It’s one of those things where you can forget about it for like a year and then become obsessed with it all over again for a month straight when you remember it exists. In the end, there’s other, more comprehensive and focused compilations of early 20th century folk/blues records, but the mystique and prestige of it makes it more than the sum of its parts.
Or maybe I’m caught up in the boomer/hipster eulogizing and it’s just a collection of random songs sung by drunk hillbillies and southern blacks

>>127162187 (OP)
I don't know any better compilations. Unless you focus on a single artist and get a comp just about them.

like I said, there’s pretty good compilations that cover each of the areas that Smith chose in his Anthology:
>Kentucky mountain music box set
>I Belong to this band
>never let the same bee sting you twice
>the stuff dreams are made of volumes 1 and 2
One criticism I have of the anthology is that smith completely leaves out Tijano and other Hispanic American music styles while including Cajun music. Maybe it’s not a criticism most people would share but it seems arbitrary to prefer francophone folk over spanish American folk

>>127162309
Not a lot of Hawaiian either, which is just as important. A lot of the early steel guitar designs were made with the Hawaiian craze at the time in mind. All of the country slide guitar later came from that. Some weird shredding back then too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FaPIS1HDBU

>>127162203
>>127162187 (OP)
I really dig this one, I should probably try more oldy comps

https://youtu.be/txIBXYRpMYQ?feature=shared

Smithsonian's Folkways has a bunch of other cool compilations although you're not going to find anything that's as good of an all around collection as the Anthology of American Folk Music. It can be fun to dig through their different albums because they've got all sorts of stuff and nearly every sort of traditional ethnic music, https://folkways.si.edu/

Sounds of the South is a great compilation focused on traditional southern music. There are a few traditional black church preacher tracks too, the one called "Sermon Fragment" was sampled by Kanye on New God Flow.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2MQMLFDBfgm3CNM24sK0TT?si=K8t6EwW4R5OjABR773l2uw

wild how americans can just steal british songs and everyone accepts it like it's normal

>>127162203
*ahem*

>>127163887
Still mad about the Boston tea party, huh? Bitch.

we fought a whole damn war with England because the king tried to make us pay a TV license fee. It's the reasons we do not have a TV license fee for over the air content

>>127163914
Ah, I wasn't doubting there were better out there. I mean I personally didn't know. I haven't explored it like I have individual artists that really grabbed me.

>>127163616
great find

>>127164197
Thanks, playa

>>127164185
Nuggets is a great comp, but it's not a traditional American music comp

>>127163887
can't steal a song if it has no writer

>>127163914
There is absolutely no way on God’s green earth that this hippy dippy shit is better than the OP.