tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30691093476620469472024-02-07T05:46:25.484+00:00America Changed Through Music: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-68035509616903458372015-09-01T14:42:00.000+01:002015-10-02T20:41:59.856+01:00Book announcement!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It has been a number of years in the making, but we're delighted to announce that <i>Harry Smith's </i>Anthology of American Folk Music<i>: America Changed Through Music</i>, the first book dedicated to this seminal collection of recordings, will be released by Ashgate Press in 2016. Ross and I are thrilled with the way the volume has come together, and we're looking forward to sharing more details as and when we can. Back in touch soon! Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-79297164365735993772012-10-10T13:54:00.000+01:002012-10-10T16:15:28.414+01:00NEW 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 <i>Anthology of American Folk Music</i> in the six decades since its release. The official Call for Papers is below - please feel free to get in touch with any questions!<br />
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<b> “America Changed Through Music”: </b></div>
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<b>Harry Smith’s
<i>Anthology of American Folk Music</i> </b><o:p></o:p></div>
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Following a highly successful international conference in
September (<a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/">http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/</a>),
proposals are now invited for a book of essays marking the sixtieth anniversary
of Harry Smith’s landmark <i>Anthology of
American Folk Music</i>. 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. <i>“America Changed Through Music”: Harry
Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music</i> 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:<o:p></o:p></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> in relation to Smith’s broader body of work</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Analyses of individual
artists and songs included in the </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and the development of American music</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">’s influence on individual artists, writers, musicians,
and beyond</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">’s aesthetics</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">’s politics</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The critical heritage
surrounding the </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The 1997 CD reissue of the </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Transatlantic dialogues in
the </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The cultural legacies of
the </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology’s</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> role in defining/redefining notions of the Old and the New
‘Weird America’</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and ethnic and cultural identity</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-indent: -18pt;"></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">The </span><i style="text-indent: -18pt;">Anthology</i><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"> and its music in the twenty-first century</span></blockquote>
<o:p></o:p><br />
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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 <b>December 20<sup>th</sup> 2012</b>. Please
include a brief biographical statement / CV and contact details. <b>[Submission of essays will be Summer 2013].</b></div>
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Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-49721605611028510442012-09-22T21:12:00.001+01:002012-09-22T21:12:32.692+01:00Ross Hair interviewed on Near 90.3 FM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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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 <i>Anthology of American Folk Music</i> by Dublin's <a href="http://nearfm.ie/" target="_blank">Near 90.3 FM</a>. The audio is available below. Enjoy!<br />
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<center><embed flashvars="audioUrl=https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/DrRossHair.mp3?w=88580a54" height="27" quality="best" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"></embed></center>
Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-26431204340063879092012-09-22T20:54:00.004+01:002012-09-22T20:54:54.753+01:00Photos and videoWe'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:<br />
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And here are some photos of our performers, courtesy of conference attendee Delia Dattilo:<br />
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Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-47560598206324392322012-09-16T20:43:00.000+01:002012-09-17T08:20:42.058+01:00The 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).<br />
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And we'll be back with news of another exciting project very soon. So stay tuned...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYpfp8Dg-LZOBp49Ae6wTVtT-Nfmo1ztbJ1SRqGqjtImq2xkKmxDOSYtTWnK-B9pRjswRIaEb3fyRJ6miqAVgKLPAlGkDYel-p041Cr5-Seae2awaA7IfM1lZLe2xNAKnjGe2TUS8NL7S/s1600/butterfly1965.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirYpfp8Dg-LZOBp49Ae6wTVtT-Nfmo1ztbJ1SRqGqjtImq2xkKmxDOSYtTWnK-B9pRjswRIaEb3fyRJ6miqAVgKLPAlGkDYel-p041Cr5-Seae2awaA7IfM1lZLe2xNAKnjGe2TUS8NL7S/s320/butterfly1965.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So long...for now.</td></tr>
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Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-1904125412137745102012-09-14T22:37:00.001+01:002012-09-15T07:00:44.847+01:00Getting ready...<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;">See you all tomorrow!</span>
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Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-54229810530777036242012-09-07T13:53:00.003+01:002012-09-14T10:15:53.268+01:00"America Changed Through Music" on Cerys Matthews' BBC 6Music show - this Sunday<div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00llg30" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnaUGo2nieKjo2X7EB5mr7ECApAjWyVmBeqRYwS9ZZW7Bzz7cpG1FaI2K7GEvsXDuJMYVQxB7ERWrdMKqHnFoUmAduuRhwaUTmRp9wKHDlItXOgMzOuCLEHfwfBiCIS99WJzFn0JroBawe/s1600/Cerys,+Anthology.jpg" /></a></div>
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.</div>
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Next week, Ross Hair is going to be talking to Ireland's Near 90 FM. Stay tuned for more details!<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00llg30" target="_blank"><br /></a><br />
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Update: You can now listen to the show on the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mlwdh" target="_blank">BBC iPlayer</a>. The interview starts at about 1:08, though <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mlwdh/Cerys_on_6_09_09_2012/?t=1h08m50s" target="_blank">this link</a> should take you straight to the right point in the programme.<br />
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Update: For posterity, a rough and ready copy of the interview is available here:<br />
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Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-38845591418078882792012-08-30T17:30:00.002+01:002012-08-30T19:56:11.833+01:00Conference ProgrammeHot off the press, our official Conference Programme is available after the break below. Enjoy! Many thanks to the maestros at <a href="http://www.binaryandthebrain.com/" target="_blank">Binary & The Brain</a> for the design.<br />
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You can download a copy <a href="http://db.tt/tR9pXgsu" target="_blank">here</a>. And if you'd like to book a place, we still have some spaces available - <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/registration-booking.html" target="_blank">click here</a>. We can't wait to see you all in September.
Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-77145892169803425892012-08-24T13:06:00.000+01:002012-08-25T18:31:25.951+01:00Guest Post: Jesse Boardman Kauppila on "Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Below, a new guest post from artist Jesse Boardman Kauppila, on his fascinating project "<a href="http://jessekauppila.com/#/rtaoafm/0" target="_blank">Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music</a>." And a quick reminder: <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/registration-booking.html" target="_blank">if you haven't booked yet for America Changed Through Music, time is pressing!</a><br />
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<a name='more'></a>Jesse writes:<br />
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<i>The "Anthology of American Folk Music" is successful because it was curated by Harry Smith, an artist that understood the power of aesthetic eccentricity. In a recent project I sought to rediscover this eccentricity, what has come to be called the "weird" sound of the "Anthology of American Folk Music." I then wrote a "lab report" evaluating the success or failure of this project.</i><br />
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<i>I find the use of scientific method when considering aspects of culture such as "The Anthology of American Folk Music" to be absurd and that is precisely why I use it. By demonstrating the absurdity of science in the face of aesthetic eccentricity I attempt to demonstrate and understand the power of weirdness, strangeness. Harry Smith understood this absurdity and that is why "The Anthology of American Folk Music" is curated as it is and not dissected into scientific typologies. </i><br />
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For Jesse Boardman Kauppila's “Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music” the act of listening is an act of devotion. It is both a form of aural exegesis and deep reading that results in copper plates that can be played on a turntable which an also be used to create minimalist prints resembling vinyl records. Both serve as talismanic emblems to the power of embodied music.<br />
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By simultaneously engraving a rotating copper plate and listening to the “Anthology [...],” analysis and creation occurred simultaneously and became psychosomatic. This methodology was based on the work of psychologist Joachim Entremer. He describes his walking cure as an “approach rooted in the many alternative traditions of circle dancing [...] dervishes that enter into the circle of repetition to achieve ecstasy through psychokinetic travel.” Entremer’s opposes the hierarchical, analytical techniques of Freud et al which emphasize the specialized training of an elite expert rather than a personal journey of self discovery.<br />
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“The basic technique,” Entremer explains, “emerges from a series of experiments that I performed on myself beginning in the year 1995 and it involves dissolving the self into a circle of time in a way that releases what I call the existential gramophone.” Practically this involved walking in a five-foot diameter circle while talking at one’s leisure in sessions lasting up to twenty four hours long. In the circle’s center a recording device is placed to record one’s “essential broadcast.”<br />
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Entreme describes this broadcast as:<br />
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[G]iving voice to anything and everything that comes up through the circle, through your nervous system and larynx and out into the world. We need to imagine that the inner part of the circle is a record for the inner part of ourselves and that the feet are frictive needles releasing the information on the record through the application of sustained animal energy.</blockquote>
To remaster the “Anthology [...]” this process was reversed in the way a speaker can be transformed into a microphone and made to pick up sound and convert it into electricity, rather than converting electricity into sound. Through intense concentration, this sound became electric “animal energy” that was deposited into a copper plate through engraving. Essentially the engraving burin became a “frictive needle,” which rather than playing sound, deposited sound into the copper plate. This process, of course, necessitated entering into a meditative state in which the body became a conduit through which the “Anthology [...]” could flow from the ears down through the fingers and into the new master.<br />
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Originally the “Anthology [...]” revealed a strange new aspect of America. Kauppila similarly revealed other American traditions that are also home grown, but of another ilk. These include both noise music and minimalism. Not exactly two things as American as apple pie. But could they be? Folk music was not always the national symbol it is now. School children didn’t sing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land,” they were singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and swinging to Glenn Miller’s “Chatanooga Choo Choo.” Perhaps it is possible to similarly understand these art forms as strange American traditions in their own right with similarly broad appeal.<br />
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Minimalism has a certain democratic impulse in its simplicity and the necessity that it be activated by the viewer.. Noise music has a grass roots, DIY culture. They both resist commodification because they loose so much when photographed or recorded. As Michael Fried writes in “Art and Objecthood”, minimalist art has a certain theatrical presence. I would argue that noise music is similarly theatrical, you have to be there, in situ.<br />
