by John Szwed
199 “I still don’t see how you can do the job”: Alan Lomax to William B. Lewis, March 21, 1943, AL.
200 Symphonic works by Ives, Schumann, Brahms: New York Times, April 19, 1943.
201 Alan and the other writers’ job: CBS to Alan Lomax, May 12, 1943, May 18, 1943, AL.
201 On May 1, Alan officially went on leave: CBS to Alan Lomax, May 18, 1943, AL.
201 The timing of this new position: Howard Blue, Words at War: World War II Era Radio Drama and the Postwar Broadcasting Industry Blacklist (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002), 101-37.
201 “the program, as I hear it”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, July 20, 1943, AL.
202 “I had worked for ten days practically continuously”: Ibid.
202 “In the first of [Lomax’s] Transatlantic Call productions”: D. G. Bridson, Prospero and Ariel: The Rise and Fall of Radio (London: Victor Gollancz, 1971), 101-2.
203 “This is a neighborhood of people”: Alan Lomax, “Description of the Lower East Side,” n.d., AL.
203 After conducting their investigation: Alan Lomax FBI files, July 23, 1943.
204 But Elizabeth was still able to be hired: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, October 6, 1943, AL.
204 “see what needs to be done”: Ibid.
204 “And my private opinion is the world’s a pretty mad place”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, October 13, 1943, AL.
205 “I put the show on in despair”: Nat Hentoff, “Profile: Alan Lomax,” 68.
205 “This is strange, selfish talk”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, ca. late January 1944, AL.
205 “Sometimes I wonder what it is”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, February 6, 1944, AL.
206 “In Café Society one night”: D. G. Bridson, Prospero and Ariel, 193.
207 “Tonight we bring you a new play”: Notes to The Martins and the Coys, Rounder 11661-1819 CD.
207 The Martins and the Coys was recorded: Though Americans never got to hear any of these performances, they were so successful in England in 1944 that the BBC later commissioned another ballad opera, The Chisholm Trail. Alan was in the army by then, so the program was scripted by Elizabeth, the music arranged by Bess Lomax, and the singing was done by Woody, Burl Ives, Lee Hays, the Coon Creek Girls, and others. It was broadcast in the UK in February 1945.
208 “I was billed as the World’s Greatest Authority”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, n.d., ca. early 1944, AL.
208 One day an officer asked him: Bess Lomax Hawes interviewed by John Szwed, California, 2005.
209 “We used to sing ‘We Gonna Raise a Ruckus Tonight’ ”: Alan Lomax, Army diaries, AL.
209 “I was at drill one day”: “Folk Music in the Roosevelt Era,” transcription of interview by Ralph Rinzler, in Folk Music in the Roosevelt White House: A Commemorative Program (Washington, DC: Office of Folklife Programs, Smithsonian Institution, 1982), 14-17.
209 Despite his cheerful letters home: Harold Spivacke to Alan Lomax, August 29, 1944, LC.
209 “sounded rosier than Homer’s rosiest dawn”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, n.d., ca. early 1944, AL.
210 He found similarities between Anne’s features: Alan Lomax to Family, November 20, 1944, AL.
210 “Pretty depressed”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, n.d., AL.
210 “I’m a bit lazy”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax and family, December 22, 1944, AL
210 “During the day I’m mostly bored”: Alan Lomax to John Lomax Jr. and family, n.d., AL.
211 “If it weren’t for Elizabeth”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, n.d., AL.
211 “I am in a basic training company”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, July 31, 1945, AL.
211 “There is much less to do here”: Ibid.
212 “in between and underneath and through everything else”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, August 20, 1945, AL.
212 “All my concern for the ‘hoi-polloi’ ”: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, n.d., AL.
213 Alan wrote Harold Spivacke at the library: Alan Lomax to Harold Spivacke, undated, AL.
213 But all that Spivacke would offer: Harold Spivacke to Alan Lomax, September 11, 1945, AL.
213 All they could offer Alan was a recording trip: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, October 1, 1945, AL.
214 “No fancy-pants stuff like Oklahoma!”: “Miserable but Exciting Songs,” Time, November 26, 1945, 52.
214 That Girl from Memphis: That Girl from Memphis, one-page film treatment, AL.
214 The film was never made: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, November 19, 1945, AL.
214 Kapp sensed that the time seemed right: Alan Lomax to John A. Lomax, November 20, 1945, AL.
215 “There was a cold frenzy in the way I worked”: Alan Lomax, untitled, ca. 1946, AL.
