NEW Call for Papers: "America Changed Through Music" - The Book!

Following the success of "America Changed Through Music" on September 15th, we're now looking for contributors for what will be the first book-length study of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music in the six decades since its release. The official Call for Papers is below - please feel free to get in touch with any questions!

 “America Changed Through Music”: 

Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music

Following a highly successful international conference in September (http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/), proposals are now invited for a book of essays marking the sixtieth anniversary of Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology of American Folk Music. Over the six decades since its release in 1952, Smith’s collection of American vernacular musics has exerted considerable influence on numerous generations of musicians, artists, and writers. “America Changed Through Music”: Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music will be the first collection of essays to address the diverse legacies of what is widely considered a seminal work in twentieth-century music and art. Taking Smith’s speech at the Grammy Awards in 1991 as a starting-point —‘I’m glad to say that my dreams came true. I saw America changed through music’—we welcome proposals for essays that may consider, but are certainly not limited to, the following topics:

·         The Anthology in relation to Smith’s broader body of work

·         Analyses of individual artists and songs included in the Anthology

·         The Anthology and the development of American music

 ·         The Anthology’s influence on individual artists, writers, musicians, and beyond

·         The Anthology’s aesthetics

·         The Anthology’s politics

·         The critical heritage surrounding the Anthology

·         The 1997 CD reissue of the Anthology

·         Transatlantic dialogues in the Anthology

·         The cultural legacies of the Anthology

·         The Anthology’s role in defining/redefining notions of the Old and the New ‘Weird America’

·         The Anthology and ethnic and cultural identity

·         The Anthology and its music in the twenty-first century

Please send proposals of 300-500 words to Dr Thomas Ruys Smith [Thomas.Smith@uea.ac.uk] and Dr Ross Hair [R.Hair@uea.ac.uk] by December 20^th 2012. Please include a brief biographical statement / CV and contact details. [Submission of essays will be Summer 2013].

Ross Hair interviewed on Near 90.3 FM

The conference might be over, but never fear: we're still here to supply you with Harry Smith related infotainment! Ross Hair was interviewed about the 60th anniversary of the Anthology of American Folk Music by Dublin's Near 90.3 FM. The audio is available below. Enjoy!

Photos and video

We're very pleased to be able to share some images from the conference. First, here's a video of Ewan D. Rodgers performing "State of Arkansas" on the day:


And here are some photos of our performers, courtesy of conference attendee Delia Dattilo:

The day after...

We couldn't be happier with the way that everything turned out yesterday - so we'd like to offer up a few final thanks. We need to thank our panellists for their fascinating papers - and, in many cases, for travelling a long, long way to be with us. We need to thank our musicians - Rapunzel & Sedayne and Ewan D. Rodgers - for bringing the day to a wonderful, fitting end. We need to thank everyone who came along to listen, watch and contribute from the floor. We need to thank all those who helped to publicise the conference in the months of planning. And we absolutely need to thank our sponsors again - proudly listed in the sidebar to the right - as well as Drew Christie for the conference logo, and Binary & The Brain for the design work, and the UEA Conference Office for all their amazing support. So, the day is done. But we're not quite finished yet. We'll be posting some video of the musical portion of the day at some point in the not-too-distant future (so yet more thanks - to James Maycock for the filming).

And we'll be back with news of another exciting project very soon. So stay tuned...

So long...for now.

Getting ready...

See you all tomorrow!

"America Changed Through Music" on Cerys Matthews' BBC 6Music show - this Sunday

Stand by your (digital) radios: this Sunday, at around 11am, Thomas Ruys Smith is going to be chatting with Cerys Matthews about Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music on her BBC 6Music show. Should be a perfect warm-up for our conference! We'll archive the audio here after the event.

Next week, Ross Hair is going to be talking to Ireland's Near 90 FM. Stay tuned for more details!

Update: You can now listen to the show on the BBC iPlayer. The interview starts at about 1:08, though this link should take you straight to the right point in the programme.

Update: For posterity, a rough and ready copy of the interview is available here:

Conference Programme

Hot off the press, our official Conference Programme is available after the break below. Enjoy! Many thanks to the maestros at Binary & The Brain for the design.

Guest Post: Jesse Boardman Kauppila on "Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music"

Below, a new guest post from artist Jesse Boardman Kauppila, on his fascinating project "Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music." And a quick reminder: if you haven't booked yet for America Changed Through Music, time is pressing!

America Changed Through Music featured in The Financial Times

"Where the weird things are"

Above, a great article by Richard Clayton in today's Financial Times (Saturday 11th August) about Harry Smith, the Anthology of American Music at 60, and, excitingly, our conference. Hurry to your newsagents - or, failing that, the story is available in full here. If that's whetted your appetite, booking information is available here.

Guest Post: The 78 Project

A new guest post, this time courtesy of The 78 Project, on their extraordinary endeavours and their relationship to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music!

Guest Post: Cody Edison on Origins Anthology, 2012

In the run-up to "America Changed Through Music": Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60, we're hoping to feature a variety of guest posts which explore different ways in which the influence of the Anthology is still felt and experienced in contemporary culture. The first post, below, comes courtesy of artist Cody Edison. Enjoy, and remember to book your place.

"America Changed Through Music" in fRoots Magazine

We're thrilled that "America Changed Through Music": Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60 features twice in this month's bumper issue of fRoots magazine (Nos 350/351, August/September 2012). So order your copy forthwith - and now that word is really out, you'd better hurry up and book your place!

Booking now open!

