by John Szwed
369 He also wanted to have the festival recorded and filmed: The Smithsonian did film and record the festival, but for a long time it was done in a haphazard way in poor quality.
369 “One of the central problems of our culture”: Alan Lomax, “Filming the Smithsonian Folklife Festival,” ca. 1976, AL.
369 Alan had been at the hearings: Hollie I. West, “American Folklife Foundation Endorsed,” Washington Post, May 16, 1970, B2.
370 But the letter was also a cry for help for America: Alan Lomax to Jimmy Carter, July 16, 1976, AL.
370 Only the week before, he had sent Carter a proposal: Alan Lomax, “Toward a Presidential Commission on Grass Roots Culture,” July 6, 1976, AL.
370 The document caught the attention of Eizenstat: Stuart E. Eizenstat to Alan Lomax, December 1976, AL.
370 They apparently agreed on principles: Alan Lomax to Joseph Duffy, February 28, 1979, and March 16, 1979, AL.
371 Pete Seeger, who had suffered his share of indignities: Seeger had already appeared on Sesame Street a number of times, and in 1974 had recorded Pete Seeger and Brother Kirk Visit Sesame Street (“Brother Kirk” being Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirk). Alan Lomax, “P.S. to ‘Pickers and Singers,’ ” 1975, AL.
371 “The best thing, of course, would be to turn television clear off”: Alan Lomax to Pete Seeger, February 26, 1976, AL.
371 Alan’s life had always been marked with contingencies: Alan Lomax to Fred Friendly, February 11, 1971, AL.
372 The analysis of the data was preliminary to a larger study: Alan Lomax with Norman Berkowitz, Dorothy Peng, Carol Kulig, and Norman Markel, “A Stylistic Analysis of Speaking,” Language in Society 6 (1977): 15-36.
373 “One of the greatest opportunities”: Alan Lomax “Cinema, Science, and Culture Renewal,” Current Anthropology 14, no. 4 (October 1973): 174.
373 “Dramatic editing, shifts of perspective”: Ibid., 479.
373 “It is a common experience in screening film”: Ibid., 477.
374 A new kind of filmmaking would have to be developed: Alan Lomax, “Choreometrics and Ethnographic Filmmaking,” Filmmakers Newsletter 4, no. 4 (February 1971): 13.
374 Alan argued with them about their priorities: Alan Lomax to Sol Worth and Jay Ruby, March 22, 1972, AL.
375 Dance and Human History was the first of four films: The Media Extension Center also brought out Cantometrics: An Approach to the Anthropology of Music in 1977, a manual and a set of training tapes for cantometrics.
375 The rest of the film provided directions for coding dances: The relationship between tool type and use, subsistence level, dance, and social evolution was a key element in Lomax’s choreometrics project, though it is seldom commented upon by those who write about his work. For an extensive discussion of social evolution and subsistence levels (though without concern for music or dance), see Alan Lomax and Conrad M. Arensberg, “A Worldwide Evolutionary Classification of Cultures by Subsistence Systems,” Current Anthropology 18, no. 4 (December 1977): 659-708.
376 But Alan was unhappy with the way things were organized: Carl Sagan to Alan Lomax, June 6, 1977, September 26, 1977; Alan Lomax to Carl Sagan, March 26, 1978; Carl Sagan to Alan Lomax, April 8, 1978; Alan Lomax to Carl Sagan, April 9, 1978, AL.
376 a letter arrived from Moe Asch: Moses Ash to Carl Sagan et al., November 20, 1978, AL.
377 Postproduction work was started back in Boston: Alan Lomax, “Interim Report on the American Patchwork Series,” n.d., AL.
378 “In our last conversation, Margaret said, ‘Is anybody making trouble?’ ”: Alan Lomax, “Margaret Mead of Columbia: A Memorial,” n.d., AL.
378 “The world which Nick [and] his contemporaries knew”: Alan Lomax’s notes for his talk at Nick Ray’s memorial, n.d., AL.
Chapter 18: The Global Jukebox: “Got the World in a Jug, the Stopper in My Hand”
379 In a letter to the president of the Carnegie Foundation: Alan Lomax to Alan Pfeiffer, Carnegie Foundation, New York, January 14, 1981, AL.
379 “This Treasury will present”: Ibid.
380 “Alan began the Strain project”: Roswell Rudd interviewed by John Szwed, New York, 2007.
381 In films of the early white pop singers: Notes from Alan Lomax and Forrestine Paulay reviewing video performances of singers, April 24, 1986, AL.
382 “to give them media status”: Alan Lomax to Burt Feintuch, March 20, 1980, AL.
382 Those outsiders doing field research among them: Robert Baron, “ ‘All Power to the Periphery’—The Public Folklore Thought of Alan Lomax,” unpublished, 2009.
385 “The Global Jukebox has fallen into an abyss”: http://www.naimark.net/writing/lomax.html.
