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Harry Smith ArchivesFollow

Official account for the archives of Harry Everett Smith - filmmaker, musicologist, mystic, & one of the least understood figures in postwar American culture

Harry Smith Archives
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kramermjMichael J. Kramer@kramermj·
2 Jun

Pictured: A person listening to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. (Just kidding, actually from Robert Fludd's Utriusque Cosmi Maioris Scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia.) @HS_Archives

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HS_ArchivesHarry Smith Archives@HS_Archives·
3 Jun

***Peter Lamborn Wilson***

American anarchist, author, and poet Peter Lamborn Wilson a.k.a. Hakim Bey, passed away on May 22, 2022.
Longtime Harry Smith Archives board member, PLW and Smith shared many scholarly interests…(1/3)

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SFolklifeSouthern Folklife Collection, UNC Chapel Hill@SFolklife·
30 May

Remembering musicologist, filmmaker and mystic Harry Everett Smith on his birthday. Photos taken Oxford, MS by @WRFerris William R. Ferris Collection (#20367), @SFolklife @WilsonLibUNC @UNCLibrary @HS_Archives

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HS_ArchivesHarry Smith Archives@HS_Archives·
29 May

On this day 99 years ago, Harry Everett Smith was born at Wilcox Hospital in Portland, Oregon to a salmon cannery manager and a school teacher.

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GinsbergpoemAllenGinsbergEstate@Ginsbergpoem·
29 May

@HS_Archives - Celebrating the birthday of Harry Smith - on The Allen Ginsberg Project https://allenginsberg.org/2022/05/s-m-29-harry-smith/

