I have returned to the real world and am now back in action!  Now rested and tanned from a quick mini-vacation after the anniversary party, I am ready to tackle all the amazing things coming our way this fall, especially my collaboration with CANOE for the Tool & Tack Pop-Up!

My man told me about Alan Lomax a while back and I am finally getting around to posting on him. If you couldn’t tell already, I am a huge fan of blues and roots music.  Music in general has long chronicled the stories, traditions, and lore of the people and cultures that create it.  It was Alan Lomax, possibly the greatest archivist of American folk music, who immortalized these traditions for us all.

Lomax created the largest archive of folk music in the world including over 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of motion picture film, 2,450 videotapes, 2,000 scholarly books and journals, hundreds of photographic prints and negatives, several databases concerning portions of the archive, and over 120 linear feet of manuscript such as correspondence, fieldnotes, research files, program scripts, indexes, and book and article manuscripts, now housed at the Library of Congress.  Whew!

Among other things, Lomax is credited with discovered Leadbelly in Angola prison, Muddy Waters, reviving the career of Jelly Roll Morton, and was a key figure in two folk revivals in the US and in the UK.

Below is an episode of his TV show, American Patchwork, about the Louisiana Bayou .  Watch it if you have time!  Also, you can pick up one of 23 albums of remastered original recordings, watch videos and see the photographs of Alan Lomax at the Association for Cultural Equity.  Where to start!?!

Filed under: music, uncategorized