Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Personally, I had more of a problem with some of his descriptions and characterizations. I liked this best when Lomax lets the stories flow.
Title: The Land Where the Blues Began Author: Alan Lomax Created Date: 7/25/2012 12:07:19 PM Returning in the 70s with filmmaker Bishop, the pair documented 'The Land Where the Blues Began', a stirring ensemble of yarns and performances from the likes… Lomax's final book, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), draws extensively on material from transcribed interviews with Broonzy. This books is about the American music that led to, and culminated in, the blues.
Some of this book has been definitively refuted and there's an argument that he didn't give enough credit to the researchers at Fisk University or his partner at the time for their work in making his field research possible. Filmed in levee camps, churches, juke joints and on front porches across Mississippi, the documentary draws attention to musicians unknown outside the Delta. Lomax carries with him his recording equipment and the knowledge that he had to find the next big name in blues. I put the book a notch below “modern classic” because it’s a tad too freewheeling for its own good. Strip away all the prose and you’ve still got a garden of blues verse.
Lomax carries with him his recording equipment and the knowledge that he had to find the next big name in blues.
Alan Lomax is in a group of few white men who are not racist in the south and that is exactly what the blues needed at the time. Not Yet Rated The importance of his work in interviewing and recording the songs and stories of prisoners, levee camp workers, sharecroppers, roustabouts, muleskinners, and railroad workers can not be under emphasized by anyone who wants to truly understand the nature and impact of the blues. This re-release in 2009 includes two hours of additional music.Four undying warriors who've secretly protected humanity for centuries become targeted...Two couples on an oceanside getaway grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly...Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.Ex heroin junkie, Daniel Léger, gets involved in a drug deal with the wrong people...Tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie and her extraordinary scientific...The 47-year old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia... To that extent it's a pretty interesting read.
Occasionally Lomax come across as a white, middle-class liberal, and he is certainly a purist when it comes to the music, but I think it's safe to say that this bExcellent book. The book reminds of Seamus Ennis' field diaries, except Lomax is constantly driven to find ways of describing music and occasionally the prose simply takes off. Check out Lomax's recordings. This books is about the American music that led to, and culminated in, the blues. This is not a quick read and the prose is quite heavy, but it's also a portrait of the American South from someone with an absolutely unique perspective. The muleskinners who built the Mississippi leMost books on the subject begin with the blues, give a nod to its origins and then proceed forward through the history of the blues. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues began, Lomax gave voice to such greats as Leadbelly, Fred MacDowell, Muddy Waters, and many others, all of whom made their Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. An exploration of the musical and social origins of the blues, shot on location in Mississippi in 1978 by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long in association with the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television and broadcast on PBS in 1980. I'm not sure exactly what it is. You get the feeling Lomax could have separated the memoir from the music study from the oral histoNot the definitive book on the genre (Get over the fact that your favorite artists probably won’t get much pagetime; my beloved Mississippi John Hurt isn’t even mentioned once), but a glorious love letter from its key promulgator.
To be read by American folk roots fans with a degree of caution, and easy access to some of hundreds of hours of sublime music he recorded, because without these constant reminders you may find yourself thinking disgraceful thoughts like "why am I reading a book by this tedious old windbag?
It isn't until you are over 300 pages in that he even discusses a blues artist. That's NINETEEN 30's, 1940's, and 1950's, not EIGHTEEN 30's, etc., long after slavery, but during the time when Jim Crow ruled. It works as travel narrative, evoking the delta, and fixing a time and a place where it was dangerous for a white man with a recorder to be seen talking with "non whites". Lomax had probably 50 or 60 full years of his life that were completely unique to him. As a blues fan, I've read quite a bit about the genre and I thought I had good understanding of the environment from which the music came but I was wrong. He goes from county to plantation finding the best Blues musicians of the delta. Along the way he meets some major names like Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, and more.
The muleskinners who built the Mississippi levee are really fascinating as are the rare fife/panpipe and drum groups that existed in the hills around the Delta. This book is a fascinating piece of deeply meaningful history, and like a strong blues song, it's a tragic joy to partake in.Lomax was a Shakespearean character - a hero with enormous flaws, one of which is his positively gushing purple prose writing style.
