Alan Lomax facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alan Lomax
Lomax at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina, early 1940s.
Background information
Born	(1915-01-31)January 31, 1915 Austin, Texas, U.S.
Died	July 19, 2002(2002-07-19) (aged 87) Safety Harbor, Florida, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Folklorist, ethnomusicologist, musician

Alan Lomax (January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist. He was famous for his many field recordings of folk music during the 20th century. He was also a musician, folklorist, writer, and filmmaker.

Lomax created recordings, concerts, and radio shows in the U.S. and England. These helped keep folk music traditions alive in both countries. He also played a big part in starting the American and British folk revivals from the 1940s to the early 1960s.

He first collected music with his father, John Lomax. Later, he worked alone or with others. Alan Lomax recorded thousands of songs and interviews for the Archive of American Folk Song. This archive was part of the Library of Congress.

After 1942, Lomax continued collecting music on his own. He traveled to Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain. He used the newest recording technology to build a huge collection of American and international culture. In 2004, the Library of Congress bought all the material he collected independently. This brought his entire seventy years of work together in one place.

Lomax believed in "Cultural Equity." This idea means that all cultures are equally important and should be respected. In the 1970s and 1980s, he advised the Smithsonian Institution's Folklife Festival. He also made a series of films about folk music called American Patchwork. These films were shown on PBS in 1991.

In his later years, Lomax wrote a book called The Land Where the Blues Began (1993). In this book, he connected the start of the blues music to the difficult conditions and unfair treatment faced by people in the American South.

Lomax's biggest achievement was saving and sharing recordings of musicians. He helped many folk and blues artists become known. Some of these artists include Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Flora MacNeil, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters. Don Fleming, who leads Lomax's Association for Culture Equity, said that Lomax "did it out of the passion he had for it."

Biography

Early Life

Alan Lomax was born in Austin, Texas, in 1915. He was the third of four children. His father, John A. Lomax, was a well-known folklorist and writer. Two of Alan's siblings, Bess Lomax Hawes and John Lomax Jr., also became important in studying folklore.

His father was a former English professor at Texas A&M University. He was also an expert on Texas folklore and cowboy songs.

Because of health issues, Alan was mostly home schooled in elementary school. He later went to the Terrill School for Boys in Dallas. He then transferred to the Choate School in Connecticut. He graduated at age 15 in 1930.

Instead of going to Harvard, Lomax went to the University of Texas at Austin. This was because his mother's health was getting worse. A roommate described Lomax as "frighteningly smart." At the University of Texas, Lomax became interested in philosophy. He also started collecting music by African American artists. He even visited Black-owned nightclubs, which was risky at the time.

His mother died during his spring term. His youngest sister, Bess, went to live with an aunt. Even though his family faced financial difficulties during the Great Depression, Harvard offered him enough financial aid for his second year. He studied philosophy and physics there. He also became involved in political activities.

At age 17, Lomax took a break from school. He joined his father on trips to collect folk songs for the Library of Congress. They wrote two books together: American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934) and Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (1936). His first time collecting music without his father was in 1935. He worked with Zora Neale Hurston and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle.

He returned to the University of Texas that fall. He earned a degree in Philosophy in May 1936. He wanted to go to graduate school but didn't have enough money. He later studied with Melville J. Herskovits at Columbia University.

Alan Lomax married Elizabeth Harold Goodman in February 1937. They were married for 12 years and had a daughter, Anne. Elizabeth helped him record music in Haiti, Alabama, Appalachia, and Mississippi. She also wrote radio plays about American music for the BBC Home Service during the war.

After their divorce, Elizabeth continued to interview folk musicians for Lomax. Lomax also did important work with other collaborators. These included Elizabeth Barnicle, Zora Neale Hurston, John Wesley Work III, Robin Roberts, Jean Ritchie, Antoinette Marchand, Shirley Collins, and his daughter. All who helped him were given credit for their work.

Assistant in Charge and Commercial Records and Radio Broadcasts

From 1937 to 1942, Lomax was in charge of the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress. He and his collaborators added over ten thousand recordings to the archive. Lomax recorded many interviews with folk and jazz musicians. These included Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Jelly Roll Morton, and Big Bill Broonzy.

In 1941, he went to Clarksdale, Mississippi. He hoped to record Robert Johnson's music. Locals told him Johnson had died. But they suggested another local man, Muddy Waters. Lomax recorded Waters' music. It is said that hearing this recording inspired Waters to leave his farm and become a blues musician.

In 1938, Lomax traveled through Michigan and Wisconsin. He recorded and documented the traditional music there. Over four hundred of these recordings are now at the Library of Congress. He drove thousands of miles, collecting 250 discs and 8 reels of film. These showed the amazing variety of music and life in Michigan.