We're excited to announce that booking for "America Changed Through Music": Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60 (Saturday September 15th, UEA London) is now open. You can download a booking form, and read a few more details of the day, here.

And we're equally excited to be able to share the provisional programme for the day here. More details very soon. But for now, enjoy, and happy booking.

Musical Guests: Rapunzel & Sedayne, Ewan D. Rodgers

Following a successful call for papers we're currently sifting through proposals and finalising the running order for the day - conference programme and booking form available soon! In the meantime, we're very excited to be able to announce the musical guests who will be performing, and in conversation, on the day. Thanks to the generosity of our wonderful sponsors, Folk Police Recordings, we're thrilled to be showcasing the extraordinary talents of acclaimed artists Rapunzel & Sedayne and Ewan D. Rodgers.

Rapunzel & Sedayne's Songs from the Barley Temple, released last year, received raved reviews and ended up at number 14 on the fRoots 2011 Critics Poll. Perhaps the best introduction to the album, though, comes courtesy of FolkWords: "awe-inspiring." There are plenty of equally glowing reviews on their Folk Police page. Below, to whet your appetite, here's an in-progress version of "The Wagoner's Lad" (from their Soundcloud page):


Ewan D. Rodger's debut From Hull, Halifax and Hell was equally lauded, and ranked in Maverick Magazine’s top 10 albums of 2010: "This is an album which captivated from the first second." His new album, Tomorrow Might Be Monday, is released this month by Folk Police's sister-label, The Northwestern Series. From that album, here's Ewan's version of "East Virginia Blues":


We couldn't be more excited that these incredible musicians are going to be performing songs from the Anthology and talking about its ongoing significance on September 15th. Huge thanks are due to Folk Police, purveyors of some of the most exciting music around, for sponsoring this portion of the day. Hurry to their website and order a copy of their latest release, Weirdlore: Notes from the Folk Underground - guaranteed enjoyment for anyone interested in the Old, Weird America or the New, Weird Britain.

New Conference Artwork by Drew Christie

Take a peek at the top of this page and you can't fail to miss our glorious new conference artwork, the creation of the extraordinarily talented artist and animator Drew Christie. Drew is currently wowing film festival audiences around the globe (including those at Sundance and Sundance UK) with his animated short Song of the Spindle. Amongst many other accolades, he has just been nominated for a 2012 Genius Award by Seattle's Stranger magazine. And he's got some history with Harry Smith. Harry is one of the many eccentrics profiled by Drew in his beautiful book Strange Americans. And he's the subject of the unmissable animation below - the best possible introduction to both Harry and the Anthology of American Folk Music. Press play, enjoy - and keep the paper submissions coming.

Old Weird Americana

There's not long left to submit your paper submissions for America Changed Through Music: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60 - take another look at our Call For Papers here. But if you're seeking inspiration, and you're located anywhere near Portland, Oregon (Smith's birthplace), then you should try to catch another couple of events that are marking the 60th anniversary of the Anthology. On Sunday May 20th, Old Weird Americana, a 60th Anniversary Tribute to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, is taking place at the Alberta Rose Theatre, and apparently includes performers Ural Thomas, Joe McMurrian, Lewi Longmire, Baby Gramps, James Low, Mark Lemhouse, Lauren Sheehan, Michael Dean Damron, Bob Shoemaker, Mike Midlo, PDX Country Underground, Miz Kitty, Kory Quinn, Jane Keefer, Tin Pan Alley Killers, Joe Hickerson, The Ghost of Harry Smith, and more. And today, Saturday May 12th, a free, in-store version of Old Weird Americana is taking place at Music Millennium at 3pm. If you make it to either event, enjoy. We'd be interested to hear more about it. And remember to get your paper submissions to us by the end of the month! More exciting news coming soon.

Call For Papers

“America Changed Through Music”: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60

UEA London, Saturday 15th September 2012

Keynote: Professor Geoff Ward, Royal Holloway, University of London

2012 marks the sixtieth anniversary of Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology of American Folk Music, which over the six decades of its existence has exerted considerable influence on generations of musicians, artists, and writers. In his speech at the Grammy Awards in 1991, when he received a Chairman's Merit Award for his contributions to American folk music, Smith claimed: “I’m glad to say that my dreams came true. I saw America changed through music.” This one day interdisciplinary conference, hosted by the UEA School of American Studies at UEA London, invites papers that will consider Smith’s claim: to what extent has America “changed through music”, specifically the music brought together on the Anthology of American Folk Music? More generally, discussions on the day will examine the wider legacy of the Anthology of American Folk Music on twentieth-century music, art, and literature. Possible topics could include:

• The Anthology in relation to Smith’s other interests and activities including, for example, film, painting, and anthropology
• Smith’s poetics of magic and the occult in the context of the Anthology
• The Anthology’s role in defining/redefining notions of the “Old” and the “New Weird America”
• The treatment of ethnic and cultural identity in the Anthology
• The Anthology and folklore
• Analysis of individual artists and songs from the Anthology
• Vernacular aesthetics
• The transatlantic scope of the Anthology
• The Anthology in the internet age

Abstracts of 350 words with a brief biographical note to be submitted to Dr Thomas Ruys Smith [Thomas.Smith@uea.ac.uk] and Dr Ross Hair [R.Hair@uea.ac.uk] by June 1st 2012.

Further information will soon be available at: http://americachangedthroughmusic.blogspot.com/.
For more information about the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia: http://www.uea.ac.uk/ams.
For more information about UEA London: http://london.uea.ac.uk/.