Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music Inspires Afterall Issue 7

Afterall Journal Issue 7, published June 2003 and edited by Thomas Lawson, traces its origins to a Getty Research Institute symposium on 21 April 2001 about Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. The anthology, compiled mostly in the 1940s and released in 1952, collected 84 performances on six LPs organized in three two-record sets with monochrome covers (blue, red, green). Smith, described by Greil Marcus as 'an autodidact, experimental film-maker, dope fiend and alcoholic, freeloader and fabulist', created a work that became foundational to the folk revival of the late 1950s-60s and influenced Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, and even rap music. The issue connects Smith's work to artists Kenneth Anger, Richard Wright, The Handsome Family, Jeremy Blake, and Jutta Koether, exploring a 'gothic' thread linking medieval ballads, 18th-century European high culture, Appalachian folk songs, and horror movies. The editorial discussion, shaped in Fall 2002, was framed against the backdrop of the Iraq War, with Lawson writing as Baghdad fell under siege. The issue positions Smith's anthology as an 'occult document' offering an alternate America, challenging mainstream conformity during the McCarthy era and Korean War.