Chapter 10: The Century of the Common Man
217 “I propose to make a book out of these lives”: Alan Lomax, undated Salt of the Earth proposal, AL.
218 “No dialect,” he said: Ibid.
218 “Negroes and whites are working together”: Ibid.
219 “Folklore may prove to be”: Alan Lomax, proposal to the Guggenheim Foundation, AL.
219 “a quietus, once and for all”: Ibid.
220 But as soon as they began work on it: John A. Lomax to Alan Lomax, January 17, 1946, AL.
220 Their arguments began as they went forward: Alan Lomax to John A Lomax, February 6, 1946, AL.
220 “This is not calendar art”: John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, Folk Song U.S.A. (New York: Signet, 1966 [1947]), viii-ix.
221 “unsophisticated country singers,”: Alan Lomax, “The Best of the Ballads,” Vogue, December 1, 1946, 208, 291-96.
221 “Folklore can show us that this dream”: Alan Lomax, “America Sings the Saga of America,” New York Times Magazine, November 26, 1947.
221 In this same spirit of explaining folklore to America: “Folklore Meeting Set,” New York Times, April 20, 1956; “All-Day Meeting of Folklore Held,” New York Times, May 5, 1946.
222 At his job at Decca: Carl Sandburg, Cowboy Songs and Negro Spirituals, Decca A-356, 1945; The People, Yes, Decca A-273, 1949; Josh White, Ballads and Blues, Vol. 1, Decca A-447, 1946; Josh White, Ballads and Blues, Vol. 2, Decca A-611, 1947; Burl Ives, Ballads and Folk Songs, Vol. 1, Decca A-407, Ballads and Folk Songs, Vol. 2, Decca A-431, 1947; Richard Dyer-Bennett, Twentieth Century Minstrel, Decca A-573, 1947. See “Americana on Records,” Newsweek, September 22, 1947.
222 “During the past 100 years”: Charles Seeger, “Reviews of Recordings,” Journal of American Folklore 62, no. 243 (January-March 1949): 68-69.
222 Though Alan was limited by what was already available: Listen to Our Story—A Panorama of American Ballads, American Folk Music Series, Brunswick B-1024, 1947; Mountain Frolic: Square Dance Pieces and Hoedowns, American Folk Music Series, Brunswick B-1026, 1947.
223 Seventy-five more albums were planned: Newsweek, “Americana on Records,” September 22, 1947.
223 Alan did manage to get some rural singers their own albums: Cousin Emmy, Kentucky Mountain Ballads, Decca A-574, 1947.
223 he reissued two 1941 albums: Sod Buster Ballads: Folk Song of the Early West, Commodore Records (Decca Records) CR-10 album no. B-1025, 1947; Deep Sea Chanteys and Whaling Ballads, Commodore Records (Decca Records), album no CR-11, 1947. The reissues were under Woody Guthrie’s, Lee Hays’s, Millard Lampell’s, and Pete Seeger’s names, and not the Almanacs’. Other albums mentioned in this paragraph: Roustabout Songs, Decca A-451; Bayou Ballads, Decca A-583; Quadrilles, Decca A-617; Running Set, Decca A-275; Longways Dances, Decca A-274; Round Up Time in Texas, Decca K-24.
223 “Mark the ones with commercial potential”: Alan Lomax interviewed by John Szwed, New York, 1970.
223 Using Alan’s 1940 mimeographed “List of American Folk Songs”: John Cohen, “Sing Out, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1969,” in Think of the Self Speaking: Harry Smith—Selected Interviews, ed. Rani Singh (Berkeley, CA: Cityful Press, 1998).
224 “Just as every church has a choir”: David Dunn
away, How Can I Keep from Singing? The Ballad of Pete Seeger (New York: Villard/Random House, 2008), 117.
224 “We’re going to put more into our songs”: “Hootenanny,” Time, April 15, 1946.
225 Even with minimal publicity: Edwin Gordon, “Cultivating Songs of the People,” New York Times, May 26, 1946.
225 When People’s Songs held its first national convention: David Dunnaway, How Can I Keep from Singing?, 125.
225 “had the naïve impression”: Nat Hentoff, “Profile: Alan Lomax,” 68.
225 Alan returned to the Folklore Institute at Indiana University: Roger D. Abrahams interviewed by John Szwed, 2008.
226 “We plan to cover the whole field of American folk music”: John S. Wilson, “Lomax Brings in the Roots,” PM, November 4, 1946.
226 “the adjective ‘great’ ”: “Blues Featured at Midnight Concert,” New York Times, November 11, 1946.
