience for this, I just don’t know where to find them. If you know a person or group of folks who might find this interesting, kindly pass this article along, and together, we’ll find the niche into which this fits.
I don’t have paid subscriptions enabled at the moment, but as you might imagine, this is a time-consuming project, and I do purchase research supplies like books, box sets, and albums (for the liner notes). If you’d like to make a financial contribution to support my efforts, click the “Buy Me a Coffee” button.
Lastly, if you’d like to offer any corrections, suggestions, have any questions about Anthology Revisited, or would like to discuss the finer points, please email me directly at rodney.hargis at outlook.com
Links
For convenience, links to new articles in the Anthology Revisited series will appear below upon publication.
UPDATE: (June 28, 2025): I incorporate genealogical research into these pieces, and have been able to fill in some small information gaps for a fair number of performers. By “small information gaps”, I mean things like confirming locations of birth or death, locations of grave sites (when available), or learning a person’s location at a particular time. In some cases, I cite Census or Draft Registration records to support these statements, but unless I add new information to a performer’s narrative, I don’t consider these to be significant findings, although to some, they may be.
In a few instances, I have unearthed what I believe to be significant biographical information about performers that I had not seen published elsewhere. Articles containing such findings are marked with an asterisk (*) below.
VOLUME ONE - BALLADS
Side A
01 - Henry Lee by Dick Justice
02 - Fatal Flower Garden by Nelstone’s Hawaiians*
03 - The House Carpenter by Clarence Ashley
04 - Drunkard’s Special by Coley Jones
05 - Old Lady and the Devil by Bill and Belle Reed
06 - The Butcher’s Boy (Railroad Boy) by Buell Kazee
SUPPLEMENTAL ARTICLE Whence the Butcher’s Boy?
07 - The Wagoner’s Lad by Buell Kazee
Side B
08 - King King Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O by Chubby Parker and his Old Time Banjo
09 - Old Shoes and Leggins by Uncle Eck Dunford
10 - Willie Moore by Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford
11 - A Lazy Farmer Boy by Buster Carter and Preston Young*
12 - Peg and Awl by Carolina Tar Heels
13 - Ommie Wise by G.B. Grayson
14 - My Name is John Johanna by Kelly Harrell and the Virginia String Band
Side C
15 - Bandit Cole Younger by Edward L. Crain
16 - Charles Giteau [sic] by Kelly Harrell and the Virginia String Band*
17 - John Hardy was a Desperate Little Man - The Carter Family
18 - Gonna Die with My Hammer in My Hand - Williamson Brothers and Curry
19 - Stackalee by Frank Hutchison
20 - White House Blues by Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers
21 - Frankie by Mississippi John Hurt
Side D
22 - When That Great Ship Went Down by William and Versey Smith
23 - Engine One-Forty-Three by The Carter Family
24 - Kassie Jones by Furry Lewis
25 - Down on Penny’s Farm by Bentley Boys
26 - Mississippi Boweavil Blues by The Masked Marvel
27 - Got the Farm Land Blues by The Carolina Tar Heels
VOLUME ONE RECAP (Published September 26, 2025)
Putting It All Together: Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume One - Ballads
SIDEBAR (Published October 31, 2025)
Young Bob Dylan and the Harry Smith Anthology