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RIP, Alan Lomax
I’ve been a little slow to get around to posting about Alan Lomax’s death, mainly because I haven’t had time to write a proper eulogy.
I think Alan, and his father John, Lomax are some of the most important Americans in the history of our great nation — more importantly, they were some of the most important people in my life…in an incredibly indirect and unassuming way. They represent the best of the American spirit.
The obits for Alan in the mainstream press capture some of the most important basics of what he did, but they are missing the scope of it’s importance. Yes, the musical recordings he made served as kindling for the Folk revival of the 1960s. Swell.
If it weren’t for John and Alan Lomax, American music as a whole would not be what it is today. Folk, Blues, Soul, Gospel, Rock, Jazz. All of it owes a debt of gratitute to them. The Lomax’s greatest legacy is in recognizing and utilitizing what was at the time cutting edge technology to document history and culture…and to do it in outside the mainstream. To record the unrecorded, document the undocumented.
If not for the Lomaxes, I would very likely not have had the opportunity to be shaped by the music of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. I would not have heard the churning, painful chants of a prison chain gang in 1930s Alabama. I would also not have known how that music that shaped this nation was shaped to begin with, because the scholarship that would follow behind the Lomaxes would not have happened if those others had not also been moved by the music they heard.
Music has been what makes me what I am for as long as I remember. It’s where I find my center. It’s how I express joy and find solace for my sorrow. If not for Alan Lomax, a large chunk of that experience would not have been there for me to appreciate, and for that I thank him.
