Photo by Allen Ginsberg

This wonderful short animated film by Drew Christie recounts musicologist John Cohen’s first meeting with Harry Everett Smith, polymath autodidact weirdo, experimental filmmaker and the Grammy-award-winning compiler of the classic Anthology of American Folk Music.

It’s an absolute delight! Guaranteed to make you smile or double your money back.

There are several similarly charming Harry Smith anecdotes like this one recounted in books such as Harry Smith: The Avant-Garde in the American Vernacular (Andrew Perchuck and Rani Singh); Think of the Self Speaking (edited by Rani Singh); American Magus: Harry Smith (edited by Paola Igliori) and the monograph Harry Smith: Fragments of a Northwest Life (Darrin Daniel).

My favorite Smith anecdote, and I think this one comes via Allen Ginsberg—pretty sure—is that Smith usually wore eyeglasses that he found in the trash. If he happened upon some discarded glasses, tried them on and they were better than the ones he was wearing, he’d toss the old ones and keep the new ones!

And speaking of Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, if the animation intrigues you, and his Anthology box set is something that you are unfamiliar with, you can listen to this special podcast about it on the American Standard Time blog’s Roadhouse Radio show.
 

 
Via John Coulthart