DAN SHEEHY: "The Lomaxes, John and Alan, thrfather and son team --and then Bess to a certain extent -- worked at the Library of Congress. And they were part of this very exciting groundbreaking work in the nineteen tens, twenties, thirties, into the forties and beyond, of showing the United States what it was, what it had in terms of grassroots cultural heritage.
"And so they would travel to places where certainly white people in the thirties and forties would not work too much in black communities, because there was so much antagonism between black and white at that time – racism toward African Americans. And Alan Lomax had some very compelling and really engaging stories to tell about actually painting himself up in blackface so that he could go into black communities, so that some of the whites wouldn't single him out and beat him up or whatever.
"In any case, John and Alan Lomax were very dedicated to locating these what they thought of as folk geniuses. They were looking for people who at the same time were representatives of a much bigger powerful tradition in the case of African-American music, but at the same time were really singular in their ability to express that tradition."
VOICE TWO:
The Lomaxes found one of these "folk geniuses" at the state prison in Angola, Louisiana, in nineteen thirty-three. He was a twelve-string guitar player named-- also known as Lead Belly. One of his best known recordings is this one, "The Midnight Special."
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25