Collection agent

How Alan Lomax found the real South

by Norman Weinstein

Anyone who has ever moved from the Northeast to the "South" understands the necessity of writing about the region with the word bookended in quotes. More than a literal geography, it has been a primary incubator of myths and metaphors about a part of the American psyche; and no one in music has understood that mythic dimension as well as folklorist Alan Lomax. So if the release this month of six CDs' worth of music culled from Lomax's field recordings of 1959-'60 seems excessive, consider that it would be equally churlish to gripe about the number of Faulkner titles that litter bookstore shelves. The "South" is an inexhaustible artistic wellspring to tap, and Lomax is a trusty guide.

The Alan Lomax Collection, as Rounder Records calls this massive transformation of his field recordings into variously themed discs, is not the first digital surfacing of tapes from his archives. In 1994 Atlantic Records released a four-disc box, Sounds of the South, that intelligently packaged nearly five hours of well-recorded tapes from 1959. The discs were thematically organized in a fashion resembling the six individually sold discs Rounder has just released as Southern Journey. In fact, many of the key performers in the Atlantic box crop up once again on Southern Journey (originally released -- in part -- on vinyl by Prestige decades ago), like bluesman Fred McDowell and string-band performer Miles Pratcher. Anyone already in possession of the Atlantic set need not race to purchase this new one, which like its predecessor filters the folk music, by way of sequencing and annotation, through the Lomax "More Left Than Thou" humorless sensibility that I complained about when reviewing the Atlantic box for the Phoenix back in 1994.

But if you have a huge hankering for raw, rootsy, acoustic, eccentric, Southern folk tunes, whether blues, traditional ballads, gospel, children's songs, or the impossible-to-classify, by all means pick up one or more of these six discs. Volume 1: Voices from the American South offers a generous overview, with two dozen selections in every style. Among the highpoints are a house-rocking gospel tune by the Thornton Old Regular Baptist Church Congregation, a tangy and tart fiddle solo by Hobart Smith, and stunning slide guitar by Fred McDowell. Smith and McDowell were among Lomax's favorites, so they repeatedly surface on the other five discs, as does my favorite musical eccentric, Sid Hemphill, who plays quills (which sound like bamboo flutes). Hemphill had a delightfully disconcerting habit of shifting from melody to yelps, sounding like a cross between an anxious whooping crane and bluesman Sonny Terry.

Other performers who reappear include an anonymous gang of Mississippi prisoners creating worksongs to relieve the stress of swinging pickaxes. It's unsettling to contemplate the musical qualities of an activity like prison work -- so barnacled with race, class, and criminal-justice issues -- but if you can put those issues aside and listen, you'll hear great vocal music full of stirring harmonies and percussive force.

If you can afford but one more disc out of the remaining five, spring for Volume 3: 61 Highway Mississippi. Like Bob Dylan's exploration of "Highway 61," Lomax's journey unearthed a teaming river of humanity caught in a complicated swirl of passions. But whereas Dylan translated Southerners into a pop poetry all about, natch, Dylan himself, Lomax let his Southern subjects speak and sing for themselves. Few blues performances have equaled the bonechilling grandeur of Fred McDowell singing with a gravelly edge, "Lord, if I should die before my time have come/I want you to bury my body down on Highway 61."

Although he's best known for his field recordings from the South, Alan Lomax also traveled the world with a tape recorder in tow. Eventually Rounder intends to offer discs of this international fare; in the meantime, check out The Alan Lomax Collection Sampler, 38 captivating tunes on a single disc, including the recording that inspired Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain. It's proof that great folk performances enliven all genres, and that musicians of all stripes owe Lomax thanks for a lifetime of song collecting.