why we need a new folkways
Smithsonian Folkways isn’t a record label, it’s a museum. Once upon a time — primarily the ’50s through the late ’60s — Folkways was a living label, an imprint that still discovered artists, sought out new recordings and truly trafficked in its founding mission: Moses Asch’s goal to document “people’s music,” and, later, all aspects of sound. Somewhere along the way, however, Folkways stopped doing that, turning its attentions to curating the folk music legacy of Woody and Pete along with a few niche focuses, and paying less heed to the types of records that made the Smithsonian Folkways catalogue such a powerful and unique one.
It’s an understandable shift for Folkways to make. As a government entity in need of funding and political support, it is in a unique position: accountable to no one, and yet simultaneously accountable to us all. The NEA has long been a right-wing bugaboo, but the Smithsonian has largely dodged those critiques by playing up its populism rather than any of the other isms its catalogue contains. Thus, Folkways stays out of the way when the very radical aims of Guthrie and Seeger are synthesized into some sort of vanilla portrayal of modern-age minstrels and troubadours who busked children’s lullabies and summer camp singalongs for a day’s wage and a piece of that fresh apple pie — this land is your land, after all.
This has been a boon to those artists and their estates, both in terms of legacy and proceeds, and has helped Smithsonian Folkways maintain a broader cultural relevance while its annual output of new recordings slows to a mere dribble. It also stays current by making its catalogue available digitally to services such as eMusic and, for instance, by putting together a compilation to accompany the release of Dylan’s Chronicles Vol. 1 autobiography. These are smart marketing and business moves that enable Folkways to endure even through trying political times. They cannot be reasonably faulted for this.
The real trouble, however, is that no one else has stepped up to take their place. The treasures of Folkways are when the anthropological and the musical collide, when a 20-volume series on the Music of Indonesia uncovers an embarrassment of musical discoveries; when Harry Smith and Alan Lomax stumble across a wholly unique performer like Roscoe Holcomb; or when a blues master like Big Bill Broonzy offers unsurpassable renditions of classic folk songs. These releases show not only an unquenchable thirst for discovery, but also a genuine daringness, a refreshing disregard for risk.
But we are in a very different place now. And certainly some of the prime-era Smithsonian Folkways recordings are of dubious value, but that’s not an altogether bad thing! How would I have known how much I love Transylvanian wedding music, the Mbuti Pygmies of the Ituri rainforest, the sounds of the junk yard or any number of other bizarre, out-there recordings if someone in the ’60s had not decided, “this has value, even if it’s just for one person.” As much as people talk about the long tail and all of that now, here’s the best-possible application there has ever been!
Some of what Folkways did has been overtaken by a larger, more corporate structure. World music, once the bulk of Folkways’ recordings, is now very much a big business, a form of pop music sold to a more affluent consumer, but not treated all that differently in the end. Field recordings have disappeared, sadly. And the regionalization that Folkways so heavily relied on in the Smith recordings and their ilk is largely gone — what are regions now that there’s a pervasive media/entertainment super-structure?
But still, there are pockets out there. Pockets that need to be discovered, and should be. And certainly some people are doing that. This whole enterprise — whether you want to dub it ethnomusicology or simply a quest for sound — is not dead, by any means. But it has been relegated to the archives, and it shouldn’t. The quest for discovery is a very real and permanent thing — maybe the most human trait of all — and it must subsist. Someone needs to carry on this legacy, this very important aim, and they need to start now. Who better than the folks who started it all?
What about Sublime Frequencies? (http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/)
They have done a lot of ethno-recording (or whatever you want to call it) in Middle East and Asia.
I’d really like to see them on emusic, it’s a label which records are rather hard to find in Europe.
Very very true. There are still people doing good ethnomusicological documentation–Ocora comes to mind–but yeah, I’d like to see a much more active Folkways.
As far as new Smithsonian recordings go, though, I do love Elizabeth Mitchell’s “You Are My Little Bird,” and so does my two-year-old. Also, it’s probably the only children’s record in existence that includes a Velvet Underground cover.
Thanks for an interesting and thought provoking read here. I’ve bought items on the Folkways label over the years, including from eMusic, but I agree they haven’t kept up the potential.
I don’t know of any larger operation doing this type of work across the board, but there are a lot of smaller entities preserving and promoting this type of music.
One that came to mind off the top of my head was Musical Traditions:
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/records.htm
I’ve gotten an album from them of local singers from County Clare in Ireland, and a double album of Appalachian musicians, and they have several other albums as well. Each of the albums features extensive liner notes about the music, musicians, and the culture. (Good liner notes are one thing I like about the Smithsonian Folkways albums as well.) These seem to be very much the type of recordings you’re talking about. (You can look at the liner notes on the above site, by the way.) These aren’t commercial musicians for the most part, just great performers local to a particular area, playing or singing a particular type of music.
I’m about to post a link to your article on the Mudcat.org site, ( a site and forum for folk, roots, trad, etc. music) to see if it generates some more interesting discussion.
As in, the blonde other from Lost??
“Field recordings have disappeared, sadly.” Sad, indeed. There are some artists still using field recordings, though — albeit perhaps in unusual or innovative ways — e.g., Amon Tobin’s new disc and Alejandra & Aeorn’s Bousha Blue Blazes.
Moses Asch’s Folkways Records & Service Corp’s path and example inspired a number others. Informed by their own passions and personal interests were more than a few record labels that focused on world musical traditions and found audiences, for example, ROUNDER, LYRICHORD, NONESUCH EXPLORER, UNESCO, VANGUARD,CHANT DU MONDE, OCORA, and even other labels since acquired by the Smithsonian, including MONITOR and PAREDON. There was so little traditional world music available in the U.S. when Asch began in 1948. Now there is so much!
SMITHSONIAN FOLKWAYS has carried on the tradition ’til today, two February 2007 field recording releases are examples: Ghanaian truck drivers’ funeral music featuring truck horns, tire rims and voices (”Por Por: Honk Horn Music of Ghana”) and songs about AIDS in Uganda (”Singing for Life: Songs of Hope, Healing, and HIV/AIDS in Uganda”. There are also a vital and vibrant series of Latino roots music recorded in Mexico, the Caribbean and further south (Folkways Latino), CDs of Iraqi and three Central Asian traditions have been published only in the last year. Check out Our Recordings/New Releases tab or search by year on Folkways website for what’s been cooking at the national museum’s nonprofit record label.