Abstract: Lomax: Selected Writings, 1934-1997. Edited by Ronald D. Cohen. (New York: Routledge, 2003. Pp. x + 367, introductions [by Gage Averill, Matthew Barton, Ronald D. Cohen, Ed Kahn, Andrew Kaye], photographs, bibliography, index, CD. $31.95 cloth) Lomax . . . what a concept. Were his character created by a novelist, no editor would accept as believable. Wearer of more hats than Bartholomew Cubbins, Lomax was viewed as a jack-of-all-trades: he was master of most of them. The present volume, a selection of his writings from a long and productive life (1915-2002), shows some of the parts that went into the making of Lomax. The book is laid out chronologically in five sections and includes many of the high points in his multi-peaked career, starting with the very early 'Sinful' Songs of the Southern Negro (1934, written when he was still in his teens). What comes through in all these writings is that Lomax cared intensely about the people he worked with. As noted posthumously by Shirley Collins, Alan had an extraordinary warmth, which was invaluable when you were working in the field. He could make people become fond of him very quickly. And in the deep South they trusted him, as well. . . . [H]e was a very driven man. He had a feeling that he had to do this for the music's sake and for the sake of the people from whom he was collecting it (Williams 17). Lomax got involved with people, and the energy that resulted can be heard in the material he recorded over the decades. (Handily, a CD of selected recordings is part of Selected Writings. ) The sources for the thirty-four pieces collected in this volume represent a broad spectrum of publishing venues, from The American Girl and the New York Times Magazine through Sing Out! and HiFi/Stereo Review to Current Anthropology and Ethnology. Yet that is typical of a polymath, and the pieces make good accompaniment to the recorded music. Although sometimes a difficult man, was a genius at finding and getting musicians to talk about their craft. He was perhaps the leading architect of the folk revival and one of the most important figures in realizing the significance of America's folk music (Brown 11). As midwife to the 1950's folk revivals in Ireland, England, and Scotland, not to mention that of the 1940's in the United States, Lomax had an impact on the world of folk that is impossible to measure. Because he had strong feelings, he was often confrontational and some of this seeps out of his writings. Too, his enthusiasms could shade into what looked like monomania-as we say here in Australia, he got up people's noses. Almost everyone in the academic world felt strongly about him, either pro or con, with no middle ground. I recall, as a graduate student at Penn, that fellow students returned from the 1980 American Folklore Society meeting sporting Lomax buttons: Lomax's face with the international no symbol-red circle and slash-superimposed. …
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-12-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 92
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