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Kauppila attempted to avoid the temptations to stage a nostalgic reenactment, the sort which classic rock cover bands and folk music groups often cave into. Indeed, this whole process involved an attempt to listen to and understand but also move beyond avante-garde and alternative culture of the sixties. The “Anthology [...]” stands with such totemic volumes of the sixties as Stewart Brand’s “The Whole Earth Catalog”, Llyod Kahn’s “Shelter”, and Bill Holm’s “Northwest Coast Indian Art: An Analysis of Form.” All these volumes were uniquely formatted, creative text books, which mapped out manners of living, building, making art, and making music. They were not, however, the dry prescriptive “How-to-Books” which overpopulate pristine “ticky-tacky” book stores. Instead, the author had their own voice. They had some thing to say and didn’t just want to tell you what to do. In many ways not just the content, but the form of the presentation of this content was itself, dare I say, inspirational. Kauppila’s experiment is an examination of the appeal of the structure of these totemic volumes.<br />
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As one might suspect, and as writer Charles Bernstein articulates, this process of “revealing code” can be poetic in its own right.<br />
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It’s like swimming or something. You move from one part of the pool to the other, you never completely re- veal the entire system. That’s impossible, but you use the reflection, the making visible that which was invisible, making audible that which was inaudible or not noticed or being aware of things which you were otherwise not aware of. [...A]nd once you are aware of something you were not aware of a whole realm of other things fall into the realm of non-recognition. It’s always a partial process of moving through, traveling through a space, that is ultimately extremely dark, [..the world in which we live...] you can create this little reflection of light within that darkness almost as a self generating engine of the poetic imagination.</blockquote>
This project is an attempt to jump-start the “self-generating engine of the poetic imagination” of Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music.” Whether the charge of “animal energy” remains long enough to jump start other imaginative engines remains to be seen.<br />
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Harry Smith sought to expose the world to a more authentic, rich, but American cultural tradition by reaching back in time to recordings from the America of the 20’s. In doing so he exposed the uprising of youth at that time to a more real, authentic living tradition of music which was - at the time - weird and strange, an authentic tonic to all that appeared wrong with American society.<br />
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By “Remastering the Anthology of American Folk Music” Kauppila sought to synthesize his particular experience at a noise and folk concert on the same evening. By hand engraving the “Anthology,” Kauppila could both pay homage to the music he liked while also creating something exciting, new and perhaps challenging.<br />
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One evening while attending college in Portland, Oregon, Jesse Kauppila was double booked. Two different sets of friends were putting on concerts. One was put on by a very good, but dissimilar friend of his. It was a noise concert. The other was put on by a group of his friends and was to be all folk music.<br />
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Kauppila went to the noise concert first. It wasn’t really his scene. It was in a big house with a lot of older goths, punks, and drugs. Kauppila knew almost no one, but here people were just having fun making the sounds, building (and sometimes even destroy- ing) their own physical and digital instruments with their friends. It was pretty pure, unbridled, creativity, but he had to go. Kauppila had friends across town that were putting on their own show.<br />
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In a clearing, in an old orchard, between the art building and the “psycho path” a group of Kauppila’s friends were putting on a folk concert and potluck. They had brought in hay bales and beer pro- cured from a legendary dumpster. Everybody sat around and stared as the performers sang. There was none of the give and take, the irrational exuberance, there was a clear line between the performers and the audience. It felt too staged. Basically it felt like everyone was pretending to be Bob Dylan, clearly these were all friends and Bob Dylan was not in attendance.<br />
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Harry Smith was also a shaman. He grew up in Portland, Oregon and from an early age recorded and learned various Native American songs and languages and also collected religious objects. collection of early folk music recordings Smith similarly attempted to capture ritual, as Greil Marcus explains, “it was the scent of ritual Smith pursued.” Interestingly enough Bob Dylan saw a similar link between folk music and ritual:<br />
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Traditional music is based on hexagrams. It comes about from legends, Bibles, plagues, and it revolves around vegetables and death. There’s nobody that’s going to kill traditional music. All those songs about roses growing out of people’s brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels - they’re not going to die. It’s all those paranoid people who think that some- one’s going to come and take away their toilet paper - they’re going to die. Songs like ’Which Side Are You On?’ and ’I Love You Porgy’- they’re not folk - music songs; they’re political songs. They’re already dead.</blockquote>
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Obviously, death is not very universally accepted. I mean, you’d think that the traditional-music people could gather from their songs that mystery is a fact, a traditional fact . . . traditional music is too unreal to die. It doesn’t need to be protected. Nobody’s going to hurt it. In that music is the only true, valid death you can feel today off a record player.</blockquote>