In late 1939, Lomax hosted two radio series on CBS. These were called American Folk Song and Wellsprings of Music. They were music appreciation courses for schools. Lomax sang and presented other performers. These included Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Josh White, and the Golden Gate Quartet. These shows reached ten million students.

In 1940, Lomax helped RCA make two important folk music albums. These were Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads and Lead Belly's The Midnight Special and Other Southern Prison Songs. These albums are considered some of the first "concept albums."

In 1940, Lomax and Nicholas Ray created a radio program called Back Where I Came From. It aired three nights a week on CBS. It featured folk tales, proverbs, and songs. The show included a diverse cast of performers. These included Burl Ives, Lead Belly, Josh White, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee.

Despite its success, the show was canceled in February 1941. Woody Guthrie wrote to Lomax, "Too honest again, I suppose?" Lomax believed his work showed "the amazing variety of American folk song." He saw it as a reflection of America's diverse and democratic nature.

On December 8, 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Lomax sent telegrams across the U.S. He asked people to collect reactions from ordinary Americans to the war. A second series of interviews, "Dear Mr. President," was recorded in early 1942.

During World War II, Lomax produced and hosted many radio programs for the war effort. In 1944, his "ballad opera" The Martins and the Coys was broadcast in Britain by the BBC. It featured Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.

In the late 1940s, Lomax produced folk music albums for Decca Records. He also organized concerts in New York's Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. These concerts featured blues, calypso, and flamenco music. He also hosted a radio show called Your Ballad Man in 1949. This show played a wide variety of music from around the world.

Move to Europe and Later Life

In December 1949, a newspaper article mentioned Alan Lomax as a supporter of a dinner honoring lawyers who defended people accused of being Communists. In June, a pamphlet called Red Channels listed Lomax as someone sympathetic to Communism. This pamphlet led to the entertainment industry blacklist of the 1950s.

Feeling that his career in broadcasting was at risk, Lomax decided to move. He had already planned to record in Europe for Columbia Records. He left on September 24, 1950. FBI agents later interviewed his friends. Lomax never told his family the exact reason for his move. He only said he was creating a library of world folk music for Columbia.

Lomax lived in London during the 1950s. From there, he put together the 18-volume Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music. This was a collection of recordings released on new LP records. He spent seven months in Spain. There, he recorded three thousand songs and took hundreds of photos. These photos showed singers, musicians, and everyday scenes.

When Columbia Records producer George Avakian shared the Spanish World Library LP, Miles Davis and Gil Evans were inspired. They used some of the Spanish music in their 1960 album, Sketches of Spain.

For the Scottish, English, and Irish volumes, Lomax worked with the BBC and other folklorists. He recorded artists like Margaret Barry, Elizabeth Cronin, Jeannie Robertson, and Harry Cox. In 1953, David Attenborough asked Lomax to host a BBC TV series called The Song Hunter. It featured traditional musicians from Britain and Ireland.

In 1957, Lomax hosted another BBC show, 'A Ballad Hunter'. He also formed a skiffle group, Alan Lomax and the Ramblers. This group included Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. In Scotland, Lomax inspired the creation of the School of Scottish Studies in 1951.

Lomax and Diego Carpitella also surveyed Italian folk music in 1953 and 1954. This project helped capture many important traditional folk styles before they disappeared. Their work became one of the most complete folk song collections of any culture. From his Spanish and Italian recordings, Lomax developed a theory. It explained how different types of folk singing were common in certain areas.

Return to the United States

When Lomax returned to New York in 1959, he produced a concert called Folksong '59 at Carnegie Hall. It featured a mix of musical styles. These included gospel, blues, bluegrass, urban folk, and even rock and roll. This was the first time rock and roll and bluegrass were performed on the Carnegie Hall stage. Lomax told the audience, "The time has come for Americans not to be ashamed of what we go for, musically, from primitive ballads to rock 'n' roll songs."

Alan Lomax had met English folk singer Shirley Collins in London. They were in a relationship. When Lomax got a contract to re-record American musicians, Collins joined him. Their trip to the Southern states in 1959 is known as the Southern Journey. They made many hours of recordings. These featured artists like Almeda Riddle, Hobart Smith, Wade Ward, Charlie Higgins, Bessie Jones, and Fred McDowell. Some of these recordings were used in the Coen brothers' 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

Lomax wanted to marry Collins, but she returned to England. In her memoir, America Over the Water, Collins mentioned that Lomax's book about the journey barely mentioned her. She stated, "I wasn't just 'along for the trip'. I was part of the recording process."

Lomax married Antoinette Marchand in 1961. They separated the next year and divorced in 1967.

In 1962, Lomax and Civil Rights Activist Guy Carawan produced an album called Freedom in the Air: Albany Georgia, 1961–62. This album was for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Lomax was a consultant for Carl Sagan's Voyager Golden Record. This record was sent into space on the 1977 Voyager Spacecraft. It was meant to represent the music of Earth. Lomax helped choose a wide variety of music. This included blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll, Andean panpipes, Navajo chants, and music from Africa, Europe, and Asia. Sagan later wrote that Lomax strongly pushed for including diverse "ethnic music."

