NRR Project: Anthology of American Folk Music (1951)

 

NRR Project: Anthology of American Folk Music

Collected and curated by Harry Smith

Released 1951

4 hrs., 15 min.

Oh my God. First, just go and listen to the thing. Take the time to do it. You’ll thank me.

It’s most extraordinary compendium of what Greil Marcus referred to as the music of “the old, weird America.” It covers folk music. It includes the blues. There are spirituals. There’s early country music here. The 84 songs were selected from genius scholar and filmmaker Harry Smith’s 78 rpm collection, recordings ranging from 1926 to 1933. The meticulous Smith classified them as three themed albums: ballads, “social music,” and songs.

It was not particularly noted at the time of its release. However, it inspired a whole generation of fans, first, folk singers, then rock bands, and rapidly evolving genres such as bluegrass and country. It created the American folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s. It inspired Baez and Dylan. Its impact and value cannot be overstated. Do I make myself clear?

It’s epic. It’s bizarre. It’s a revelation, The songs are ghosts from the primeval past, the American past.

And it was created by a bizarre individual. Harry Smith was an amateur anthropologist, an experimental filmmaker, a committed drug user, and a collector of all sorts of oddities, including 20,000 78 rpm records. It was from this collection that he culled the Anthology. Read about him here in Ian Nasgoski’s excellent essay at the National Recording Registry.

Smith plumbed the depths of American song, and its nooks and crannies, within the parameters he set for himself. He created the Anthology as a magnificent gesamtkunstwerk, a synthesis of sound, picture, and text that came neatly packaged together. Smith’s illustrated commentaries on each selection, released as a booklet along with the collection, are penetrating, pithy, and apt. (A fourth volume of vintage Americana in the Anthology series, encompassing 28 more songs released between 1928 and 1940, was released on Ravenant Records in 2000.)

The result of all this hard work is a document that illuminates the American musical psyche of the past. The largely ignored genres and little-heard tunes that are ironically now immortalized by Smith are, of a body, haunting: this is music made by real people, not mainstream groups nor mainstream genres. Thanks to Smith, those otherwise lost voices come back to haunt us. He gave us an X-ray of America’s soul.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Dylan Thomas recites his A Child’s Christmas in Wales.

NRR Project: 'Rocket '88'' (March 3 or 5, 1951)

 

NRR Project: “Rocket ‘88’”

Composed by Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner

Performed by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm)

Recorded March 3 or 5, 1951

2:48

To really define “Rocket ‘88’” as the first rock and roll song is pretty arbitrary. Much of this approach dwelt in R’n’B, and precursors such as Johnny Otis, Louis Prima, Ruth Brown, Big Joe Turner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Louis Jordan set the tone for what was coming.

Still, there is something new, something driven and assured taking place. There is an urgency not present before. Read Steve Propes’ excellent essay about it here at the National Recording Registry. Propes proposes that it’s the accidentally fuzzed-out sound of Willie Kizart that makes it rock and roll.

It was an inspired setup that came together quite casually, a happy constellation of talent that drove this vibrant song into hitland, and changed the course of music. Legendary music producer Sam Phillips recorded it in his studio in Memphis. Jackie Brenston was Ike Turner’s saxophonist. The real genius behind this is the unacknowledged genius/villain Turner, backed by his Kings of Rhythm.  

It was a good-time, celebratory song. It was ostensibly about the singer’s new Oldsmobile 88, but it yaks along at breakneck pace about good times. It was upbeat and youthful, a new sound.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.

NRR Project: Giants-Dodgers National League tiebreaker (Oct. 3, 1951)

 

NRR Project: National League tiebreaker, Oct. 3, 1951

Broadcast via the Liberty Radio Network

2:11:05

It’s simply one of the most exciting baseball games ever played.

Read Barry Petcheskey’s essay on it at the National Recording Registry here.

This was back in the days when the Giants and the Dodgers still operated out of New York. Their rivalry was intense. The Giants were 13 ½ games back with 50 games left to play in the regular season. They then won 16 in a row . . . and in the frantic final days, tied the Giants for the best record in the National League at the end of the season, both tallying 96 wins and 58 losses.

The solution? A three-game tiebreaker. The first game was played at the Dodgers’ Ebbets Field, which the Giants won, 2-1. The next game, played at the Polo Grounds, the home of the Giants, saw the Dodgers win 10-0. The series was tied with one game to go.

The game was televised (the first coast-to-coast telecast of a Major League game), and millions more listened in on the radio. Russ Hodges called the game on WMCA for the Liberty Broadcast System, and it is his memorable description of what happened that has come down to us.

What a great lineup! For the Dodgers, there was Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Carl Furillo. For the Giants, there was Willie Mays, Alvin Dark – and the hero of the game, Bobby Thomson.