In this statement Dylan to subscribes to a shamanistic view of art. The work of art acquires agency. Anthropologist Alfred Gel explains art as a sort of shamanism,“[A]rt as a system of action to change the world rather than encoding symbolic propositions about it.” Similarly, when recognized for the ‘Anthology [...]’ with a lifetime achievement award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Harry Smith perhaps remarked at the success of his shamanism when he stated. “I’m glad to say that my dreams came true. I saw America changed through music.”<br />
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By creating a print from this plate Kauppila also intended to create an homage to the talismanic quality of the history of the “Anthology [...].” Even when the recordings compiled in the “Anthology [...]” were first sold in the ‘20’s they were often bought as objects and were never played as Greil Marcus describes.<br />
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Many copies of these records were bought by people without phonographs. They bought the discs as talismans of their own existence; they could hold these objects in their hands and feel their own lives dramatized. [. . . ] Why was it inexpressibly more exciting to hear a song you could hear next door or at a dance next Satur- day night coming out of a box? Precisely because you could have heard it next door or even played it yourself - but not with the distancing of representation, which made a magic mirror and produced the shock of self recognition.</blockquote>
It is this distancing effect of representation which Kauppila sought to recreate. It was not only Kauppila, however, in a way the entire project was an attempt to create a mirror that reflected the story of Harry Smith’s “Anthology [...].” This started with listening to the most recent re-issue of the “Anthology [...]” by Smithsonian Folkways on an iPod and creating a physical record from this act of listening. Simultaneously, however, videographer Chris Edley taped this process on a handheld black and white tube camera. Photographer Ethan Rafal photographed both the engraving and the videotaping of the engraving using first both a digital and a large format, hooded camera.<br />
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These anachronistic processes both documented and recreated a new “Anthology [...]” that similarly built upon both old time music as well as several different centuries of technology to continue a tradition of appropriation and re-contexctualization.<br />
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Kauppila also wanted to be part of a radical tradition of aural disruption. He wanted to create something that was radically strange, but yet attached to tradition. The power of this contrast is profound. Ironically, this technique of aesthetic contrast also has something of a tradition. Not only was the “Anthology [...]” powerful because it coupled strange sounds with traditional American culture, so too was Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”, which started with a Lithuanian folk song and whose subject was a pagan ritual (and which incidentally sparked a riot) . This tradition of the radical power of sound goes back even further, argues Luigi Russolo:<br />
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[T]he first sounds that men were able to draw from a pierced reed or a taut string were stupefying, something new and wonderful. Among primitive peoples, sound was attributed to the gods. It was considered sacred and reserved for priests, who used it to enrich their rites with mystery. Thus was born the idea of sound as something in itself, as different from and independent of life. And from it resulted music, a fantastic world superimposed on the real one, an inviolable and sacred world.</blockquote>
This experiment is an analytical search and an attempt at a historic re-enactment. A meditation, and mechanical incantation con ducted to create something new and strange from cultural artifacts and technology in the same way that Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music” elicited a response that changed America through music.<br />
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Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-34334290636665737252012-08-11T09:01:00.004+01:002012-08-11T09:01:55.785+01:00America Changed Through Music featured in The Financial Times<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/002ca892-dcab-11e1-bbdc-00144feab49a.html#axzz23A9pA4bA" target="_blank">"Where the weird things are"</a></td></tr>
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Above, a great article by Richard Clayton in today's <i>Financial Times</i> (Saturday 11th August) about Harry Smith, the <i>Anthology of American Music</i> at 60, and, excitingly, our conference. Hurry to your newsagents - or, failing that, the story is available in full <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/002ca892-dcab-11e1-bbdc-00144feab49a.html#axzz23A9pA4bA" target="_blank">here</a>. If that's whetted your appetite, booking information is available <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/registration-booking.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-38626578830372224782012-07-30T11:40:00.001+01:002012-07-30T14:25:11.944+01:00Guest Post: The 78 Project<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A new guest post, this time courtesy of <a href="http://the78project.com/" target="_blank">The 78 Project</a>, on their extraordinary endeavours and their relationship to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music!<br />
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The <a href="http://the78project.com/" target="_blank">78 Project</a> is a documentary and recording journey to record today’s musical artists as they perform the early American songs that inspired a century of popular music—exactly as they were originally recorded, instantaneously, on one-of-a-kind 78rpm lacquer discs. With just one microphone, one authentic 1930's Presto direct-to-disc recorder, and one blank lacquer disc, musicians are given an opportunity to make a recording anywhere they choose. It’s an exciting and risky process recording with an 80-year-old piece of technology, and the results are wonderfully unpredictable and beautifully unique.<br />
