Hal Willner's Program Notes
Harry Smith Project, Royal Festival Hall, London
July 2, 1999

Harry Smith was definitely someone that "came from the special part of the forest." The first time I laid eyes on him was at the Bottom Line Nightclub in New York in 1987.

Michael Minzer and I had just spent the week recording Allen's Ginsberg's The Lion For Real album which combined music and poetry in a way that had not been done before. It had gone extremely well and Michael and I knew that we had captured something special. At the end of the recording week, Allen had a gig opening for the reunited Fugs at the Bottom Line.

In an inspired moment, Allen wondered if he could perform some of the material we had just recorded with the musicians at the gig. Though the record had yet to be mixed and was probably a year away from being released (it ended up closer to two), it seemed like a fun thing to do-give a few hundred people a sneak preview of this work that we were so proud of — and end the week with a big finish...

It was a sold out house at the Bottom Line — and backstage everyone became a little nervous wondering of this was a good idea. I decided to take a break from this scene and check out the crowd. Coming out in the audience, I froze in horror with what I saw in front of me. Seated in the front row was this ... man... he looked exactly like the guy at the beginning of Monty Python who would say "IT'S"!! Out in plain view he had a small professional tape recorder connected to a huge microphone which was pointed at the stage!!!! Imagining the bootleg coming out the next week — I went berserk.

Confronting this creature was difficult because he scared me. When I managed to spatter out a bunch of inarticulate phrases at him, he gazed up at me with a look of immediate dismissal and said nothing. Not knowing what to do, I went into some sort of spastic Tex Avery moves-about to look for help when a young man seated across from him blurted out that "This is HARRY SMITH!!!!! ....with a little bit of "you idiot" implied.

I was about to let out a "OOHHH SO THIS IS HARRY SMITH!! Well that makes a lot of difference!! IT'S HARRY SMITH.... WHO THE F*** IS HARRY SMITH??? AND WHY IS HE RECORDING THIS???? When my brain went into search mode something about the name was familiar.

While in school, I acquired a bunch of Folkways Records, when a local record store was selling cutouts. Along with Leadbelly, Civil War Songs, and early Electronica records from the Folkways catalogue that I picked up was an album called "Kiowa Peyote Meeting — Recorded by Harry Smith." At that moment, Harry again glanced my way, this time accompanied with a high pitch Walter Brennan groan as if saying "Are you still here you annoying weasel!?? Confused I ran backstage to Allen ...

Allen responded with "of course he's recording it. Harry's been recording the sounds of East 12th Street out my window for the last five weeks-it's for his collection. I wouldn't worry about it." And then Allen told me about the history of Harry's film work (possibly the most important and groundbreaking of all the early experimental filmmakers) and his Anthology of American Folk Music. Allen said that the Anthology was "a historic bomb in American folk music. It turned on Peter, Paul and Mary, turned on the whole folk music world at the time, including Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Happy Traum and Bob Dylan. According to Jerry Garcia he learned blues from Harry Smith records."

Soon thereafter I checked out Allen's copy of the Anthology of American Folk Music and I started to have an idea of Harry Smith the artist. I saw a connection between all of his work and realized he was the great innovator who made a personal statement with all of his album productions/compilations and his films when he collected found pieces or originated the work as in much of his art. The Anthology of American Folk Music was the first use of the LP form to put together obscure 78's — was often imitated, but none ever approached the quality of Harry's because of the personal artistry of the set and Harry's impeccable taste.

I got to know Harry pretty well over the four years after that... from his period staying at Allen's through his "shaman in residence" stint at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. Our talks about recordings were pretty bizarre — he was more interested in things like the time I recorded the sounds of the Paradise Island Casino for Gavin Friday and The Man Seezer's first record, than my music recordings, though we did have some unique talks about music.

Once at Naropa, Harry showed a series of his "Early Abstractions" to a class demonstrating that any piece of music could work with many of his films. Everything from Caruso to The Smiths were used. He was right and it was amazing.

Harry died in 1991 shortly after being given a Grammy Award for The Anthology of American Folk Music. Shortly aftyer his death the Anthology was reissued — and now his true genius is finally being recognized.

To celebrate the Reissue of the Anthology, a concert/symposium was held at the Smithsonian Institute which included a multi-artist event with many great musicians performing the songs from the LPs. Upon hearing the CD (The Harry Smith Connection, Folkways Recording #40085) of the event, I kind of jokingly imagined what I would have done with the concept (not that I had any problem with what was done in Washington — it's a great recording ) — but it was only a flash.

The flash returned when Nick Cave Nick Cave approached me for a multi-artist evening at Meltdown and I suggested a look at Harry Smith's work. Nick and I have crossed paths a few times — most notably on the second multi-artist volume of the Kurt Weill (September Songs) and when I was music producer of David Sanborn's "Night Music" show where Nick and Mick Harvey performed "Hey Joe" with Toots Theilman and Charlie Haden. Nick also recorded two great covers from the Anthology — "Henry Lee" and "Stagger Lee."

Lists were made up... people were called... people responded... songs were discussed... and it's a reality. Or maybe not — the cast tonight is beyond our greatest fantasies of what this night would be. It may be the most amazing group of musicians and vocalists that I have ever known to grace the stage.

I would like to say that Harry would be pleased with all of this but honestly he'd probably skip the event to record the Waterloo train station....

I'll be seeing you.

Hal Willner

PS Thanks to all the participating artists — actually thanks isn't enough... but I've already promised all of you the slave favors... to Rani Singh — if you're still speaking with me after the show ... and to all at Meltdown... David... Liz... Dominick... and Shemp... and a big on for Mr. Cave... it meant a lot to me that you thought of me for this... I guess that no good deed goes unpunished as Doc Pomus used to say.