Harry Smith
Harry Smith was an artist on the outside, who had a tremendous amount of influence for the artists on the inside. Born in Portland in 1923, Smith’s mother introduced him to the Native American culture of the Lummi in the Northwest. As a teenager, Smith began to record the songs and the rituals of the Lummi, as well as the Samish; he also started a dictionary of the various dialects used in and around Puget Sound. Smith had a collector’s passion, and began to accumulate records, especially 78s from the 1920s and 30s. Smith moved to San Francisco to follow another burgeoning interest - film. Smith would make animated films often by painting directly onto the film. These abstract shifting shapes brought attention not only to his films, but also to his painting. He won a Guggenheim grant for his painting, which brought him to New York. When money became tight, he approached Moe Asch of Folkways Records to buy his now massive record collection. Instead, Asch gave Smith the job of selecting the best music from his collection. This selection became the Anthology of American Folk Music, released in 1952, and there has perhaps never been a more influential package of songs. The Anthology would provide the impetus for the folk revitalization of the 50s, and directly inform the next generation of musicians who would turn folk music into rock music. While the Anthology inspired so many, Smith pursued other interests: he developed an important collection of sacred religious objects, Seminole textiles, Ukrainian Easter Eggs, and paper planes (most of which are now in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum); he filmed peyote ceremonies in Oklahoma; he recorded Allen Ginsburg’s performances; and he co-produced the Fuggs' first album. In the last years of his life, Smith was a “shaman in residence” at the Naropa Institute. In 1991, he received the Chairman’s Merit Award at the Grammys for his influence on folk and folk-rock music. He died later that year at the Chelsea Hotel in New York.