Title: The Land Where the Blues Began Author: Alan Lomax Created Date: 7/25/2012 12:07:19 PM Returning in the 70s with filmmaker Bishop, the pair documented 'The Land Where the Blues Began', a stirring ensemble of yarns and performances from the likes… Lomax's final book, The Land Where the Blues Began (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993), draws extensively on material from transcribed interviews with Broonzy. This books is about the American music that led to, and culminated in, the blues.
Some of this book has been definitively refuted and there's an argument that he didn't give enough credit to the researchers at Fisk University or his partner at the time for their work in making his field research possible. Filmed in levee camps, churches, juke joints and on front porches across Mississippi, the documentary draws attention to musicians unknown outside the Delta. Lomax carries with him his recording equipment and the knowledge that he had to find the next big name in blues. I put the book a notch below “modern classic” because it’s a tad too freewheeling for its own good. Strip away all the prose and you’ve still got a garden of blues verse.
Lomax carries with him his recording equipment and the knowledge that he had to find the next big name in blues.
Alan Lomax is in a group of few white men who are not racist in the south and that is exactly what the blues needed at the time. Not Yet Rated The importance of his work in interviewing and recording the songs and stories of prisoners, levee camp workers, sharecroppers, roustabouts, muleskinners, and railroad workers can not be under emphasized by anyone who wants to truly understand the nature and impact of the blues. This re-release in 2009 includes two hours of additional music.Four undying warriors who've secretly protected humanity for centuries become targeted...Two couples on an oceanside getaway grow suspicious that the host of their seemingly...Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.Ex heroin junkie, Daniel Léger, gets involved in a drug deal with the wrong people...Tells the story of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie and her extraordinary scientific...The 47-year old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia... To that extent it's a pretty interesting read.
Occasionally Lomax come across as a white, middle-class liberal, and he is certainly a purist when it comes to the music, but I think it's safe to say that this bExcellent book. The book reminds of Seamus Ennis' field diaries, except Lomax is constantly driven to find ways of describing music and occasionally the prose simply takes off. Check out Lomax's recordings. This books is about the American music that led to, and culminated in, the blues. This is not a quick read and the prose is quite heavy, but it's also a portrait of the American South from someone with an absolutely unique perspective. The muleskinners who built the Mississippi leMost books on the subject begin with the blues, give a nod to its origins and then proceed forward through the history of the blues. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues began, Lomax gave voice to such greats as Leadbelly, Fred MacDowell, Muddy Waters, and many others, all of whom made their Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. An exploration of the musical and social origins of the blues, shot on location in Mississippi in 1978 by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long in association with the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television and broadcast on PBS in 1980. I'm not sure exactly what it is. You get the feeling Lomax could have separated the memoir from the music study from the oral histoNot the definitive book on the genre (Get over the fact that your favorite artists probably won’t get much pagetime; my beloved Mississippi John Hurt isn’t even mentioned once), but a glorious love letter from its key promulgator.
To be read by American folk roots fans with a degree of caution, and easy access to some of hundreds of hours of sublime music he recorded, because without these constant reminders you may find yourself thinking disgraceful thoughts like "why am I reading a book by this tedious old windbag?
It isn't until you are over 300 pages in that he even discusses a blues artist. That's NINETEEN 30's, 1940's, and 1950's, not EIGHTEEN 30's, etc., long after slavery, but during the time when Jim Crow ruled. It works as travel narrative, evoking the delta, and fixing a time and a place where it was dangerous for a white man with a recorder to be seen talking with "non whites". Lomax had probably 50 or 60 full years of his life that were completely unique to him. As a blues fan, I've read quite a bit about the genre and I thought I had good understanding of the environment from which the music came but I was wrong. He goes from county to plantation finding the best Blues musicians of the delta. Along the way he meets some major names like Muddy Waters, Leadbelly, and more.
The muleskinners who built the Mississippi levee are really fascinating as are the rare fife/panpipe and drum groups that existed in the hills around the Delta. This book is a fascinating piece of deeply meaningful history, and like a strong blues song, it's a tragic joy to partake in.Lomax was a Shakespearean character - a hero with enormous flaws, one of which is his positively gushing purple prose writing style.