Alan Lomax

Assembled from 19 blocks · 3 evidence · 6 related

1. Story
2. An American folklorist who spent more than sixty years recording musicians in the field, first alongside his father John A. Lomax for the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song and later on his own account across the United States, the Caribbean, Britain, Ireland, Spain and Italy. The recordings that matter most to this Journey are early and specific. In July 1933 the Lomaxes recorded Huddie Ledbetter — Lead Belly — at Angola prison farm in Louisiana. In 1938 Alan Lomax recorded Jelly Roll Morton at length in the Library of Congress, producing the sessions in which Morton set out the Caribbean rhythmic component of early New Orleans jazz. In the summer of 1941, on a trip run jointly by the Library of Congress and Fisk University, he and the Fisk musicologist John W. Work III recorded McKinley Morganfield — Muddy Waters — at Stovall Farm near Clarksdale, and returned in 1942. Lomax was also the collector who most explicitly argued that the music he was recording was a system with structure worth analysing rather than folklore, and the reasons to be uneasy about a white collector's authority over Black repertoire apply to him as squarely as to anyone.
3. Knowledge
4. Alan Lomax
5. The Lomaxes record Lead Belly at Angola
6. Connections
7. The Lomaxes record Lead Belly at Angola
8. The Lomaxes record Lead Belly at Angola
9. Alan Lomax records Jelly Roll Morton at the Library of Congress
10. Muddy Waters is recorded at Stovall Farm
11. The American Folklife Center acquires the Alan Lomax Collection
12. Alan Lomax
13. Alan Lomax
14. Field recording
15. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
16. Evidence
17. John A. and Alan Lomax, recording for the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song with a newly supplied instantaneous aluminium-disc recorder, met and recorded Huddie Ledbetter at Angola prison farm in Louisiana in July 1933; the resulting discs and documentation are held at the American Folklife Center. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to this Library of Congress research guide; the guide was not opened and no item or call number is cited.
18. The Lomaxes met and recorded Lead Belly at Angola around 16–20 July 1933; Alan Lomax's subsequent collecting spanned more than sixty years and several continents, and included extended 1938 Library of Congress sessions with Jelly Roll Morton. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary attributed to the Association for Cultural Equity chronology; the chronology was not opened and no session log was consulted.
19. Alan Lomax, working for the Library of Congress with John W. Work III of Fisk University, recorded McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) at Stovall Farm near Clarksdale in the summer of 1941 and returned in 1942. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary from discographic and public-history accounts; no archival session sheet was consulted, exact session dates differ between retrieved sources, and the long-running dispute over John W. Work III's credit is noted rather than resolved.