I suppose not everyone is familiar with Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. It didn't sell very well when it was released in 1958, but it sort of became the bible for the coffeehouse folk revival of the 60s. It consists of 6 LPs, taken from Harry Smith's collection of 78s (without necessarily paying the original artists). Greil Marcus called this music the "old weird" Anerican music, and traced a line between it and Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes. The CD re-release is one of my treasured belongings. So I was pretty psyched to check out The Harry Smith Project: Concert Film Live (2006).
Hal Willner gathered together an eclectic group of musicians to play multiple concerts in multiple venues, all based around the music from the Anthology. They included folkies like Richard Thompson, the McGarrigle Sisters, Steve Earle, and Geoff Muldaur, as well as some less folkie types, like Beck, Sonic Youth and Lou Reed. Also, some oddballs, like Ed Sanders of the Fugs, and Eric Mingus, son of Charles.
Some of these worked better than others - Elvis Costello had a lot of fun with a grim murder ballad, giving it a new ending. Some were powerful, like Roswell Rudd, a jazz trombonist backed by Sonic Youth. Some were odd, like the Folksmen from A Mighty Wind, doing a song of their own. But I'm afraid I have a major issue with the movie: most of the interpretations leaned heavily on slow tempo drones, giving them a sort of samey sound, even with all the different musicians. I would have liked some more old-time versions, or maybe even poppy updated versions.
Of course, the original songs were often kind of droney, and some were slow and mournful. But some dance numbers wouldn't have gone badly, I think.
2 comments:
Sounds like they were given the Cowboy Junkie treatment.
Hey, Shprocky. Good call. But maybe even worse - Sonic Youth played Dry Bones and I swear it was 2 guitars and a bass playing the same note the entire time.
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