226 But when composer Virgil Thompson reviewed the show: Virgil Thomson, “Differentiated Counterpoint,” New York Herald Tribune, November 11, 1946.
226 Alan wanted to contrast: John S. Wilson, “Lomax Brings in the Roots,” PM, November 4, 1946.
227 But the biggest success was “Honkytonk Blues at Midnight”: In The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon, 1993), 459, Lomax mistakenly recalled this concert as occurring the year before.
228 But Alan attempted once again to bridge the gap: Alan Lomax, “I Got the Blues,” Common Ground 8 (Summer 1948): 38-52.
228 In 1957 he produced an LP for United Artists: Blues in the Mississippi Night, Rykodisc RCD 90155.
228 On the day his Guggenheim Fellowship began: Alan Lomax to Henry Allan Moe, February 1, 1947, AL.
229 “/Well, it’s early in the mo/r—in the mornin’,/”: Prison Songs, Vol. 1, Rounder Records CD 1714.
229 It was not until 1957 that he was able: In 1987 Rounder Records released a two-volume set of these recordings produced by Alan’s daughter, Prison Songs: Historical Recordings from Parchman Farm 1947-48, Rounder Records CD 1714 and CD 1715.
230 There was no noise reduction: LC Office Memorandum from HS to Roy P. Basler, Director of the Reference Department, June 13, 1958. The Morton interviews were kept in print for the next thirty years, and then completely restored and issued unedited by Alan’s daughter and Jeffrey Greenberg of the Alan Lomax Archive on Rounder Records in 2005.
230 Alan then asked the Library of Congress for a copy: Alan Lomax to Duncan Emrich, March 11, 1946.
230 “There was a moment in my life”: Alan Lomax quoted in Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life (New York: Delta, 1980), 332.
231 “This program will bring these masters of ballad making together”: Lomax proposal, March 19, 1947, AL.
231 While he was recording, a blizzard struck the farm: Alan Lomax, “Saga of a Folksong Hunter,” 178.
231 “Be my woman, gal, I’ll be your man”: Prison Songs, Vol. 1: Murderers’ Home. Rounder Records 1714, 1997.
232 “O Rosie, O lawd gal”: Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began, 265.
232 “Here is poetry that rings like a hammer on an anvil”: Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began, 265; anthologized on Tradition in 1958 as Negro Prison Songs, and in the UK as Murderers’ Home on Nixa Jazz Today LP, and released in 1997 in two volumes of Prison Songs in the Alan Lomax Collection, Rounder 1714 and 1715.
233 Elia Kazan was contracted to do theater projects: “Video vs. Housework,” Time, July 19, 1948, 65.
233 Nothing ever came of the company: Jackson T. Brown, John Steinbeck, Writer (New York: Penguin, 1990), 611.
234 “I have been able to talk about race relations”: Untitled report of work done under his Guggenheim Fellowship, 1948.
234 “The audience was academic, young and liberal”: Alan Lomax interviewed by Nick Spitzer, June 25, 1990.
235 “At first I did not understand how these songs related”: Alan Lomax, foreword, The People’s Song Book (NY: Boni and Gaer, 1948), 3.
236 Harburg’s politics were in line with those of People’s Songs: Pete Seeger interviewed by John Szwed, 2007.
236 Songs, for him, were not supposed to be speeches: Bess Lomax Hawes quoted in Ed Cray, Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 328.
236 “How a man with such a long road”: Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie, 347.
236 At the same time, Woody had failed to write the songs: Pete Seeger interviewed by John Szwed, New York, 2008.
236 “Every new day we grow stronger”: Songs for Wallace, 2nd ed., n.d., 12.
237 It was a daring choice: Studs Terkel, Touch and Go (New York: New Press, 2007), 136-37.
237 “It sure was a singing convention: People’s Songs National Staff Meeting minutes, November 5, 1948, AL.
237 Alan even wrote a song for the next presidential election: Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie, 347.
238 People’s Songs would support the efforts of black civil rights leaders: Untitled document from People’s Songs and Alan Lomax, ca. 1948.
238 “Unions were in disarray”: Pete Seeger interviewed by John Szwed, New York, 2008.
240 What was extraordinary was the list of people: New York Times, October 6, 1948.
240 “Acuff told me that he couldn’t say the word ‘syphilis’ ”: Nat Hentoff, “Profile: Alan Lomax—Surprising the Folk Song,” January 18, 1969, 65, unpublished, The New Yorker Records, c. 1924-1984, New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Box 1506, folder 7-8.
240 “Lomax had some problems with the producers”: Ibid., 65-66.
