Topic: Dust to Digital: The Harry Smith B-Sides Boxset

[Stuart]

CF: I think that was Lance and April's original position--that the purchasers and audience would be a limited niche market of AAFM fans who want to have the B-sides in their collection and are aware of the use of derogatory racial and ethnic slurs in the music of the past. However, his experience at the market was an eye opener as the article points out. What if the CD(s) the offensive songs are on was/were inadvertently played and there were people of color within earshot? What would they think and feel?

Chris: I agree re: making the remastered copies of the tracks available to purchasers of the box set.

[eric]

The original Anthology was transformative for me and I suspect more than a few people on this forum.  That work, and in particular, Alan Lomax's LOC recordings of Woody on Elektra were a window into my own father's time and place as well as American music.  That was more than 50 years ago.  I thought we'd be lot farther on by this time with regard to some of the uglier aspects of our history.  A forthright and honest discussion of all this is long overdue, in my opinion.

Here's a review in today's Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/harry-smith-bsides-anthology-american-folk-music/2020/10/20/2f752944-0fdd-11eb-8a35-237ef1eb2ef7_story.html

[Stuart]

Thanks for the link to the WaPo article, Eric. It's an interesting read. Like you, 50 years ago I thought that most of the problems of the day would have been resolved and far behind us by now, but I guess that was a function of youthful idealism. The daily struggle continues.

One thing that has been pointed out about the AAFM is in addition to Harry Smith's selection of material, his organization and sequencing of the songs was extremely insightful--maybe even brilliant.

In the not so insightful or brilliant category, I'm thinking of making playlists that follow the original AAFM order, but with the B-sides following the A-sides, just to see how they sound when played back to back--"Turning the record over," if you will. There will be a conscious effort to try to overcome fifty years of listening to the original AAFM sequence, but what the Hell...

[Stuart]

NPR's Fresh Air: Dust-To-Digital Producers On Curating And Showcasing 'Harry Smith B-Sides'

Here's the link:

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/16/946719705/dust-to-digital-producers-on-curating-and-showcasing-harry-smith-b-sides

[Alexei McDonald]

I still think it was the wrong decision, even so. Placing the sides as hidden tracks on the CDs would have been far better, so that the recordings are there, readily available for the curious or the completist and not for the casual listener.

[Jumpin Jimmy]

I know I'm a day late and a dollar short, but here goes:

I've always been bothered by denial of history.  I understand that some visitors to Gettysburg are offended that slavery is mention regarding the Civil War.  I am still bothered by bowdlerized Steven Foster songs, but I tend to moderate the language when performing some of his songs.  Then there's the second verse of "Oh, Susanna," which is barely tolerable for current sensibilities.  It involves riding down river in the telegraph and the electric fluid magnifying and killing 500 "people." It's a funny verse apart from that, so I should edit it.

 As to the omitted B-sides, they aren't hard to find.  But in the publisher's defence, use of the N word isn't hard to take, but happily singing about a lynching is.  However, ignoring history condemns us to a loss of our culture. I've had recent students who've never seen "The Sound of Music," which isn't a bad thing, but having never been aware that Nazism existed is dangerous.  We need history in its proper context.