Meeting again at the Polo Grounds, the game featured Sal “The Barber” Maglie leading off as pitcher for the Giants, while Don Newcombe pitched for the Dodgers. The game stayed close until the 8^th, when the Dodgers scored three runs. It looked like they were going to the World Series.

Down 4-1, the Giants worked magic in the bottom half of the inning. Well-placed hits advanced the runners, and drove in a run. Ralph Branca replaced Newcombe on the mound.

Now, with two outs and two men on base, Thomson came to the plate. He laid into the second pitch and sent it screaming into the left-field stands. The Giants won with his walk-off homer, 5-4. The crowd went wild, and Hodges’ excited call became instantly memorable. Thomson's homer became known aas the "Shot Heard 'Round the World."

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Rocket ‘88’.

NRR Project: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' soundtrack (1951)

 

NRR Project: “A Streetcar Named Desire” film soundtrack

Composed by Alex North

Recorded 1951

46:46

No one could do more justice to this subject than Jonathan Rhodes Lee, a musicologist whose insights are informed and comprehensive. You shouldread him at the National Recording Registry.

I can only add that I find it odd that this was the first film to really incorporate jazz into its soundtrack. But I guess that it is so. Early jazz in sound film was overwhelmingly diegetic – that is, it came from a source you could see on the screen. Alex North took it and shaped it into the narrative quite elegantly – so much so that the Catholic Legion of Decency censored the film, as a passage of his music in the score was deemed lascivious. North had to rewrite the cue.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: the National League tiebreaker, Oct. 3, 1951.

NRR Project: Douglas MacArthur's Farewell Speech (April 19, 1951)

 

NRR Project: Douglas MacArthur’s Farewell Address

Delivered April 19, 1951

34:31

Christopher H. Sterling’s essay on this event at the NationalRecording Registry is quite comprehensive.

MacArthur was a highly decorated five-star general when President Harry Truman relieved him of command in the Korean conflict. MacArthur was a lauded figure, a Medal of Honor winner, the architect of Japan’s recovery after World War II. He was also an egotistical horse’s patootie.

He desired to attack China in connection with the Korean War, a direction to which Truman did not want to take the country. Of course, as civilians control the U.S. military, the two leaders found themselves locked in conflict. Finally, Truman dismissed him.

MacArthur was then invited by a heavily Republican Congress to address it in joint session on April 19, 1951. During the course of his half-hour at the podium, the general reiterated his ideas for fighting the Chinese and documented the government’s refusal to see things his way.

He concluded with the immortal phrase – “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: A Streetcar Named Desire soundtrack.

NRR Project: Pope Marcellus Mass; Roger Wagner Chorale (1951)

NRR Project: Pope Marcellus Mass

Composed by Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina

Performed by the Roger Wagner Chorale

Recorded 1951

32:35

I could not do better than Donna M. Di Grazia and Jessie Ann Owens’ explanatory essay at the National Recording Registry. Read it!

FYI: For extra credit, listen to Hans Pfitzner' 1917 opera Palestrina, an excellent effort that outlines the composer's struggle to find acceptance for his music.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Douglas MacArthur’s Farewell Address.

NRR Project: 'Pictures at an Exhibition': Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Rafael Kubelik, conductor (1951)

 

NRR Project: Pictures at an Exhibition

Composed by Modest Mussorgsky; Orch. Ravel

Performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Rafael Kubelik, conductor

Recorded 1951

28:49

The reason for the inclusion of this piece is its innovative use of improved technology to record a truer sound. At the National Recording Registry, Michael Gray explains.

The basic approach of the sound engineers who recorded this performance was simple. Recorded in Chicago Symphony Hall, rather than miking various sections of the orchestra and mixing the results, they set up a single condenser Telefunken U-47 microphone 25 feet above the conductor’s podium. They hit the sweet spot. The result is a “recording (that) was the inaugural release on Mercury’s Living Presence series.”

“In the liner notes for the Mercury rerelease, Robert C. Marsh commented that the original discs ‘represented the highest state of the art in monophonic recording technique.’” Listening to it today, its dynamic range leads one to agree that it makes for a perfect hi-fi demonstration record, for which it was used during the period. Its fidelity is remarkable.

 Interestingly, the piece was originally scored for solo piano. Written in 1874 by composer Modest Mussorgsky, it was not published until 1886. In 1922, Maurice Ravel orchestrated it, and it quickly became a concert-hall favorite. Mussorgsky commemorates the works of his late friend, artist Victor Hartmann. A connecting theme transitions the listeners from “painting” to sonic “painting.” Mussorgsky’s exceptional inventiveness keeps the conceit fresh and alive.

The LP sat on many a shelf in the early 1950s.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Pope Marcellus Mass.