241 On May 11, a select list of guests were invited: Shortly afterwards, Alan recorded Burl Ives for the album The Wayfaring Stranger on Stinson Records, issued in 1949.
241 She worked some of them up into a revue: Jon Bradshaw, Dreams That Money Can Buy: The Tragic Life of Libby Holman (New York: William Morrow, 1985), 294.
241 “I have been out trying to learn all I could”: Alan Lomax to Yip Harburg, ca. March 1949, Yale Music Library.
241 Through a plea bargain, Woody entered into psychiatric counseling: Ed Cray, Ramblin’ Man, 330-32; Robin Roberts interviewed by John Szwed, 2006.
242 “Burl Ives and Josh White refused to come”: Alan Lomax interviewed by Richard Reuss, August 20, 1966, 2, Indiana University Library.
242 Alan wrote the script for the evening: Ibid.
243 Her 1946 script for John Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven: Joseph Liss, ed., Radio’s Best Plays (New York: Greenberg, 1947).
Chapter 11: Living on the Black List
244 Mister Jelly Roll: Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1950).
244 The exception was Leonard Feather’s: Leonard Feather, “The Ananias of Jazz,” Melody Maker, 1950.
244 British playwright and folksinger Ewan MacColl wrote him: Ewan MacColl to Alan Lomax, June 1950, AL.
244 a “personal history document”: Robert Pehrson to Alan Lomax, December 29, 1950, AL.
245 “Jazz became many things”: Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll, 99-100.
245 “I believe that this is the beginning”: Harvey Breit, “Talk with Alan Lomax,” New York Times, July 23, 1950, Book Review, 7.
246 “I felt that without knowing more”: Alan Lomax, “Application and Work Plan for a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1950,” AL.
246 His application to Guggenheim was supported strongly: Ibid.
247 His dreams were vivid: Alan Lomax, 1950 notebooks, AL.
247 Though it had been developed to record classical music: Alan Lomax, “Saga of a Folksong Hunter,” 178, AL.
247 “What more people need are just good sets of examples”: Stith Thompson, ed., Four Symposia on Folklore (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, Folklore Series No. 8, 1953), 141. See also 135-54.
248 “They made me so mad”: Nat Hentoff, “Profile: Alan Lomax,” 73.
248 “At first I started to sing Negro folksongs”: Alan Lomax to his therapist from the ship SS Mauretania, n.d., AL.
249 Earlier the Weavers’ managers had approached Alan for clearance: Later, he made Lead Belly’s estate half owner of all the songs in the Lead Belly book. Alan Lomax to Mr. Boros, June 5, 1975, AL.
249 From the time of its release on July 3: Gilbert Millstein, “Very Good Night,” New York Times, October 15, 1950.
249 When Alan’s share of the royalties came in: Alan Lomax FBI files, July 7, 1952.
249 “One of the reasons that Alan has made enemies”: Nat Hentoff, “Profile: Alan Lomax,” 74.
249 The previous December, a New York newspaper: Howard Rushmore, “Red Convictions Scare ‘Travelers,’ ” December 15, 1949, unidentified news clipping in AL. Rushmore was also editor of Confidential magazine.
250 rumor had it that the FBI was planning mass arrests: The rumors were correct: J. Edgar Hoover planned to have habeas corpus suspended and to arrest twelve thousand Americans and hold them in military prisons, but it was never approved by the White House. See Tim Weiner, “Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950,” New York Times, December 23, 2007.
250 He was leaving for Europe, he said: Alan Lomax FBI files, October, 39, 1950.
250 “He has, however, lost the main theme of the Southern story”: New York Folklore Quarterly, Summer 1950, 126-27.
251 Elizabeth still had a job: Alan Lomax, field notes, 1951, AL. Portions of Elizabeth Lomax’s interviews with Davis can be read in the booklet included in the CD Lifting the Veil: The First Blues Guitarists, Rev. Gary Davis & Peers, World Arbiter Records, 2008.
251 In a letter to the editor of the Record Mirror of London: Alan Lomax to Isodore Green, Editor, Record Mirror, undated clipping in AL.
251 “a comrade of the world”: Alan Lomax, 1950 notebook, AL.
253 “like all anthropologist parties: Alan Lomax diary, AL.
253 “He told me he was recording the whole world: Robin Roberts interviewed by John Szwed, New York, 2006.
253 There was “a delicacy of musical line”: Alan Lomax, “A Ballad Hunter Looks at Ireland: Dublin to Donegal,” radio script broadcast, December 13, 1957.
254 But Alan still had the urge to experience Ireland himself: Alan Lomax to Stith Thompson, May 7, 1951, AL.