USA Song Lyrics

Folk Song America: A 20th Century Revival (Smithsonian Collection) [Original recording remastered, Box set]

• The Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, a division of the Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, Produced with Sony Music, 1991

This four-CD collection of recordings from the Smithsonian archives, Folk Song America is an extremely interesting album, mostly because of its mix of genuine folk performers and folk revival practitioners who adapted and approached these traditional tunes as art songs and artifacts. The end result has Leadbelly’s prison-refined artistry bumping up against Paul Robeson’s concert hall style, Woody Guthrie’s everyman stance fencing with John Jacob Niles’ unique affectations, and when the dust clears, it is the tremendous mutability of the songs in the American folk tradition that impresses. The opening track, “Shout All Over God’s Heaven” by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, is marvelous, as is Marian Anderson’s deep as any river rendition of “Deep River.” Merle Travis does a version of one of his finest songs, “Dark As a Dungeon.” Richard Dyer-Bennett’s folk song as art song approach to “Greensleeves” brings out the stately beauty in the song’s melody. There are also a couple of fascinating oddities here. Song collector John Jacob Niles’ version of “The Maid Freed from the Gallows” is nothing short of bizarre, as Niles carries the melody all over the place, at times sounding like Tiny Tim without the ukulele. And noted musicologist John Lomax delivers a boisterous, but frighteningly flat, rendition of “Buffalo Skinners” that makes listeners grateful that he tended to stay on the other side of the microphone during most of his work for the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song. On the other hand, noted poet Carl Sandburg’s gentle and affecting version of “All Night Long” is a pleasant revelation. The tradition of American folk song belongs to everyone, and as this sampler shows, there are countless ways to the river.

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