Writing for
AllMusic, critic John Bush wrote the compilation "could well be the most influential document of the '50s folk revival. Many of the recordings that appeared on it had languished in obscurity for 20 years, and it proved a revelation to a new group of folkies, from
Pete Seeger to
John Fahey to
Bob Dylan... Many of the most interesting selections on the Anthology, however, are taken from [obscure] artists... such as
Clarence Ashley,
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and
Buell Kazee." In 2003,
Rolling Stone magazine ranked the album as number 276 on their list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time, and number 278 in a 2012 revised list. It was included in the 2008 book
1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, and the 2009 book
101 Albums That Changed Popular Music. In 2012, the album was inducted into the
Grammy Hall of Fame. Though relatively little was written about the
Anthology during the first years after it was released (the first known press reference to the collection was in the folk music magazine
Sing Out! in 1958, which focused on Clarence Ashley’s "
The Coo Coo") The music in the collection provided direct inspiration to much of the emerging folk music revival movement. The anthology made available music which was previously largely heard only in marginalized social and economic groups. Many people who first heard this music through the
Anthology came from very different cultural and economic backgrounds than its original creators and listeners. Many previously obscure songs became standards at
hootenannies and in
folk clubs and coffee houses because they were in the
Anthology. Some of the musicians represented in the
Anthology had their musical careers revived. Some made additional recordings and live appearances. The collection brought the works of
Blind Lemon Jefferson,
Mississippi John Hurt,
Dick Justice and many others to the attention of musicians such as
The New Lost City Ramblers,
Bob Dylan and
Joan Baez. The Harry Smith Anthology, as some call it, was the folk music Bible during the late 1950s and 1960s
Greenwich Village folk scene. As the liner notes to the 1997 reissue say, musician
Dave van Ronk had earlier commented that "We all knew every word of every song on it, including the ones we hated." The
Anthology has had major historical influence. Smith's method of sequencing tracks along with his inventive
liner notes called attention to the set. This reintroduction of nearly forgotten popular styles of rural American music to new listeners had impact on American
ethnomusicology and was directly and indirectly influential on the
American folk music revival.
Sing Out! published a full article on the entire set in 1969. In surveying the critical writing on the
Anthology, Rory Crutchfield writes, "[t]his is one of the strangest aspects of the critical heritage of the
Anthology: its emergence from relative obscurity to prominence as a revivalist manifesto without much transition. In terms of academic credibility, this partly came from the work of [Robert] Cantwell and Greil Marcus|[Greil] Marcus, which was published fairly close to the reissue of the collection." ==Track listing==