Smithsonian Folkways Recordings "Anthology of American Folk Music" curated by Harry Smith

Harry Smith was one of the world’s great eccentrics.

The unorthodox lifestyle and non-conformist beliefs of his parents must have already given him a big head-start on becoming such a pioneer of west-coast bohemia.  Growing up on the Pacific Northwest like he did, with licence to indulge and pursue his magpie enthusiasms, I imagine he knew right from the beginning that he was different.

While a student with the University of Washington's anthropology department at the tail-end of the war years, around the time the beatnik era had begun its incubation, he made a fledgling journey down the coast to San Francisco and smoked his first joint.

Shortly thereafter, he quit school, moved to the Bay area, and found a place in the local arts community as a painter and film-maker and an obsessive archival collector without borders, collecting all kinds weird and wonderful shit.... including the thousands of 78rpm shellac discs from which he came to distill 1952’s three-volume, six-LP, collection “Anthology of American Folk Music”.

The Smith story is long and fascinating - far too long to go into with much detail right here - that's why I include the collection's booklet of notes and essays and stuff, and also the Harry Smith chapter from a book about the crazy world of collector-archivists by Amanda Petrusich called "Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World's Rarest 78rpm Records".  ("A cracking good read on the anthropology of obsession," sez Lazz) 

The production of the legendary Anthology took place when the river of serendipity and a Guggenheim grant washed him up in New York at the Chelsea, badly short of cash, and drove him to offer some of his precious collection of 78s for sale to Moses Asch at Folkways records.  Asch commissioned him instead to edit and curate an overview of American music from the mid-'20s up to the depression driven collapse of the early record business.  Those of you who own the Paramount collections will in consequence discover some duplication.

Smith had planned for six volumes in total, extending the anthology's reach through to the end of the '40s.  For one reason or another, he failed.  Luckily for us and the rest of the world, the lovely Revenant Records worked with the Harry Smith Archive to recreate a fourth volume, also included here.

(You may find worthwhile diversion here, too: http://www.harveybialy.org/category/harry-smith/)

Snooks Eaglin - New Orleans Street Singer

Snooks Eaglin, born Fird Eaglin, Jr. (January 21, 1936 – February 18, 2009), was a New Orleans-based guitarist and singer. He was also referred to as Blind Snooks Eaglin in his early years.

His vocal style is reminiscent of Ray Charles; indeed, in the 1950s, when he was in his late teens, he would sometimes bill himself as "Little Ray Charles". Generally regarded as a legend of New Orleans music, he played a wide range of music within the same concert, album, or even song: blues, rock and roll, jazz, country, and Latin. In his early years, he also played some straight-ahead acoustic blues.

His ability to play a wide range of songs and make them his own earned him the nickname "the human jukebox." Eaglin claimed in interviews that his musical repertoire included some 2,500 songs.At live shows, he did not usually prepare set lists, and was unpredictable, even to his bandmates. He played songs that came to his head, and he also took requests from the audience. He was universally loved and respected by fellow musicians and fans alike.

Eaglin lost his sight not long after his first birthday after being stricken with glaucoma, and spent several years in the hospital with other ailments. Around the age of five Eaglin received a guitar from his father; he taught himself to play by listening to and playing along with the radio. A mischievous youngster, he was given the nickname "Snooks" after a radio character named Baby Snooks.

In 1947, at the age of 11, Eaglin won a talent contest organized by the radio station WNOE by playing "Twelfth Street Rag". Three years later, he dropped out of the school for the blind to become a professional musician. In 1952, Eaglin joined the Flamingoes, a local seven-piece band started by Allen Toussaint. The Flamingoes did not have a bass player, and according to Eaglin, he played both the guitar and the bass parts at the same time on his guitar. He stayed with The Flamingoes for several years, until their dissolution in the mid-1950s.


As a solo artist, his recording and touring were inconsistent, and for a man with a career of about 50 years, his discography is rather slim. His first recording was in 1953, playing guitar at a recording session for James "Sugar Boy" Crawford. The first recordings under his own name came when Harry Oster, a folklorist from Louisiana State University, found him playing in the streets of New Orleans. Oster made recordings of Eaglin between 1958 and 1960 during seven sessions which later became records on various labels including Folkways, Folklyric, and Prestige/Bluesville. These recordings were in folk blues style, Eaglin with an acoustic guitar without a band.

There are still quite a few street musicians in New Orleans who rarely play anywhere else despite being plenty good enough, some of them claim that they make far more money on the street than they can anywhere else.