Lomax was the first to present papers to the Modern Language Association about American Literature in the form of uniquely American Ballads and Songs. And he was soon to find his way into the pursuit of many more forms of American Folklore. But his truest musical love were songs that rose out of African American culture. It was quite a feather in the cap of a relatively young Lomax. In 1910, Lomax published: Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads, with a forward by none other than the recently retired President of the United States and aficionado of the American West, Theodore Roosevelt. Lomax had a fine pedigree in sound research methods, and was likely the first to transcend the idea of American Folklore as a subset of English Literature and thus is appreciated in many circles as the progenitor of a new discipline: American Folklore a.k.a. The work was unfinished at the time of Child’s passing, and Kittredge finished the work as well as continuing to teach several of the courses Child had taught. Child is known for his 8-volume lifetime work: Popular Ballads of England and Scotland. He had inherited the position of Professor of English Literature from none other than Francis James Child. Kittredge was a scholar of Shakespearean Literature and of Chaucer. His direct mentor at Harvard (which was at the time the center of American Folklore Studies, a field of study considered a subset of English Literature) was George Lyman Kittredge. John A Lomax went on to help found Folklore Societies across the United States. The date is disputed, but in 1909, he nominated co-founder Professor Leonidas Payne to be President of the society. Lomax co-founded the Texas Folklore Society at the University of Texas in Austin in about 1908. And the Library of Congress Folk Archives are a true treasure trove of the extraordinary, including but by no means limited to the Lomax Collections.
They transcribed by hand, and made field recordings of countless songs in a multitude of genres, preserving the musical styles that were endemic to certain regions or trades, or cultural sub-sets. Much of what we know about American Folk music from various eras before recording technology was accessible to most people, is because of John Lomax, his wives Bess & Ruby and his sons John Lomax Jr., Alan Lomax and daughter Bess Lomax. Lomax was a pioneering and visionary musicologist. and the marches, rallies and movements for Civil Rights yet to emerge. Mohandas Gandhi and the peak of the Satyagraha movement, Martin Luther King Jr.
Nelson Mandela on a chain gang in a prison yard on Robben Island, in South Africa. As I listened, I imagined things that had not yet transpired when these songs were recorded. I was moved by the voices I heard in those old John Lomax recordings, from a prison yard in Florida in 1939. But because I found it in the archives of The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and in a Lomax field recording first, that was what I listened to. Or one of a dozen other versions done by blues artists over the last 80 years. If so, I might have stopped there with a rendition offered by Lead Belly or Odetta, or Flatt & Scruggs. And the song I emerged with was, “Take Dis Hammer.” I am glad I did not know that it was a song well known in Blues and Bluegrass circles. I looked through dozens of songs and went deep down the rabbit hole of songs relating to work and chain gangs in the south, and prison yard songs. Based on looking at people’s albums/ song titles and comparing that to what was performed in concerts at the conference, I am clearly not the only one who has taken the road more traveled now and then.īut this year, this year I dove deep. I have to admit in all honesty that at least once, I trolled the archives for songs I already knew, and picked one of them. I always enjoy the concert that is assembled from musicians who have chosen to participate. Or they render a new version of an old chestnut, and in so doing help us hear an old song in a new way. Folk Archives and resurrect some song that has fallen by the wayside. Musicians from all over the US and a few from other countries dive into the L.O.C. It is fun, relaxed, musically interesting and always educational. I have on several occasions been asked to be a part of the Library of Congress, Folk Archives Challenge at the Folk Alliance International Conference. Please Note: Following this article are additional Lyrics & Notes for all five songs I ressurrected from the archives of The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, for the 2020 Homegrown at Home virtual concert series. & The Archives of American Folklife CenterĬopyright 2020 Joe Jencks, Turtle Bear Music