Alan Lomax's Recordings Preserve America's Vanishing Folk Music
Alan Lomax, the 20th century's most famous musical folklorist, spent decades traveling the United States to record folk traditions for the Library of Congress. Beginning in 1933 at age 18 with his father John Lomax, he crisscrossed the South and Midwest, capturing blues, work songs, ring shouts, lumberjack ballads, and oral histories. Key moments include recording Muddy Waters in 1941 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which inspired Waters to pursue music; documenting the Georgia Sea Island Singers, including Bessie Jones, whose voice later appeared on Moby's 1999 album Play; and capturing James Carter's version of "Po' Lazarus" at Parchman prison in 1959, later used in the Coen brothers' film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Lomax's archive contains nearly 12,000 pages of documentation. His legacy endures through these recordings, which preserve cultures and ways of life that have since vanished or transformed.
Key facts
- Alan Lomax began recording folk music in 1933 with his father John Lomax.
- He recorded Muddy Waters in August 1941 at Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi.
- In 1935, Lomax traveled with Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle to St. Simons Island, Georgia.
- Bessie Jones's voice was sampled on Moby's 1999 album Play, which sold 12 million copies.
- James Carter's recording of 'Po' Lazarus' at Parchman prison in 1959 was used in O Brother, Where Art Thou?.
- Lomax's archive includes nearly 12,000 pages of documentation.
- He recorded over 100 songs in one session on Beaver Island, Michigan.
- Lomax's 1959 'Southern Journey' used stereo reel-to-tape equipment.
Entities
Artists
- Alan Lomax
- John Lomax
- Muddy Waters
- McKinley Morganfield
- Zora Neale Hurston
- Mary Elizabeth Barnicle
- Bessie Jones
- James Carter
- John Davis
- Lead Belly
- Woody Guthrie
- Jelly Roll Morton
- Pete Seeger
- Son House
- Aunt Molly Jackson
- Mississippi Fred McDowell
- Sid Hemphill
- Bert Graham
- Leroy Jackson
- Shirley Collins
- Robert Johnson
- John Wesley Work III
- Billy Gibbons
- T Bone Burnett
- Moby
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Thomas Edison
- Wallace Quarterman
- Red Kid
- Houston Jones
- Scott Middlebrooks
- Robert Gordon
- Chris Heath
- Tim O'Brien
Institutions
- Library of Congress
- Archive of American Folk Song
- Texas A&M
- Harvard University
- New York University
- Fisk University
- Delta Blues Museum
- House of Blues
- Stovall Farms
- Parchman (Mississippi State Penitentiary)
- Smithsonian magazine
- CBS News
- Carnegie Hall
- Newport Folk Festival
- Association for Cultural Equity
Locations
- Clarksdale
- Mississippi
- United States
- Stovall Plantation
- St. Simons Island
- Georgia
- Brunswick
- Beaver Island
- Lake Michigan
- Michigan
- Upper Peninsula
- Newberry
- Detroit
- Chicago
- Illinois
- Memphis
- Tennessee
- Nashville
- Senatobia
- Money
- Lula
- Mohead Plantation
- Texas
- Louisiana
- Kentucky
- Ohio
- Indiana
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey
- New York City
- New York
- Washington D.C.
- Virginia
- Florida
- Cheyenne
- Wyoming
- Europe
- Atlanta