Various Artists: The Harry Smith Project

Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited

October 2006 box set with a great selection of artists doing live performances of songs from Harry Smith's legendary '40s and '50s recordings.

Garth and Maud Hudson perform the Carter Family's "No Depression in Heaven," recorded in Los Angeles in April 2001 (Garth also plays on a few other tracks on the box set). Garth and Maud played at three Hal Willner-staged 5-6 hours long Harry Smith tribute concerts that month, first at the Getty Center (a more acoustic concert with Geoff Muldaur directing, reviewed by Greil Marcus below) and then a few days later two nights at UCLA's Royce Hall.

Harry Smith, 1965. Photo by Allen Ginsberg. "The life and work of musicologist Harry Smith will be saluted on the four-disc boxed set "The Harry Smith Project: Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited," due Oct. 24 via Shout! Factory. The two-CD/two-DVD collection is drawn from concerts staged by Hal Willner in London, Brooklyn and Los Angeles and also features a new documentary on Smith's enduring influence. Highlights of the CDs include performances by Beck, Wilco, Steve Earle, Richard Thompson, Beth Orton, Lou Reed, Nick Cave and David Johansen. Another look at the tribute concerts is offered on one of the DVDs, which rounds up 26 selections from such artists as Elvis Costello, Philip Glass, Kate and Anna McGarrigle and the Folksmen, the fictional band portrayed by "Spinal Tap" principals Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest. Released in 1952 as a six-LP set, Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music" introduced listeners to iconic artists such as Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, the Carter Family and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Smith was also a filmmaker and a painter; three of his short films are included here as a DVD bonus feature." --Jonathan Cohen, billboard.com, July 2006 "The 14-person band was heading toward cuteness when Garth Hudson, late of the Band, began to play. He was everywhere at once. As soon as you thought you caught a tune -- "Home Sweet Home," "Shenandoah" -- it vanished. He was an avant-garde pianist in a 1915 grind house, forgotten girlie flicks and "In a castle dark" epics turning profound under his fingers. And then, like a sermon, came a low, thick, unbending voice from the back of the stage, insisting on the Great Depression as God's will, punishment for sins unknown, even uncommitted, and insisting on the only solution, which was suicide. "I'm going where there's no Depression," as the Carter Family sang in 1936, on their way to heaven. "There'll be no hunger, no orphan children crying for bread/No weeping widows, toil or struggle." The singer was Maud Hudson, and when, with absolute dignity, she reached the lines "No shrouds, no coffins/And no death," you realized the song was calling for nothing so small as the end of a life, but for the end of the natural order: the end of the world. The end of the singer, and the end of you." --from Greil Marcus' review of the Harry Smith tribute concert in LA, "Real Life Rock Top 10", May 2001

Tracks

Harry Smith

Disc 1

1. Old Dog Blue - David Johansen
2. Prison Cell Blues - Steve Earle
3. James Alley Blues - Wilco
4. Frankie - Beth Orton
5. Last Fair Deal Gone Down - Beck
6. Sugar Baby - Kate and Anna McGarrigle
7. The Butcher's Boy - Elvis Costello
8. Way Down the Old Plank Road - David Thomas
9. The Coo Coo Bird - Richard Thompson and Eliza Carthy
10. My Baby Done Left Me - Ed Sanders
11. John the Revelator - Nick Cave
12. Oh Death Where Is They Sting? - Eric Mingus and Gary Lucas
13. Dry Bones - Roswell Rudd and Sonic Youth
14. No Depression in Heaven - Garth and Maud Hudson
15. K.C. Moan - Geoff Muldaur
16. When That Great Ship Went Down - Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer

Disc 2

1. A Lazy Farmer Boy - Robin Holcomb
2. Sail Away Lady - Van Dyke Parks and Mondrian String Quartet
3. Poor Boy Blues - Geoff Muldaur
4. Spike Driver Blues - Marianne Faithfull
5. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean - Lou Reed
6. Ommie Wise Part 1 & 2 (What Lewis Did Last...) - Kate and Anna McGarrigle with Elvis Costello
7. Fatal Flower Garden - Gavin Friday
8. I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground - Bob Neuwirth and Eliza Carthy
9. Fishing Blues - David Thomas
10. He Got Better Things for You - Mary Margaret O'Hara
11. Harry Goes a Courtin' - Mocean Worker
12. The House Carpenter - Robin Holcomb and Todd Rundgren
13. This Song of Love - Don Byron, Percy Heath and Bill Frisell
14. Shine on Me - Nick Cave
15. James Alley Blues - David Johnansen
16. Single Girl Married Girl - Petra Haden

Disc 3 (DVD)

1. The Butcher's Boy - Elvis Costello
2. Old Dog Blue - David Johansen
3. John the Revelator - Nick Cave
4. Last Fair Deal Gone Down - Beck
5. One Hot Summer Night With Harry Smith - Ed Sanders
6. Sugar Baby - Kate and Anna McGarrigle
7. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean - Lou Reed
8. Frankie - Beth Orton
9. Dry Bones - Rosewell Rudd and Sonic Youth
10. Old Joe's Place - the Folksmen
11. The House Carpenter - Robin Holcomb and Todd Rundgren
12. When That Great Ship Went Down - Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer
13. Etude No. 10 - Philip Glass
14. James Alley Blues - David Johansen
15. Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting?" Eric Mingus and Gary Lucas
16. Single Girl, Married Girl" Petra Haden
17. The Coo Coo Bird - Richard Thompson and Eliza Carthy
18. I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground - Bob Neuwirth and Eliza Carthy
19. Poor Boy Blues - Geoff Muldaur
20. This Song of Love - Don Byron, Percy Health and Bill Frisell
21. Ommie Wise Part 1 & 2 (What Lewis Did Last...) - Kate and Anna McGarrigle with Elvis Costello
22. Prison Cell Blues - Steve Earle
23. Fishing Blues - David Thomas

    Bonus features: Three films by Harry Smith and interactive music selections:

24. Film #2
25. Film #7
26. Film #10
27. Etude No. 10 - Philip Glass
28. HS Tone Poem - DJ Spooky
29. Harry Goes a Courtin (The Mowo! Live Hootenanny Throw-Down) - Mocean Worker

Disc 4 (DVD)

1. The Old, Weird American: Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music - Documentary

Various Artists - The Harry Smith Project - 2006 - Shout! Factory