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Harry Smith biography

Rain Dog 04 Sep 23 - 01:22 PM
Thomas Stern 05 Sep 23 - 10:28 PM
GUEST,Mike Yates 06 Sep 23 - 09:25 AM
matt milton 06 Sep 23 - 10:23 AM
GUEST,Mike Yates 09 Sep 23 - 06:28 AM
GUEST,Mike Yates 06 Sep 23 - 09:25 AM
GUEST,Mike Yates 09 Sep 23 - 06:28 AM
Thomas Stern 05 Sep 23 - 10:28 PM
Rain Dog 04 Sep 23 - 01:22 PM
matt milton 06 Sep 23 - 10:23 AM
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Subject: Harry Smith biography
From: Rain Dog
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 01:22 PM

Details here: Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith

Cosmic Scholar
The Life and Times of Harry Smith

Author: John Szwed


"The first comprehensive biography of this hipster magus . . . [John Szwed] allows different sides of Smith’s personality to catch blades of sun. He brings the right mixture of reverence and comic incredulity to his task.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Grammy Award–winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed presents the first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture.

He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe about the occult, swapped drugs with Timothy Leary, had a front-row seat to a young Thelonious Monk, lived with (and tortured) Allen Ginsberg, was admired by Susan Sontag, and was one of the first artists funded by Guggenheim Foundation. He was always broke, generally intoxicated, compulsively irascible, and unimpeachably authentic. Harry Smith was, in the words of Robert Frank, “the only person I met in my life that transcended everything.”

In Cosmic Scholar, the Grammy Award-winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed patches together, for the first time, the life of one of the twentieth century’s most overlooked cultural figures. From his time recording the customs of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Florida to his life in Greenwich Village in its heyday, Smith was consumed by an unceasing desire to create a unified theory of culture. He was an insatiable creator and collector, responsible for the influential Anthology of American Folk Music and several pioneering experimental films, but was also an insufferable and destructive eccentric who was unable to survive in regular society, or keep himself healthy or sober.

Exhaustively researched, energetically told, and complete with a trove of images, Cosmic Scholar is a feat of biographical restoration and the long overdue canonization of an American icon.

Includes black-and-white and color images

Imprint Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 10:28 PM

also see
Harry Smith's Anthology and B-Sides threads

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=12184
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=169788

Thomas.


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 09:25 AM

The book should be out in England on 23rd September. (Though quite a few publishing dates seem to get pushed back these days!)


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: matt milton
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 10:23 AM

Looking forward to this - liked Szwed's books on Alan Lomax and Sun Ra.


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 06:28 AM

I presume that readers will be aware if a previous book about Harry Smith - "American Magus: Harry Smith, a modern alchemist", edited by Paola Igliori (New York, 1996). A gem of a book.


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 09:25 AM

The book should be out in England on 23rd September. (Though quite a few publishing dates seem to get pushed back these days!)


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 06:28 AM

I presume that readers will be aware if a previous book about Harry Smith - "American Magus: Harry Smith, a modern alchemist", edited by Paola Igliori (New York, 1996). A gem of a book.


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 05 Sep 23 - 10:28 PM

also see
Harry Smith's Anthology and B-Sides threads

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=12184
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=169788

Thomas.


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Subject: Harry Smith biography
From: Rain Dog
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 01:22 PM

Details here: Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith

Cosmic Scholar
The Life and Times of Harry Smith

Author: John Szwed


"The first comprehensive biography of this hipster magus . . . [John Szwed] allows different sides of Smith’s personality to catch blades of sun. He brings the right mixture of reverence and comic incredulity to his task.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

Grammy Award–winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed presents the first biography of Harry Smith, the brilliant eccentric who transformed twentieth century art and culture.

He was an anthropologist, filmmaker, painter, folklorist, mystic, and walking encyclopedia. He taught Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe about the occult, swapped drugs with Timothy Leary, had a front-row seat to a young Thelonious Monk, lived with (and tortured) Allen Ginsberg, was admired by Susan Sontag, and was one of the first artists funded by Guggenheim Foundation. He was always broke, generally intoxicated, compulsively irascible, and unimpeachably authentic. Harry Smith was, in the words of Robert Frank, “the only person I met in my life that transcended everything.”

In Cosmic Scholar, the Grammy Award-winning music scholar and celebrated biographer John Szwed patches together, for the first time, the life of one of the twentieth century’s most overlooked cultural figures. From his time recording the customs of Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Florida to his life in Greenwich Village in its heyday, Smith was consumed by an unceasing desire to create a unified theory of culture. He was an insatiable creator and collector, responsible for the influential Anthology of American Folk Music and several pioneering experimental films, but was also an insufferable and destructive eccentric who was unable to survive in regular society, or keep himself healthy or sober.

Exhaustively researched, energetically told, and complete with a trove of images, Cosmic Scholar is a feat of biographical restoration and the long overdue canonization of an American icon.

Includes black-and-white and color images

Imprint Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux


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Subject: RE: Harry Smith biography
From: matt milton
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 10:23 AM

Looking forward to this - liked Szwed's books on Alan Lomax and Sun Ra.


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