For the benefit of Brits like myself the question

Who was Harry Smith?

is answered on the festival website

'Among other things, Harry Smith was an archivist, ethnomusicologist, experimental film maker, artist, mystic, and inveterate collector of everything from Ukrainian Easter eggs to Seminole Indian blankets, to string figures, to 78 rpm records.

Working with Smithsonian Records in 1952 Harry Smith released the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music, a multi-volume work that is little known now, but brought back to the light of day blues, hillbilly and cajun recordings made between 1927 and 1933, and, some argue, singlehandedly jump-started the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s.

As such, the Anthology has had a tremendous, though little-recognized, influence on American roots and rural music.'

Besy wishes for the event