‘Must Be Born Again’: resurrecting the Anthology of American Folk Music

Abstract

Since the 1997 reissue of the 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, journalists, scholars and musicians have promoted this collection as the 'founding document' (Marcus 1997) and 'musical constitution' (Cantwell 1996) of the urban folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. This reception differs markedly from that of its original issue, which sold few copies and attracted only minor critical attention. This article provides an account of the transformation in the Anthology's cultural status -showing that the canonisation of the Anthology stems not just from its content, but from the interplay of its content and its sociohistorical context. I identify some of the factors that influenced the retrospective consecration of the Anthology, including the important work of key people, the growth of a new field ('Americana' music) and changes in the organisational structures of the recording industry.This study addresses this dramatic shift in the valuation of the Anthology and highlights factors that contributed to the transformation of its status between 1952 and 1997. The organisation of the essay follows several threads over time -thereby showing the 'tapestry' of forces at play. I begin by turning to a literature concerned with issues of cultural production, including processes that underlie valorisation of cultural products. I then situate the Anthology in its broader sociohistorical contextcomparing reviews that were written about the Anthology at the time of its reissue with those from the time of its original release; reviewing primary documentation concerning its production, sales and marketing; and evaluating the important roles played by key actors, including Asch and Smith. I next suggest that the emergence of new criteria for evaluating 'folk' and 'roots' music influenced the reception of the 1997 Anthology reissue.

What Is Sociological about Music?

“…Large recording firms did not go as far, but they did complement their focus on "pop" music by investing heavily in country music and R&B. Moreover, these firms soon realized the value of "crossover success"as when African American performers could fare quite well in the pop market targeting white audiences (e.g., Nat King Cole) (Dowd 2003, Peterson 1997, Skinner 2006. The relaxation of boundaries filtered down to instrumentalists from the mid-1900s onward when their union grew more receptive to representing country musicians and when it finally integrated once racially segregated operation in U.S. cities (Dowd 2003, Dowd & Blyler 2002, Peterson 1997.…”

History without royalty? Queen and the strata of the popular music canon

“…popular music in Québec (Ollivier 2006) and Brazil (Frota 2006), b-boy culture (Schloss 2006) and indie guitar rock (Bannister 2006), or the roles of institutions in canonisation, e.g. the National Academy for the Recording Arts and Sciences (Watson and Anand 2006) and American record companies (Skinner 2006). Skinner also makes visible the historicised nature of canonic value criteria.…”

Taste-making and trend-spotting

“…Among the concepts deployed have been the 'gatekeeper' taken from D.M. White's studies of newsrooms (White 1950), the idea of the journalist as 'cultural intermediary' introduced by Pierre Bourdieu's influential study Distinction (Bourdieu 1984) and the idea that journalism contributes to 'canon formation', a concept borrowed from critical literary studies (McLeod 2001;Skinner 2006).…”