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For each of our filmed episodes we invite musicians to choose a public domain song to record, something that holds meaning for them and something they will want to interpret, and then we bring our Presto to them in any location they choose. The only unshakable requirement is that they perform with the same one-take rigor of the great recordings and uncelebrated artists they revere. <br />
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Hearing the acetates played back, we and our artists are transported back in time by a sound almost a century old, yet recorded only moments earlier. It is nothing short of haunting. Made all the more so by our deep reverence for the classic versions of these songs. Our project celebrates the early 20th Century field recordings that spontaneously captured America’s most authentic musical forms. By returning the process of field recording to its roots, we are reconnecting to the physical effort and miracles it took to create those seminal recordings that we love.<br />
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A defining characteristic of folk music as an art form, and one that we believe makes it so compelling, is the intimacy of the performance. We look to this music to find our common cultural bond, and to experience self-expression in its purest form. For that reason, performance is at the heart of The 78 Project, as each artist attempts to express their connection to the songs of our musical ancestors.<br />
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We have collected recordings that inspire us from many sources, as a means of preparing ourselves and our artists for the recording process. A major source for inspirational songs has been The Anthology of American Folk Music. So many of the songs from the Anthology have found their way into our playlists and conversations, and we have even had three artists interpret songs whose seminal versions are included in the HSA: "The Butcher’s Boy" – performed by Amy LaVere as “The Railroad Boy (Died of Love)” - "Ommie Wise" – performed by The Reverend John DeLore & Kara Suzanne as “Omie Wise” - and "The Coo Coo Bird" – performed by Richard Thompson.<br />
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<b style="text-align: center;">The Reverend John DeLore & Kara Suzanne, “Omie Wise”</b>
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We approached <a href="http://www.johndelore.com/" target="_blank">The Reverend John DeLore</a> & <a href="http://karasuzanne.com/" target="_blank">Kara Suzanne</a> for one of our very first episodes because we knew of their immense knowledge of classic American music and we felt sure they would not only perform beautifully, but that they would come up with something very personal and unique. They exceeded even our wildest hopes. Knowing that “Ommie Wise” was a broadsheet song used to communicate the news about a famous and terrible murder trial in the 1800’s, and embracing the folk tradition of modifying lyrics to fit a performer’s own personal experiences and frame of reference, John took G. B. Grayson’s version of “Ommie Wise” that he knew from the HSA and updated the lyrics so that it was about a murder trial so brutal and complex that had an enormous impact on our own lifetime.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32031968?byline=0&color=db8325" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></center>
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<a href="http://the78project.com/sold-down-the-river-hear-both-sides-of-the-reverend-john-delore-kara-suzannes-78/" target="_blank">Listen to The Reverend John DeLore & Kara Suzanne’s acetate version of “Omie Wise”</a></div>
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<b style="text-align: center;">Richard Thompson, “The Coo Coo Bird”</b>
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<a href="http://www.richardthompson-music.com/" target="_blank">Richard Thompson</a> paid homage to Clarence Ashley’s version of “The Coo Coo Bird” in his interpretation of the song for The 78 Project. Though he jokingly referred to his performance of “The Coo Coo Bird” as the “suburban English” version of the song, Richard stuck very closely to Ashley’s arrangement and lyrics, and played the song with a spectacular intensity that felt as rocky and mountain-huge as could be.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/43267467?byline=0&color=6be3b9" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></center>
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<a href="http://the78project.com/scheming-schemes-hear-richard-thompsons-78/" target="_blank">Listen to Richard Thompson’s digitized acetate version of “The Coo Coo Bird”</a></div>
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<b style="text-align: center;">Amy LaVere “The Railroad Boy (Died of Love)”</b>
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Despite the fact that it’s called “The Butcher’s Boy” in the Anthology, Buell Kazee sings about a railroad boy in the song. Which means that <a href="http://amylavere.com/" target="_blank">Amy LaVere</a>’s interpretation of the song for The 78 Project is very similar to Kazee’s version lyrically, though the titles are different. Amy calls hers “The Railroad Boy (Died of Love)” which is fitting since the mournful beauty of her singing puts particular emphasis on the tragedy and agony of love as a death sentence.</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/40358702?byline=0&color=e6e6e6" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></center>
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<a href="http://the78project.com/cut-her-down/" target="_blank">Listen to Amy LaVere’s digitized acetate version of “The Railroad Boy”</a></div>