Death

Alan Lomax died in Safety Harbor, Florida on July 19, 2002, at the age of 87.

Cultural Equity

Alan Lomax believed in what he called "Cultural Equity." This idea means that all local cultures and their unique expressions, like music and language, are important and should be valued. He was worried that mass media was making local cultures disappear.

Lomax felt that folklorists should help communities protect their traditions. He believed it was wrong to simply watch as the world's diverse cultures were "grayed out" by commercial entertainment. He encouraged folklorists to actively help communities keep their local traditions alive.

These ideas have been put into practice in various ways. For example, the annual (since 1967) Smithsonian Folk Festival in Washington, D.C., helps communities share their traditions. National and local efforts also help artists gain recognition for their oral traditions and ways of life.

In 1983, Lomax founded The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE). This organization looks after the Alan Lomax Archive. Its goal is to "facilitate cultural equity" and "preserve, publish, and freely share" its collections.

In 2001, UNESCO's Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity supported similar ideas. It stated that protecting languages and intangible culture is as important as protecting human rights. These ideas were very similar to what Alan Lomax had been saying for many years.

FBI Investigations

From 1942 to 1979, Alan Lomax was investigated many times by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). However, they never found anything wrong, and the investigation was eventually stopped.

The investigation seemed to start when someone reported hearing Lomax's father talk about his son's political views in 1941. The FBI also looked into an incident from 1932. At age 17, while at Harvard, Lomax had been arrested during a political demonstration. This demonstration supported the immigration rights of Edith Berkman, a woman involved in labor organizing. Lomax was charged with disturbing the peace and fined. However, Berkman was cleared of all accusations.

In June 1942, the FBI tried to get Lomax fired from his job at the Library of Congress. But the Librarian of Congress, Archibald McLeish, defended Lomax. He wrote that he found no evidence of Lomax being involved in harmful activities.

Lomax was part of a group called People's Songs. He was also in charge of campaign music for Henry A. Wallace's 1948 Presidential run. This campaign supported civil rights and opposed the arms race. Later, Lomax was listed in the publication Red Channels as a possible Communist sympathizer. Because of this, he was not allowed to work in U.S. entertainment industries. This is why he moved to Europe.

A 2007 BBC news article revealed that in the early 1950s, the British MI5 also watched Alan Lomax. Their report concluded that while Lomax had "left wing" views, there was no proof he was a Communist. The FBI continued to investigate Lomax in 1956, but again, they found no reason to take action against him. The FBI investigation finally ended in 1980.

Awards

Alan Lomax received many honors for his work.

• He received the National Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
• He was given a Library of Congress Living Legend Award in 2000.
• He received an Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from Tulane University in 2001.
• He won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award in 1993 for his book The Land Where the Blues Began.
• He received a posthumous Grammy Trustees Award in 2003 for his lifetime achievements.
• His album Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax won two Grammy Awards in 2006.
• Alan Lomax in Haiti: Recordings For The Library Of Congress, 1936–1937 was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2011.

World Music and Digital Legacy

In January 2012, the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Association for Cultural Equity announced a big project. They would release Lomax's huge archive in digital form. Lomax spent the last 20 years of his life working on a computer project called the Global Jukebox. This project included thousands of hours of recordings, films, and photos.

By February 2012, about 17,000 music tracks from his archive were made available for free online. This material is from Alan Lomax's own independent archive, which he started in 1946. It is different from the thousands of earlier recordings he made for the Library of Congress from 1933 to 1942. That earlier collection, which includes famous recordings of Jelly Roll Morton, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, and Muddy Waters, is held by the American Folklife Center.

In 1999, electronica musician Moby released his album Play. This album used many samples from field recordings collected by Lomax. The album became very popular, selling millions of copies worldwide.

In his book “Chronicles, Part One,” Bob Dylan remembered a scene from 1961. He wrote that Alan Lomax once said, "if you want to go to America, go to Greenwich Village."

Film

• Lomax the Songhunter, a documentary directed by Rogier Kappers, 2004.
• American Patchwork, a television series from 1990.
• Oss Oss Wee Oss, 1951.
• Rhythms of Earth, four films made by Lomax (1974–1984) about his study of dance and movement.
• The Land Where The Blues Began, an expanded edition of the 1979 documentary by Alan Lomax.
• Ballads, Blues and Bluegrass, an Alan Lomax documentary released in 2012.
• Southern Journey (Revisited), a 2020 documentary that followed Lomax's "Southern Journey" route from the late 1950s.

See Also

In Spanish: Alan Lomax para niños

• Notable alumni of St. Mark's School of Texas
• Ian Brennan (music producer)
• Cantometrics
• The Singing Street