Alan Lomax
was a field collector of Folk Music.
He produced recordings, concerts, and radio shows in US & England which played an important role in American and British folk revival of the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s. He has collected songs from Britian, Ireland, The Carribbean, Italy, Spain, and the US.
His father was pioneering folklorist John Lomax. .
"Through a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, Lomax was able to set out in June 1933 on the first recording expedition under the Library’s auspices, with Alan Lomax (then eighteen years old) in tow." Many of the songs were from African American males who were in workaday, chain gang, prison, or fugitive settings.
" They toured Texas prison farms recording work songs, reels,ballads, and blues from prisoners such as James "Iron Head" Baker, Mose "Clear Rock" Platt, and Lightnin’ Washington. By no means were all of those whom the Lomaxes recorded imprisoned, however: in other communities,
they recorded K.C. Gallaway and Henry Truvillion.
In July 1933, they acquired a state-of-the-art, 315 pounds (143 kg) phonograph uncoated-aluminum disk recorder. Installing it in the trunk of his Ford sedan, Lomax soon used it to record, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a twelve-string guitar player by the name of Huddie Ledbetter, better known as "Lead Belly," whom they considered one of their most significant finds. During the next year and a half, father and son continued to make disc recordings of musicians throughout the South."
My boss recently told me about this site that has a lot of the field recordings.:
"Alan introduced Woody Guthrie, Aunt Molly Jackson, Lead Belly, Josh White, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Sonny Terry, and Jean Ritchie on national radio and in concerts, records, and books, igniting careers and folk song movements"
one of my favorite recordings is here:
there is also tons of neat photography on this site.