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</div>Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-64140029983737431982012-07-16T13:58:00.000+01:002012-07-16T14:02:35.440+01:00Guest Post: Cody Edison on Origins Anthology, 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaGktYMn-fYggCJNIXrSXRXH22oLIjkHk5JDBhzGNJjNuYSLzXOzPICtmmOI17LBHmgjsGhyphenhyphendFh3CV_pXRlBzWuORaNizNdWvZeXJLhTCXN__aAIVcV15w__8y9IgtEKPaHwq2SX1_iX9i/s1600/Origins_Logo+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaGktYMn-fYggCJNIXrSXRXH22oLIjkHk5JDBhzGNJjNuYSLzXOzPICtmmOI17LBHmgjsGhyphenhyphendFh3CV_pXRlBzWuORaNizNdWvZeXJLhTCXN__aAIVcV15w__8y9IgtEKPaHwq2SX1_iX9i/s320/Origins_Logo+copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;">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 </span><span style="background-color: white;">Cody Edison. Enjoy, <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/registration-booking.html" target="_blank">and remember to book your place</a>.</span><br />
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<a name='more'></a><span style="background-color: white;">Cody Edison is an emerging American artist from California. He recently received his BFA from California Institute of the Arts for studies in Photography and Media. </span><span style="background-color: white;">Cody is developing a photographic studio project which adapts folk songs from Harry Smith's <i>Anthology</i> and Arhoolie‘s release of the first recorded Mexican–American Border songs. He shoots large format negatives and overlays them with a vintage typewriter's text to apply the songs' lyrics to his images. </span><span style="background-color: white;">In March of 2012 The Center for Photographic Arts (Carmel, CA ) included Cody's work in the group show "Unexpected Aesthetic: The Search for New Directions". </span><span style="background-color: white;">Most recently Cody (in collaboration with <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/programme.html" target="_blank">Jake Faulkner, who's presenting a paper at "America Changed Through Music"</a>, and Sam Kauffman–Skloff) produced the final installation of a multimedia interdisciplinary CalArt event in homage to Harry Smith titled "Re–Envisioning America." </span><span style="background-color: white;">Cody is currently focusing on </span><i style="background-color: white;">Origins Anthology</i><span style="background-color: white;">, a multimedia documentary of post WW II American music in California. </span><i style="background-color: white;">Origins Anthology</i><span style="background-color: white;"> is currently on exhibit at Galerie Der HBK Braunschweig in a show titled, "Artist as Traveller." </span><br />
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<b>An introduction - <i>Origins Anthology, 2012</i>.</b><br />
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"For centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible." - Jacques Attali</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white;">In the age of cyberspace, what is the potential of a link to a network of musical anthropology? <i>Origins Anthology, 2012</i> is the first volume of an evolving multi-media documentary located on the Internet and catalogued with collectable lithograph cards.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Harry Smith broke the barrier between high and low culture with the </span><i style="background-color: white;">Anthology of American Folk Music</i><span style="background-color: white;">. The videos of </span><i style="background-color: white;">Origins Anthology</i><span style="background-color: white;"> are separate stories, which coalesce into a history of post WWII California through the humanism and cultural bridges of music. I believe music is transitive through social networks in ways other forms are not. The premise of my thesis was to layout the foundation of my vision for Origins Anthology, as an undergrad studying photography and media at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts). This project began to fully take form by re-examining Harry Smith's </span><i style="background-color: white;">Anthology of American Folk Music</i><span style="background-color: white;"> (especially his liner notes), Mexican-American broadsides and UbuWeb. My intention is to seek songs and stories that restore the social context in the aesthetic experience of music. </span><br />
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The packaged lithograph cards, designed in collaboration with Kaylan George, have links and passwords to music performances and interview style films online. I want them to be perceived as tokens and to be collected with a different value than purchasing a record. The cards function as an invitation to distribute information existing in cyberspace. Harry Smith's liner notes serve as indexes of each song and performer, while these cards index chapters of individuals' stories and songs that define their lives. Kaylan and I wanted the cards imagery to be archetypal, so she developed the chair series. The chairs can be seen as a point of reflection, for the beginning and end of a story. Kaylan discussed how sitting in a chair is a place of suspended time. To Kaylan the shadows take on an eerie intensity depending on the light being shed on the reflection. The absence of a body in the chair connotes an out of body experience, a moment that one is physically not present. A memory. Time is present, and invisible.<br />
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I believe the social network is not the only defining language of cyberspace. UbuWeb is an archive online self-proclaimed as the Robin Hood of the avant-garde that gives to all. It is a rabbit hole that one, like my self, cannot escape. I first understood the concept of “over the web” by exploring the archive for the first time. It was addictive and offers an alternative state of mind on the web with academic potential.UbuWeb is completely free, all materials are made available for noncommercial and educational use only. Thus, I wanted to explore using the Internet as a site for my project, and giving the lithographic cards away for free, funded by grants. Vimeo is a temporal website location for the films, in the future I would like to build and develop my own site for the project.<br />
