Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways. A Review

Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways / by Richard Carlin (Harper Collins

, 2008) Hardcover, 304 p. ISBN 9780061563553

Worlds of Sound tells the story of Moses Asch and the recording project he started in 1940. His first studio was tiny, but his dream was large: to record and document every sound of his time from all over the world. After two failed ventures, he began Folkways Records. By the time of his death, Folkways had issued almost 2200 albums. When Asch died, he had arranged for the Smithsonian Institution to take over Folkways and make all of those recordings perpetually available to anyone who wanted to purchase one..

Folkways was an important early proponent of the American folk song revival exemplified by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Leadbelly, and many others but it did not limit itself to American music, or even just to music. It issued recordings of Javanese gamelan music, African leaf orchestras, and, in short, music from all levels of societies all over the world. It also recorded the spoken word from political speeches to poetry, natural sounds (such as birds, insects, frogs, wind, water, and the outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere), and man made sounds (including steam engines, subways, and computers). Asch intended to produce an "encyclopedia of sound."

Author Richard Carlin worked as an independent producer for Folkways in the 1970s. Drawing not only on his own experience and observations, but correspondence, recorded interviews, and various other documents, Carlin explores Asch's vision and ambition from the early beginnings of Folkways until the Smithsonian guaranteed the survival of all of those recordings. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs of Asch and collaborators, performers, record jackets, and facsimiles of documents.

Worlds of Sound captures the history of a vitally important collection of recordings and the personalities involved in making it so. Carlin has captured their dedication and the passion for social justice that drove them. He has provided an excellent and important supplement to the treasure Folkways created. All-Purpose Guru Alert features one carefully chosen title like this every day. What is today's offering?

Worlds of Sound: The Story of Smithsonian Folkways. A Review

By: All-Purpose Guru

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