One of the most influential sets of records in the history of recorded sound. Originally issued in 1952 in three volumes of 2 LPs each, a total of 84 tracks, it has been commercially unavailable for the last decade. The Anthology brought virtually unknown parts of America's musical landscape to public attention and drove young people to travel the American South in search of these traditions. Released at a time when the commercial recording industry had largely congealed into a few relatively homogeneous mass markets, the Anthology successfully answered a widespread need for fresh inspiration, aesthetic authority, and uncommon artistry in popular music. It also played a seminal role in the folk music revival of the late 1950s and 1960s, which has had lasting political, economic and aesthetic impact. What had been, to the people who originally recorded the songs on the Anthology, essentially the music of the poor, the isolated, and the uneducated, Harry Smith reframed as a kind of avant-garde art. The wonderful Folkways re-issue comes along with the original packaging, a facsimile print of Smith's handbook and a new collection of essays and discographies.