The Harry in question (1923-1991) was a musicologist, filmmaker and, to judge by the video that kicked off the show, a querulous old coot. His relevance to the final night of Nick Cave's Meltdown rests in his seminal Anthology of American Folk Music, a hand-compiled selection of rare 78s that turned no less than Bob Dylan on to folk. This very long evening sought to bring Smith wider recognition through the time-honoured ploy of roping in celebrities to cover songs from the anthology.
Inevitably, the McGarrigle sisters, Eliza Carthy and Beth Orton guest-trilled, but the popular draw was the non-folkies - Jarvis Cocker, Bryan Ferry and others who wouldn't know an Arran jumper if they wore one. The very thought is so alien to Cocker that an attempt at a jaunty air about "the little cuckoo bird" quickly melted into the Sheffield-folk of a Pulp tune. This rather missed the point, but the house gave him a hero's welcome. Similarly, a piano-playing Ferry found it hard to be anything but lounge-lizardly, but managed to stick to Appalachian death songs.
The legendarily, er, individual Mary Margaret O'Hara was eagerly anticipated, but turned out to be the comic relief. Her distracted rendition of a song about the Titanic was the most metaphorically apt of the evening. Louche co-vocalist Gavin Friday couldn't hold her in check as she frolicked like an embarrassing aunt at a wedding. She had the misfortune, though, to be following jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott, whose scalding version of Motherless Child (not on the anthology, but what the heck) must have had them drawing lots backstage not to be on next.
Nick Cave teamed up with the McGarrigles, psychedelic granddad Van Dyke Parks with Syd Straw, everyone with everyone else. The loose nature of the event made unlikely combinations possible, but also militated against any sense of discipline, without which such gigs tend to run to the point of crowd fatigue. That's what happened here, despite the excellence of nearly all involved. Nearly four hours of Harry's favourite tunes was an awful lot of Harry.