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I chose to incorporate my own Origin, <i>A Soldier's Lens</i>, as the first chapter, which was the moment of genesis for this project. The Japanese American network of musicians was the first community outside of my own that I could enter. One can better understand their own story from listening to the stories of others and the songs that define them. <br />
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Enjoy,<br />
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Cody + Origins.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFSRbc2N2nIcMf_6JYmNRKqcQhvkH6x_a_x1cS4kjl5nehwyH9nbHuClu7Z0kyIM3Hn03CFGpPP6NXFt1_vLKfowalf0CllTdz3SZb44QvMWu9ZpuVQ2qCcGn_ZfaDTCnCJI2XxYwz9A5L/s1600/OA+4.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFSRbc2N2nIcMf_6JYmNRKqcQhvkH6x_a_x1cS4kjl5nehwyH9nbHuClu7Z0kyIM3Hn03CFGpPP6NXFt1_vLKfowalf0CllTdz3SZb44QvMWu9ZpuVQ2qCcGn_ZfaDTCnCJI2XxYwz9A5L/s400/OA+4.tif" width="287" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://vimeo.com/36246107" target="_blank">The Songbird of Manzanar</a>. Password: songbird</td></tr>
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<br /></div>Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-36556701547285264972012-07-12T11:28:00.000+01:002012-07-12T11:28:10.797+01:00"America Changed Through Music" in fRoots Magazine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQR0cUSmKip7-6b_srtayIJg7jnK8cBTSD-CBX931Wm9NzpzDiDncxUWXSt8RuK7b9wG3Gses1wbzmv8xNdRqDJClspnyDsGYwY5FHz-ZgYk7WkMZt_rAY5IGsmW0dMRAL9i-WKFu0_FU/s1600/IMAG0534.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQR0cUSmKip7-6b_srtayIJg7jnK8cBTSD-CBX931Wm9NzpzDiDncxUWXSt8RuK7b9wG3Gses1wbzmv8xNdRqDJClspnyDsGYwY5FHz-ZgYk7WkMZt_rAY5IGsmW0dMRAL9i-WKFu0_FU/s320/IMAG0534.jpg" width="191" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhlW-ZZCQ1A5J941IKRaGDr_vQnDbB3XTzmICdQ4JmxF8Dif1itrnOg1aZgMsBtm0rzo0ug7cL2NuR9-ZiXq8JjkqcFQp-GBhxICyJNpPckIUwEkL79tekQVkfw2_LQcdnyHEE_DgOVtJ/s1600/IMAG0535.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhlW-ZZCQ1A5J941IKRaGDr_vQnDbB3XTzmICdQ4JmxF8Dif1itrnOg1aZgMsBtm0rzo0ug7cL2NuR9-ZiXq8JjkqcFQp-GBhxICyJNpPckIUwEkL79tekQVkfw2_LQcdnyHEE_DgOVtJ/s320/IMAG0535.jpg" width="191" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;">We're thrilled that "America Changed Through Music": Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60 features twice in <a href="http://www.frootsmag.com/content/issue/" target="_blank">this month's bumper issue of fRoots magazine</a> (Nos 350/351, August/September 2012). So order your copy forthwith - and now that word is really out, you'd better hurry up and <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/registration-booking.html" target="_blank">book your place</a>!</span>Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-48364308860117544842012-07-06T14:27:00.000+01:002012-07-06T15:06:30.937+01:00Booking now open!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white;">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, </span><a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/registration-booking.html" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank">here</a><span style="background-color: white;">.</span><br />
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And we're equally excited to be able to share the provisional programme for the day <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/programme.html" target="_blank">here</a>. More details very soon. But for now, enjoy, and happy booking.<br />
<br />Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-47590200562152853182012-06-17T14:00:00.000+01:002012-06-17T14:12:53.746+01:00Musical Guests: Rapunzel & Sedayne, Ewan D. Rodgers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/shop.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFF2qZ-LUWQecKaV-VTd90KFcH02j5fYZsOUgQLnEZy4w4eb4V_XaCm2tQ0OfUBtRVaCzKVzNNiw32lZ2RHksLUvavEJp0wm6A6SMNP-94MLT5CNU3YQ6uxIoaNuI_PoosxXah3mLufYS6/s200/Rapunzel+&+Sedayne,+Songs+from+the+Barley+Temple.jpg" width="200" /></a><span id="goog_626710318"></span><span id="goog_626710319"></span><a href="http://www.ewandrodgers.co.uk/music.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv4IgQSJ5TG543Ad74y_otARF3mI_BOEp22G0mWe_A6VSXIYYFjyPLyq2nvw63f-fsmWBVi7aZ_AzCBrlxZlGFXTeNmpQ4KusfTgOyZaRiHpCGZTblQ3E9fIMFVl_Yv4od8QjWOKCpa42o/s200/Ewan+D.+Rodgers,+From+Hull,+Halifax+and+Hell.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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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, <a href="http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/" target="_blank">Folk Police Recordings</a>, we're thrilled to be showcasing the extraordinary talents of acclaimed artists Rapunzel & Sedayne and Ewan D. Rodgers.<br />
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<a href="http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/rapunzel--sedayne.html" target="_blank">Rapunzel & Sedayne's</a> <i>Songs from the Barley Temple</i>, released last year, received raved reviews and ended up at number 14 on the <i>fRoots</i> 2011 Critics Poll. Perhaps the best introduction to the album, though, comes courtesy of <i><a href="http://www.folkwords.com/reviewarchive_72355.html" target="_blank">FolkWords</a></i>: "awe-inspiring." There are plenty of equally glowing reviews on their <a href="http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/rapunzel--sedayne.html" target="_blank">Folk Police page</a>. Below, to whet your appetite, here's an in-progress version of "The Wagoner's Lad" (from their <a href="http://soundcloud.com/rapunzel-and-sedayne" target="_blank">Soundcloud page</a>):<br />
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<a href="http://www.ewandrodgers.co.uk/index.html" target="_blank">Ewan D. Rodger's</a> debut <i><a href="http://www.ewandrodgers.co.uk/music.html" target="_blank">From Hull, Halifax and Hell</a></i> was equally lauded, and ranked in <i>Maverick Magazine</i>’s top 10 albums of 2010: "This is an album which captivated from the first second." His new album, <i>Tomorrow Might Be Monday</i>, is released this month by Folk Police's sister-label, <a href="http://www.northwesternrecordings.com/tomorrow-might-be-monday.html" target="_blank">The Northwestern Series</a>. From that album, here's Ewan's version of "East Virginia Blues":<br />
