

Alan Lomax's Massive Archive Goes Online (2012) - benbreen
http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/03/28/148915022/alan-lomaxs-massive-archive-goes-online

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state
This article is from 2012. It's definitely exciting that the Lomax archive is
online — but it could be worth updating the title.

On another note, if you're interested in Lomax you might also be interested in
Sublime Frequencies [1], Awesome Tapes from Africa [2] or the Nonesuch
Explorer Series. Both are mostly focussed on music outside the US, but they
all seem to capture something similar to what Lomax was after.

1 - [http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/](http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/) 2
- [http://www.awesometapes.com/](http://www.awesometapes.com/)

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benbreen
Jeez, I can't believe I missed that it's from 2012 - thanks for pointing that
out. A friend sent me the link this morning and I just assumed it was recent.
As it happens I was just reading an article about this type of time-warp
effect (in this case, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe's 2013 death getting
circulated on social media last week like it had just happened):

[http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/chinua-achebe-
no-l...](http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/chinua-achebe-no-longer-at-
ease/)

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lultimouomo
If you never heard of Lomax, you might still have heard some of his
recordings, which where extensively sampled in Moby's Play.

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re_todd
Yes, Moby integrates his recordings very well with modern music.

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jrmg
If you're interested in this, you should check out Jayme Stone's Lomax
Project, modern interpretations of some of the music collected by Lomax.

[http://jaymestone.com/projects/lomaxproject](http://jaymestone.com/projects/lomaxproject)

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atwebb
Alan and his father, John, recorded and archived some incredibly important
music and there's a mountain of it to pour through. If you're just getting
into it, the most famous is most likely the "Sourthern Journey" from 59-60
which has all types of field recordings, gospel, blues, bluegrass, folk,
hollers, etc. The early Deep River of Song recordings from the 1930s are quite
good as well. Lots of international music and lots of great interviews. If you
like Muddy Waters, his first recordings were done by Lomax and are starkly
different from his later band/electric stuff.

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jbuzbee
There are interesting (aka crazy) copyright issues surrounding these
recordings. Lomax had copyrights on songs he only recorded? And modern artists
need to license them if they are sampled?

[http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/jay-z-and-alan-
lomax/](http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/jay-z-and-alan-lomax/)

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teh_klev
The BBC broadcast an "Archive on 4" featuring Alan Lomax earlier this year:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050sbzw](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050sbzw)

Well worth a listen.

If the BBC block this for non-UK users I have a local copy I could stick on my
YouTube account. Let me know.

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SandersAK
thought it'd been on what.cd for years?

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tehchromic
woo hoo! another priceless, unmissable cultural experience to pour my time
into!

~~~
manachar
This last weekend I read Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. It's been a while
since I read for fun. This is at least partly because the list of books that I
want to read (e.g. priceless, unmissable cultural experiences) is longer than
the time I have to dedicate to reading.

There will always be more I want to experience than I have time for. Not
always sure what to do about that. Lomax's collection is amazing and
invaluable. I do hope some people mine this and gems that I really shouldn't
miss somehow cross into my experience.

~~~
tehchromic
This collection is awesome. Totally worth the time. Alan Lomax is genius who
saw the future. The Global Jukebox lives!

I know what you mean, I haven't read for pleasure in a long time, but
listening is more possible, and this archive is totally worth the effort. The
interface could use a little work tho.

