NRR Project: The John
and Ruby Lomax Southern States Recording Trip
Recorded March 31 –
June 14, 1939
350 performances
The most epic journey in American roots music began March 31, 1939. Seventy-two-year-old John Lomax and his wife Ruby Terrill, 53, set out on an expedition into the heart of the American soul, as expressed through music.
They recorded everything and everyone. They recorded English and Spanish, all faiths, all colors. According to Matthew Barton and the National Recording Registry from which you read here, “the Lomaxes captured a wide range of traditional musical styles in English and Spanish, including ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, religious dramas, spirituals, and work songs, as well as interviews with the performers.”
In fact, just cut to Barton’s essay here. Just read it. It’s really good!
I can only add that, for the lover of American music, this collection of musical pieces, all fully accessible online, is the mother load of content. In only 10 weeks, the Lomaxes found and captured hundreds of bits of oral culture that could never be accessed today. The wealth of what they collected is still impacting scholars and musicmakers today.
The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Carmen Miranda sings ‘O Que e que a Bahiana tem’.
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