386 Now he proposed to Belafonte that the time was right: Alan Lomax to Harry Belafonte, July 1, 1981, and Harry Belafonte to Luis Sanjurjo, May 20, 1981, AL.
386 It was the end of their relationship: August Wilson to Alan Lomax, AL.
386 The show went forward as Jelly’s Last Jam: Marty Bell, “That’s the Way We Do Things in New Yawk,” Theater Week, November 8-14, 1993, 24-31.
387 In his preface to the 1993 edition of Mister Jelly Roll: Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll, p. viii.
387 Many of the issues Alan raised against the musical: Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon, 1993).
387 “My heart struck a depth of sorrow”: Ibid., 63.
391 “The romantic tradition has long provided a needed emotional balance”: Alan Lomax, “A General Theory,” 1993, unpaginated, AL.
392 “When I hear the moralists of the present”: Ibid.
INDEX
ABC Radio
Abdul, Raoul
Abrahams, Roger
Abramson, Robert M.
Acuff, Roy
Adventures of a Ballad Hunter (J. Lomax)
African American music. See also blues; Fisk University/Library of Congress project; jazz; prison songs; specific musicians
Belafonte documentary on
cadence chants
early recordings
influence on bluegrass
influence on rock and roll
lumberjack songs
“made-up” songs
Recorded Treasury of Black Folk Music
slave songs
stage productions based upon
for Thirteenth Amendment celebration
white audiences of
white influence over
African American rural dance
African Americans. See also civil rights movement
black identity project
cultural disparities
encounter of recording equipment
Lomax family cook
plight of
Ago’s Bal Band
Alabama
Allied Recording Company
Almanac Singers
America in the Summer of 1941 (radio program)
American Anthropological Association
American Anthropologist
American Ballads and Folk Songs (J. Lomax and A. Lomax)
American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
American Federation of Musicians
American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
American Folklore Society
American Folk Song and Folk Lore (A. Lomax and Cowell)
American Folk Songs (Stafford)
American Musicological Society
American Patchwork film series
American Recording Company
American School of the Air (radio program)
American Songbag, The (Sandburg)
“America Sings the Saga of America” (A. Lomax)
Ammons, Albert
Anderson, Maxwell
Anderson, Sherwood
Andrews Sisters
“A New Hypothesis” (A. Lomax)
Angola (Central Convict Sugar Plantation), Louisiana
Anthology of American Folk Music (Smith)
Apple Computer
Archive of American
Folk Song, Library of Congress. See also Library of Congress
accounting to
Alan’s job and salary
annual report
budget and congressional funding
cooperation with other agencies
discography of commercial recordings
ideas and plans for
John Lomax’s position with
national collection strategy
selection of singers to record
use of radio
wartime efforts
Ardoin, Amédé
Arensberg, Conrad
Arkansas
Armed Forces Radio Service
Armstrong, Louis
Army, Alan’s service in
Arnold, Eddy
Artie Shaw Orchestra
Asch, Moses
Asch Records
Ashbel, Bernie
Ashley, Clarence
Association for Cultural Equity
Atlantic Records
Attenborough, David
autobiography
Avakian, George
Averkieva, Julia
Ayres, Barbara
Back Where I Come From (radio program)
Baez, Joan
Bahamas
Baker, James “Iron Head,”
Baldwin, C. B.
Ball, Estil C.
ballad operas
ballads
cowboy songs
early collections
Ballads and Blues (radio program)
Barker, Danny
Barker, Sergeant
Barnicle, Mary Elizabeth
conflict with Hurston
fieldwork in Bahamas
fieldwork in New York City
fieldwork in South
interest in John Lomax’s work
promotion of Aunt Molly Jackson
promotion of Lead Belly
Barnouw, Erik
Barry, Margaret
Bartenieff, Irmgard
Basie, Count
Bat Eye (prison singer)
BBC Radio
Alan’s program ideas
American folk music in programming
ballad opera
CBS collaborative project
folk music project
Italian recordings
radio plays
Scottish recordings
Spanish recordings
BBC Records
BBC-TV
Beard, Charles A.
Bechet, Sidney
Behan, Brendan
Belafonte, Harry
Believe It or Not (radio program)
Bell, Jeannette “Pip,”
Benét, William Rose
Benton, Thomas Hart
Berkeley Folk Music Festival
Berkman, Edith
Berkowitz, Norman
Bernstein, Leonard
Bertrand, Mabel
Bibb, Leon
Bikel, Theodore
Birdwhistell, Ray
Bishop, John
Black, Charles L.
blacklist of alleged subversives
blacks. See African American music; African Americans
Blake, Eubie
Blesh, Rudi
Blitzstein, Marc
Blue (black singer)
bluegrass
Blue Note Records
Blue Ridge Highballers
blues. See also Fisk University/Library of Congress project
appeal to whites
Blues in the Mississippi Night
as folklore
influence on rock and roll
Land Where the Blues Began
Newport Folk Festival workshop on
oral autobiographies on
popularity and commercialization of
as response to suffering
in second folk revival
Blues in the Mississippi Night (A. Lomax)
Boas, Franz
body movement. See dance and movement
Boggs, Dock
Bolan, Old Jim
Bolden, Buddy
Bond, Horace Mann
Bonneville Power Administration film project
Boone, Pat
Botkin, Ben
Bound for Glory (Guthrie)
Bouvé, Clement
Brailoiu, Constantine
Brand, Oscar
Brant, Henry
Braswell, Jimmy
Braud, Wellman
Breckenridge, Mary
Breton, André
Brett, George, Jr.
