Alan Lomax Archive

I noticed in the Independent today there is an article on how the Alan Lomax archive is starting to filter through on to YouTube. For the uninitiated Lomax was a great collector of folk, blues, country, and other world music. He travelled across the US in the 30's and 40's, recording artists, and then moved on to Europe in the 50's. If you have ever listened to Moby's Play album then you will have heard Alan Lomax samples. The American Folklife Center in the Library of Congress acquired the Lomax collection in 2004. He was the first to record Leadbelly and Muddy Waters, and also recorded people such as Jelly Roll Morton and Woody Guthrie.

Between 1978 and 1985 he also travelled through the south and southwest of the US, recording for PBS. It is some of this footage that you can now find on a special channel on YouTube.

Being a Huddie

It's nice to see that Tenacious Donohoe got the Led out for an inaugaral post. I've been almost rockless for months, whereas once I was addicted to the riff. A well placed strum seems to do it for me now (surely a line delivered at some point by Jim Dale in Carry On Put Your Foot on the Monitor).

If I was to decline commenting on a band because it's all been said before then this blog would be empty, so allow me to bring up the Page Plant performance of Gallows Pole, November 94 on Later. Those people who like to say that oldies like The Rolling Stones should pack it in are daft, as this performance by a couple of hoary old rockers goes to prove. Nobody ever told John Lee Hooker to put the guitar down, or told a composer to stop writing.

Leadbelly famously sang his way out of the joint. What would he have made of Nirvana's Where Did You Sleep Last Night?, The Animal's House of the Rising Sun, or The Ram Jam Band's Black Betty? When my Mrs sings along to Pick a Bale of Cotton she makes up her own words, which I wish I had on video, but I don't, so here's some Huddie Leadbetter.

Three Songs by Leadbelly | Viral | SPIKE.com