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Peter Lamborn Wilson American anarchist, author, Peter Lamborn Wilson American anarchist, author, and poet Peter Lamborn Wilson a.k.a. Hakim Bey, passed away on May 22, 2022. Longtime Harry Smith Archives board member, PLW and Smith shared many scholarly interests including mysticism, the occult, approaching the world with unique and unconventional ways of thinking. PLW attended Harry Smith’s lecture series at Naropa Institute from 1988 – 1991. After Smith’s death Peter took up the post lecturing at Naropa annually what became known as The Harry Smith Lectures in Strange Anthropology. He also edited Harry Smith’s Naropa Lectures which remain unpublished. He will be sorely missed.
On this day 99 years ago, Harry Everett Smith was On this day 99 years ago, Harry Everett Smith was born at Wilcox Hospital in Portland, Oregon to a salmon cannery manager and a school teacher. From that day forward the worlds of ethnomusicology, animation, preservation, art, and mysticism would be forever changed by this scrawny and endlessly curious future iconoclast. Happy Birthday Harry! Pictured: Harry in the Bellingham High School 1943 Shuksan yearbook, followed by Harry front and center with the freshman boys at Anacortes High School in 1939. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #beatgeneration #ethnomusicology
It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to ou It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our friend Bob Neuwirth. Bob was important to the Harry Smith Archives in many ways, having known Harry from his days at the Chelsea Hotel (introduced to him by the inimitable Patti Smith, pictured here with Neuwirth) and playing at all the Harry Smith Project concerts. When asked about the enduring influence of the anthology, Bob stated, “I think the reason that these songs continued to be relevant because they have to do with life, death; you know, blood, betrayal, murder, intoxication, resentment, envy, greed, you know, pride, gluttony, lust, sloth. Have I left any of the deadlies out? They really are down to the bone songs, man. And hey, if you can’t relate to these, you are your television set, you know.” We’ll miss you Bob. 💜
What a great honor to attend the opening festiviti What a great honor to attend the opening festivities for the beautiful @bobdylancenter in Tulsa. A selection of books and records from Harry's personal collection are now housed there (in The Douglas and Anne Brinkley Archive Reading Room) to be kept safe and sound. Special thanks to curator and archivist Mark Davidson (pictured in final slide) for acknowledging the value of Harry's contributions and allowing us to be a part of such a momentous project. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #bobdylan #bobdylancenter
BOB ! On BOK. @bobdylancenter BOB ! On BOK. @bobdylancenter
Film #10, the final selection in Smith's first fil Film #10, the final selection in Smith's first films that were compiled and came to be called Early Abstractions, was recut in 1957 to create Film #11, aka Mirror Animations. The film is meticulously synchronized to Thelonious Monk's "Misterioso". Smith said that he originally intended to base a painting on Monk's work, but "I realized that it would be impossible to make it in the form of a painting, because his music was so complex, and it would be better to make a film." In these films, Smith arranged alchemical and hermetic imagery to Monk's piano pyrotechnics in a precise and rigorous way, assembling mandala-like collages with found materials. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #theloniusmonk #misterioso #collageanimation #alchemy
Today marks the 25th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg Today marks the 25th anniversary of Allen Ginsberg's death. Smith and Ginsberg were friends for over 30 years, during which Allen allowed Harry to live with him on multiple occasions for months at a time. Ginsberg often tried to support Smith when he fell on hard times, and expanded upon their complex relationship in this snippet from an interview with Hal Willner: "Everytime we'd go up there he'd get me high, then he'd ask me for money, because he was starving. Apparently, he went around doing that with everybody. He had no source [of income] but he was a genius, like the painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. I got to be scared of going up there because he'd get me tremblingly high on grass and show me these amazing movies. I'd be totally awed and intimidated by the universality of his genius in music and painting. In addition, he could write mad long, long poems, rhymed. But he'd always hit me up for money, if he could capture me, get me up there and hypnotize me with his films." These drug-fueled evenings served as inspiration for Ginsberg's poem "Journal Night Thoughts" (1961-64). [Photo credit: Brian Graham] . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #allenginsberg #beatgeneration #halwillner
Happy April Fools' Day from everyone's favorite tr Happy April Fools' Day from everyone's favorite trickster anthropologist 😈 "Over the course of many years he claimed, as his biographer Darrin Daniel has noted, variously: to be the mystic Aleister Crowley’s illegitimate son; that his mother was the “missing” Romanov Czarina, Anastasia; and that he smoked marijuana for the first time with Woodie Guthrie in the back of the Sun studios in Memphis, Tennessee—none of which were true." - Michael Betancourt Photo credit: John Cohen . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #occult #beatnik #anthropology
More than just an avid collector of interesting ob More than just an avid collector of interesting objects, Harry was fascinated by finding nonverbal ways to communicate using taxonomy and patterns. As he told John Cohen in a 1969 interview: “…The type of thinking that I applied to records, I still apply to other things, like Seminole patchwork or to Ukrainian Easter eggs. The whole purpose is to have some kind of series of things. Information as drawing and graphic designs can be located more quickly than it can be in books. The fact that I have all the Seminole designs permits anything that falls into the canon of that technological procedure to be found there. It’s like flipping quickly through. It’s a way of programming the mind, like a punch card of a sort.” Swipe through to see stills from Smith’s Film #15 (Untitled animation of Seminole patchwork patterns), ca. 1965-66. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #seminolepatchwork #beatgeneration
Between 1999 and 2001, legendary producer Hal Will Between 1999 and 2001, legendary producer Hal Willner staged a series of concerts paying tribute to Harry's Anthology of American Folk Music. The Harry Smith Project highlighted the profound impact of the compilation with tribute performances by a genre-transcending lineup including the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Philip Glass, and Eric Mingus. Here we see Nick Cave performing Blind Willie Johnson's powerful 1930 gospel blues call and response song "John the Revelator" . . . #harryeverettsmith #harrysmith #harrysmitharchives #harrysmithproject #halwillner #nickcave #blindwilliejohnson #anthologyofamericanfolkmusic
Enochian Tablet Series, ca. 1979, watercolor, goua Enochian Tablet Series, ca. 1979, watercolor, gouache, ink, acrylic, and enamel on board From the 1960s through the 1980s, Harry produced some of his most complex work, including these pieces from his Enochian Tablet series. Rapt with cosmology, metaphysics, and alchemy, in these paintings Harry linked what he regarded as the principles underlying Highland tartans to the Enochian language, which was said to have been communicated by angels to John Dee through his medium, Edward Kelley, in the 16th century. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #cosmology #metaphysics #enochian #beatgeneration
