zB - Summer is winding down after a relatively hot and fitful cycle . . . super dry until early July, when the monsoonal moisture gods unleashed their kindness. We were spared the devastating fires that many of our brothers and sisters have suffered this season. Today was the most magical of blue sky days we have been blessed with for quite some time . . . "I've seen fire and I've seen rain . . . I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end", kind of day. I am blessed to be working on a totally sweet little building project close to home, instead of having to drive to Telluride. We are on Pleasant Point and have the complete Sneffels/Cimarron panorama to contemplate.
60 years ago Harry Smith released the American Folk Music Anthology. Y'all wouldn't be talkin' 'bout the Dead if Jerry hadn't picked up a copy. My brother immediately mailed it to me when he found out I didn't own the (now four volumes) Anthology. He said, "knowing the kind of music you like and not owning the Anthology is like lovin' Allah and not owning a Koran".
This thread's been going awhile so I may have mentioned this a couple years back but worth repeating. Ginsberg smoked his first joint from Harry's stash.
A quote from the Oregonian.....
2012 marks the 60th anniversary of the release of the Anthology of American Folk music. Originally released on Folkways Records in 1952, it was the first collection of vintage 78s on LP, it’s tracks—all chosen by Smith from his mind-bogglingly enormous personal collection. More than a mere record set, but rather a fully realized artistic endeavor with a “handbook” which included visual art, quotations from the likes of esoteric occultist Aleister Crowley, Smith own fastidious and odd liner notes. It’s impact is legendary and yet nearly impossible to estimate. It was a primary source of inspiration and enlightenment for the East Coast folk boom which included stalwarts such as the New Lost City Ramblers, Mark Spoelstra, and Geoff Muldaur—the scene from which Bob Dylan would emerge. On the West Coast it was nearly a holy screed for a nascent Jerry Garcia in Northern California, who devoured the Blues of Furry Lewis and the claw hammer banjo of Clarence Ashley. And it was Smith who produced the first album by the Fugs—Ed Saunders’ proto-punk group which trafficked in political satire and primitive psychedelia. It’s fair to say that the 1960s as we know it may not have happened quite that way without Harry Smith and the Anthology.
Hey there friend! I do not personally know Mike Hunt. Is he in the Ridgway area? Now that I think of it there may be a Hunt mailbox down at the bottom of Pleasant Point Drive, or maybe I am imagining this.
Let me know how I can help you out.
Oh yeah, just for all you Heads . . . I saw Phil and Friends at the T-Ride Blues and Brews with Warren Haynes . . . it was sweet. My first Dead show in a very long time.
Let us know!