Beck, Beth Orton, Others Pay Tribute To Harry Smith
Shout! Factory has announced the upcoming release of a four-disc CD/DVD box set tribute to Harry Smith, the legendary archivist and Grammy award-winning music historian.
The Harry Smith Project: Anthology Of American Folk Music Revisited will be released on October 24th, 2006. Featuring performances culled from a series of Smith tribute concerts staged between 1999 and 2001, the roster of featured artists alone indicates the sheer expansiveness of Smith's influence, with performances from Beck, Steve Earle, Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Wilco, Beth Orton, and more.
Compiled by legendary music documentary producer Hal Wilner, the homage contains two CDs featuring 33 live tracks from the concert series, and two DVDs filled with live performances, a feature-length documentary on Smith's original anthology, and a number of Smith's own experimental short films.
Smith's 1952 six-album compilation, Anthology Of American Folk Music, has been credited for giving acts like The Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon their first national recognition, sparking the urban folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. As evidenced by the number of contemporary artists now paying tribute to Smith, his efforts were also responsible for the preservation of a vital slice of American music history that has incomprehensibly influenced a whole new generation of artists.
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