NEW Call for Papers: "America Changed Through Music" - The Book!

Following the success of "America Changed Through Music" on September 15th, we're now looking for contributors for what will be the first book-length study of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music in the six decades since its release. The official Call for Papers is below - please feel free to get in touch with any questions!

 “America Changed Through Music”: 

Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music

Following a highly successful international conference in September (http://www.americachangedthroughmusic.com/), proposals are now invited for a book of essays marking the sixtieth anniversary of Harry Smith’s landmark Anthology of American Folk Music. Over the six decades since its release in 1952, Smith’s collection of American vernacular musics has exerted considerable influence on numerous generations of musicians, artists, and writers. “America Changed Through Music”: Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music will be the first collection of essays to address the diverse legacies of what is widely considered a seminal work in twentieth-century music and art. Taking Smith’s speech at the Grammy Awards in 1991 as a starting-point —‘I’m glad to say that my dreams came true. I saw America changed through music’—we welcome proposals for essays that may consider, but are certainly not limited to, the following topics:

·         The Anthology in relation to Smith’s broader body of work

·         Analyses of individual artists and songs included in the Anthology

·         The Anthology and the development of American music

 ·         The Anthology’s influence on individual artists, writers, musicians, and beyond

·         The Anthology’s aesthetics

·         The Anthology’s politics

·         The critical heritage surrounding the Anthology

·         The 1997 CD reissue of the Anthology

·         Transatlantic dialogues in the Anthology

·         The cultural legacies of the Anthology

·         The Anthology’s role in defining/redefining notions of the Old and the New ‘Weird America’

·         The Anthology and ethnic and cultural identity

·         The Anthology and its music in the twenty-first century

Please send proposals of 300-500 words to Dr Thomas Ruys Smith [Thomas.Smith@uea.ac.uk] and Dr Ross Hair [R.Hair@uea.ac.uk] by December 20^th 2012. Please include a brief biographical statement / CV and contact details. [Submission of essays will be Summer 2013].

Ross Hair interviewed on Near 90.3 FM

The conference might be over, but never fear: we're still here to supply you with Harry Smith related infotainment! Ross Hair was interviewed about the 60th anniversary of the Anthology of American Folk Music by Dublin's Near 90.3 FM. The audio is available below. Enjoy!

Photos and video

We're very pleased to be able to share some images from the conference. First, here's a video of Ewan D. Rodgers performing "State of Arkansas" on the day:


And here are some photos of our performers, courtesy of conference attendee Delia Dattilo:

The day after...

We couldn't be happier with the way that everything turned out yesterday - so we'd like to offer up a few final thanks. We need to thank our panellists for their fascinating papers - and, in many cases, for travelling a long, long way to be with us. We need to thank our musicians - Rapunzel & Sedayne and Ewan D. Rodgers - for bringing the day to a wonderful, fitting end. We need to thank everyone who came along to listen, watch and contribute from the floor. We need to thank all those who helped to publicise the conference in the months of planning. And we absolutely need to thank our sponsors again - proudly listed in the sidebar to the right - as well as Drew Christie for the conference logo, and Binary & The Brain for the design work, and the UEA Conference Office for all their amazing support. So, the day is done. But we're not quite finished yet. We'll be posting some video of the musical portion of the day at some point in the not-too-distant future (so yet more thanks - to James Maycock for the filming).

And we'll be back with news of another exciting project very soon. So stay tuned...

So long...for now.

Getting ready...

See you all tomorrow!

"America Changed Through Music" on Cerys Matthews' BBC 6Music show - this Sunday

Stand by your (digital) radios: this Sunday, at around 11am, Thomas Ruys Smith is going to be chatting with Cerys Matthews about Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music on her BBC 6Music show. Should be a perfect warm-up for our conference! We'll archive the audio here after the event.

Next week, Ross Hair is going to be talking to Ireland's Near 90 FM. Stay tuned for more details!

Update: You can now listen to the show on the BBC iPlayer. The interview starts at about 1:08, though this link should take you straight to the right point in the programme.

Update: For posterity, a rough and ready copy of the interview is available here:

Conference Programme

Hot off the press, our official Conference Programme is available after the break below. Enjoy! Many thanks to the maestros at Binary & The Brain for the design.