<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F23155323&show_comments=false&auto_play=false&color=b23131"></param> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F23155323&show_comments=false&auto_play=false&color=b23131" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object>
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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, <i><a href="http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/weirdlore.html" target="_blank">Weirdlore: Notes from the Folk Underground</a></i> - guaranteed enjoyment for anyone interested in the Old, Weird America or the New, Weird Britain.<br />
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<a href="http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/weirdlore.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowoW4fS-1dLyCznu9uV_Wv9sJ72SU3MWAiC0XgIaaNfUk1l8bZoPFvuh66wE0IYSx1ER_-J7O0_Ht_VNkNDvw6l6s6Qpv77L7CVxjzD1eT31nwjP2If6ulcZRkMUVAkvGcgOcrA2Ws1zN/s200/Weirdlore.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-16270009348087584742012-05-29T11:50:00.000+01:002012-05-29T11:50:26.885+01:00New Conference Artwork by Drew ChristieTake 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 <a href="http://www.drewchristie.com/" target="_blank">Drew Christie</a>. Drew is currently wowing film festival audiences around the globe (including those at Sundance and Sundance UK) with his animated short <a href="http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/120191/song_of_the_spindle" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Song of the Spindle</a>. Amongst many other accolades, he has just been nominated for a 2012 Genius Award by Seattle's <i><a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/05/10/2012-genius-awards-short-list?oid=13612896&show=comments&sort=desc&display=" target="_blank">Stranger</a></i> magazine. And he's got some history with Harry Smith. Harry is one of the many eccentrics profiled by Drew in his beautiful book <i><a href="http://store.drewchristie.com/product/strange-americans" target="_blank">Strange Americans</a></i>. 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 <a href="http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/p/call-for-papers.html" target="_blank">keep the paper submissions coming</a>.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32711338" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe></div>Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-31000637026412919382012-05-12T08:51:00.002+01:002012-05-12T08:58:48.968+01:00Old Weird Americana<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqZ-7wdczuqUI5UvWwJgYJHvxZPV4UDJuakUMTah3Kzkt4PM78SXy4e_c_6slh_LlsW6uJGRIxC7i7ZqYaPG-Q-JjzFR4Zw_6YwPIKl9Rn_T0fXFX5LbWqXG8I_VoHQ0IRrDdnvE4WP19a/s1600/Old+Weird+Americana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqZ-7wdczuqUI5UvWwJgYJHvxZPV4UDJuakUMTah3Kzkt4PM78SXy4e_c_6slh_LlsW6uJGRIxC7i7ZqYaPG-Q-JjzFR4Zw_6YwPIKl9Rn_T0fXFX5LbWqXG8I_VoHQ0IRrDdnvE4WP19a/s200/Old+Weird+Americana.jpg" width="129" /></a></div>
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 <a href="http://americachangedthroughmusic.blogspot.co.uk/p/call-for-papers.html" target="_blank">Call For Papers here</a>. 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, <a href="http://www.albertarosetheatre.com/?Page%3dhttp%3a%2f%2fwww.ticketbiscuit.com%2fAlbertaRoseTheatre%2fEventPage.aspx%3fEID%3d125350" target="_blank">Old Weird Americana, a 60th Anniversary Tribute to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music</a>, 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 <a href="http://www.musicmillennium.com/Event/40075" target="_blank">Music Millennium at 3pm</a>. 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.Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3069109347662046947.post-53676231167626854332012-01-18T15:03:00.000+00:002012-05-29T18:03:00.114+01:00Call For Papers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“America Changed Through Music”: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music at 60</div>
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UEA London, Saturday 15th September 2012</div>
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Keynote: <a href="http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/geoff-ward(c65d8339-9921-4430-b4fb-52194760f1df).html">Professor Geoff Ward</a>, Royal Holloway, University of London</div>
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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:<br />
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<li>The Anthology in relation to Smith’s other interests and activities including, for example, film, painting, and anthropology</li>
<li>Smith’s poetics of magic and the occult in the context of the Anthology</li>
<li>The Anthology’s role in defining/redefining notions of the “Old” and the “New Weird America”</li>
<li>The treatment of ethnic and cultural identity in the Anthology</li>
<li>The Anthology and folklore</li>
<li>Analysis of individual artists and songs from the Anthology</li>
<li>Vernacular aesthetics</li>
<li>The transatlantic scope of the Anthology</li>
<li>The Anthology in the internet age</li>
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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.<br />
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Further information will soon be available at: <a href="http://americachangedthroughmusic.blogspot.com/">http://americachangedthroughmusic.blogspot.com/</a>.<br />
For more information about the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia: <a href="http://www.uea.ac.uk/ams">http://www.uea.ac.uk/ams</a>.<br />
For more information about UEA London: <a href="http://london.uea.ac.uk/">http://london.uea.ac.uk/</a>.Thomas Ruys Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852643130989621838noreply@blogger.com0