Bridson, D. Geoffrey
Briggs, Le Baron Russell
Brogan, Albert P.
Brooklyn Eagle newspaper
Broonzy, William Lee Conley “Big Bill,”
Brown, Bess Baumann. See Lomax, Bess (Alan’s mother)
Brown, Gabriel
Brown, Sterling
Brown, Willie
Bullard, Michael
Bumble Bee Slim
Burgess, Henry
Burleigh, Henry T.
Burley, Dan
Burn-Down (blues singer)
Burnside, R. L.
Caedmon Records
Café Society
Caldwell, Singin’ John
Calloway, Oscar and Stella
calypso
Cameron, Isla
Campbell, John Lorne
cantometrics
Carawan, Candie
Carawan, Guy
Carew, Roy
Caribbean
Carnegie Foundation
Carnegie Hall
Carpitella, Diego
Cash, Johnny
Cass County Boys
Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi
CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System)
BBC collaborative project
educational programs for schoolchildren
folk song program for adults
international expansion
Latin American conference
Elizabeth Lomax’s writing for
radio dramas
television program on regional cultures
Chappel, Elliot D.
Charles, Ray
Chase, Ilka
Chase, Richard
Chatmon, Sam
Chattanooga Times
Chautauqua series
Chicago, University of
Child, Francis James
Childers, Lulu B.
Choate School (Connecticut)
choreometrics
Cine Golden Eagle Awards
Circle Records
Civil Rights Congress
civil rights movement
black cultural identity
Highlander Folk School
impact on Newport Folk Festival
People’s Songs and
Resurrection City project
songs of
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Clark, Gerald
Clarke, John Henrik
Clayborn, Edward W.
Clooney, Rosemary
Cohen, John
Cohen, Philip H.
Cohn, Bertrand
Cohn, David L.
Cole, John
Collett, Farmer
Collins, Shirley
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Columbia Records
anthology project
ballad operas
discography project
long-playing record technology
world music project
Columbia University
Comhaire-Sylvain, Suzanne
commercial recordings
of Alan’s fieldwork
American Federation of Musicians ban
of blues singers
discography project
long-playing record technology
royalties for
stereo technology
Common Ground magazine
Composers Collective
Conklin, Margaret
Cooke, Alistair
Cooke, Sam
Coon Creek Girls
Copland, Aaron
copyright law
Corwin, Norman
Count Basie Orchestra
Courlander, Harold
cowboy songs and ballads
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (J. Lomax)
Cowell, Henry
Cowell, Sidney Robertson
Cowley, Malcolm
Creole music in New Orleans
Crisis magazine
Crockett Family
Cronin, Elizabeth
Crosby, Bing
Cunningham, Agnes “Sis,”
Dallas News
dance and movement
black rural style
choreometric analysis of
to Creole juré
film and collection project
first film of, as aspect of human culture
physical phrasing of pop singers
Urban Strain project
Danielou, Alain
D’Arcangelo, Gideon
Darin, Bobby
Davis, Arthur Kyle
Davis, Elmer
Davis, Fanny
Davis, Miles
Davis, Reverend Gary
Dear Mr. President (radio program)
Decca Records
Del Rio, Michael
Demos, Raphael
Dett, R. Nathaniel
Devine, Andy
Devlin, Jennie
digital database project
Dixieaires
Dixie Hummingbirds
Dixon, Willie
Dobie, J. Frank
Dobie, Richard
documentary form
field techniques
film milestone in
first radio broadcast in
freedom from cliché
power and potential of
as writing technique
Dodds, Baby
Doherty, Mickey
Domino, Fats
Donegan, Lonnie
Dorsey, Tommy
Dos Passos, John
Downes, Olin
Down in the Valley (Weill)
Dreiser, Theodore
Drexel Singers
Driftwood, Jimmy
Du Bois, W. E. B.
Duffy, Joseph
Duke of Iron
Dunham, Katherine
Dust Bowl Ballads (Guthrie)
Dutton publishing company
Dyer-Bennet, Richard
Dylan, Bob
Edward B. Marks Corporation
Eel’s Foot (A. Lomax)
Efron, David
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Eisler, Hans
Eizenstat, Stuart E.
Elder, Jacob D.
Ellington, Duke
Elliott, Ramblin’ Jack
Emmy, Cousin (Jo May Carver)
Engel, Carl
England
origin of ballads in
sexual nature of folk songs from
skiffle craze
traditional jazz