Untitled (Schemes for projection of Film #18: Maha Untitled (Schemes for projection of Film #18: Mahagonny), c. 1978, watercolor on paper Harry worked obsessively on MAHAGONNY for over ten years, shooting it from 1970-72 and editing it from 1972-1980. Based on the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the film is an epic, four-screen projection which the filmmaker considered to be his magnum opus and described as a mathematical analysis of Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass. These schemes/studies illustrate Smith's desire for an extravagant mode of presentation---involving, in this case, projecting the film on the tops of four pool tables set up vertically within a boxing ring and accompanied by scrolling subtitles of the opera's text. While ultimately these dreams did not come to fruition, he did design slides, colored gels, framing masks, and other elements that he attempted to use for the initial screenings. He reportedly broke them in the street in a fit of anger after one of the shows. . . . #harrysmitharchives #harryeverettsmith #experimentalfilm #mahagonny #allenginsberg #jonasmekas #pattismith
[Harry Smith, Allen Ginsberg, and Wade Walton at W [Harry Smith, Allen Ginsberg, and Wade Walton at Wade’s Barber Shop, a center of musical activity in Clarksdale, Mississippi, April 1987. Harry records Wade playing percussion with his razor and strop.] We were recently connected with the wonderful William Cochrane (@deltapup) who was kind enough to share these photos of Harry along with the following story: "I was an undergrad Southern Studies major at Ole Miss (84-87) under the direction of legendary folklorist, Dr. Bill Ferris. I had been asked by the English department chair to escort Allen Ginsberg while he was in town on a book tour. His particular interest was rural African-American life and Wade Walton's barbershop (see his Wikipedia page) was a terrific microcosm of black Mississippi Delta culture. Harry Smith was traveling with Allen and came along. I believe that the day I escorted them to Wade's shop would have been the Saturday before Easter Sunday in April, 1987. The folks getting their hair cut in the shop were doing it as a last detail in preparing for Easter and it was a vibrant, bustling moment. Wade was a great guy, very generous with his time. He worked Allen in for a haircut and demonstration of his boogie woogie razor strop technique which Harry recorded. His shop was open to all and I should mention that Wade had no familiarity with Allen or his work at all, although that would not have mattered. Wade was unfailingly gracious even on one of the busiest days of the season." . . . #harrysmith #harrysmitharchives #allenginsberg #billferris #beats #wadewalton
Repost from @americanroutes • | 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐒𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐡?: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐃𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐤 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜 Who was Harry Smith? The short answer about the 20th century polymath and hustler might be divined in his legendary 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, an LP collection of mostly Southern US folk songs from 78rpm records. “The Anthology” established a cult of listening and influenced popular and folk revival artists from John Sebastian and the New Lost City Ramblers to rockers like @jerrygarcia of the @gratefuldead and @beck. We’ll talk with Smith biographer John Szwed about Harry’s life as an artist, record collector and 1950’s bohemian. Then, old and new covers of the Anthology and its B-sides from @gillianwelchofficial, @bobdylan, Gatemouth Brown and @amythystkiah. . #americanroutes #american #routes #rootsmusic #music #rock #funk #soul #blues #country #rnb #zydeco #westernswing #travel #coasttocoast #neworleans #louisiana #nickspitzer #prx #publicradio #radio #songs #HarrySmith #folk #AnthologyOfAmericanFolkMusic
Excerpt from Film Number 12 [Untitled; Named “He Excerpt from Film Number 12 [Untitled; Named “Heaven and Earth Magic Feature” by Jonas Mekas ca. 1964] (ca. 1957-62) black and white; 16mm; sound; 66:00 min. Harry Smith describes Film #12 as follows, “The first part depicts the heroine’s toothache consequent to the loss of a very valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land, in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to Earth from being eaten by Max Muller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London.” . . . #harryeverettsmith #harrysmith #harrysmitharchives #dada #beatgeneration #collagefilm #16mm
By the age of 15, Harry had spent time recording m By the age of 15, Harry had spent time recording many songs and rituals of the Lummi and Samish peoples and was compiling a dictionary of several Puget Sound dialects. He later became proficient in Kiowa sign language and spoken Kwakiutl, and developed a system of notating traditional dance. This photo depicts Smith engineering a recording session inside a sweat lodge, surrounded by elders on the Lummi reservation. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #lummi #ethnomusicology #fieldrecordings
Another clip from Harry's memorial service at St. Another clip from Harry's memorial service at St. Mark's Church in the East Village shows a performance by experimental rock group The Fugs playing their song "Carpe Diem". Harry was instrumental in getting @smithsonianfolkways to produce The Fugs' first album, and rather than getting paid for his help, he asked only for a bottle of rum. He was given the bottle and then proceeded to smash it against the wall. 🤘 . . . #harrysmith #harrysmitharchives #harryeverettsmith #smithsonianfolkways #thefugs #folkrock #counterculture
As we continue to celebrate the 30th anniversary o As we continue to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Harry's passing, we are going to share a few clips from his memorial service at St. Mark's Church in the East Village. Up first, folk singer Dave Van Ronk performing Furry Lewis' 1928 version of "The Ballad of Casey Jones", "Kassie Jones" from Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #davevanronk #folkmusic #anthologyofamericanfolkmusic #folkmusic
On this date 30 years ago Harry Smith shuffled off On this date 30 years ago Harry Smith shuffled off this mortal coil, leaving us with a lifetime's worth of art and ideas to wrestle with. May 29, 1923 - November 27, 1991 [Photos and audio from Smith's time at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. In this clip he is describing his methodology and the equipment he used to record everything happening around him.] . . . #harrysmith #harryeverettsmith #harrysmitharchives #naropauniversity #naropainstitute #occult
Harry Smith was, amongst many other things, a grea Harry Smith was, amongst many other things, a great collector. One of his most fascinating collections consisted of instructions for string figures, which track the manipulation of an ordinary piece of string into an elaborate handwoven design. Smith regarded the construction of string figures as a universal form of expression; he claimed that all cultures use such figures as a storytelling device in one way or another. String figures were commonly performed by the elders of the Lummi and Swinomish on the Native American reservations Smith visited during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Smith’s interest in string figures continued throughout his life, and he eventually compiled a lengthy manuscript on the subject that remains unpublished. In an interview with John Cohen for Sing Out!, Smith commented on what he saw in such figures: "Oh. it was some universal thing that seemed to be more widely distributed than anything else in places that didn't have so-called civilization: It was the only thing that I could isolate off hand that was produced by all primitive societies and by no cultured societies," . . . #harrysmith #harrysmitharchives #harryeverettsmith #stringfigures #lummi #swinomish
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