American family of folk music specialists.
NOLAN PORTERFIELD (1 and 3), DARIUS L. THIEME (2)
(b Goodman, MS, 23 Sept 1867; d Greenville, MS, 26 Jan 1948). Folksong collector. While studying for his MA at Harvard (1906–7) he was encouraged by his professors George L. Kittredge and Barrett Wendell to collect the folksongs of cowboys in Texas, where he had grown up. This work resulted in Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1910), one of the first important collections of American folksong. He collected and published only sporadically between 1910 and 1932, after which he undertook a nationwide lecture and collecting tour that produced American Ballads and Folk Songs (with Alan Lomax, 1934), hailed as the largest single collection of indigenous American song to that time.
Lomax became curator of the Archive of American Folksong at the Library of Congress in 1933 and played a major role in its development. With support from the library and other government agencies, he and his son Alan made field recording trips throughout the 1930s, mostly in the South and Southwest, pioneering the use of instantaneous disc recording equipment for that purpose and eventually depositing in the archive recordings of more than 4000 folksongs. Among their discoveries was the black folk-blues artist Leadbelly, whom they found in prison in Louisiana in 1934 and later took to New York for concerts and commercial recordings. Sometimes criticized for carelessness with sources and documentation, Lomax nevertheless performed an invaluable role in preserving and transmitting the songs of the American people.
‘Cowboy Songs of the Mexican Border’, Sewanee Review, xix (1911), 1–18
‘Some Types of American Folk-Song’, Journal of American Folklore, xxviii (1915), 1–17
‘“Sinful Songs” of the Southern Negro’, MQ, xx (1934), 177–87
‘Field Experiences with Recording Machines’, Southern Folklore Quarterly, i (1937), 57–60
Adventures of a Ballad Hunter (New York, 1947/R)
Cowboy Songs and Frontier Ballads (New York, 1910/R, rev. and enlarged 1938/R with J.A. Lomax)
Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp (New York, 1919/R, 2/1919/R)
with A. Lomax: American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York, 1934/R)
with A. Lomax: Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (New York, 1936)
with A. Lomax: Our Singing Country (New York, 1941)
with A. Lomax: Folk Song U.S.A.: the 111 Best American Ballads (New York, 1947/R, 4/1954 as Best Loved American Songs, rev. 1975 by M. Gilston
N. Porterfield: Last Cavalier: the Life and Times of John A. Lomax (Urbana, IL, 1996)
(b Austin, Texas, 15 Jan 1915). Folksong scholar, son of (1) John Lomax. He was educated at Harvard University (1932–3), the University of Texas (BA 1936) and Columbia University (where he did graduate work in anthropology in 1939). In 1937 he began working under his father in the Archive of American Folksong, Library of Congress. He worked for the Office of War Information and US Army Special Services during World War II, and served Decca Records Inc. as Director of Folk Music (1946–9). He produced numerous educational radio and television programmes on folk music for use in the USA and Great Britain (such as the ‘American Patchwork’ series produced for PBS, 1990) and recorded and studied folksong in Great Britain, Haiti, Italy, Spain, the USA and elsewhere. He served on the boards of several American folk festivals and lectured at various American universities (Chicago, Columbia, Indiana, New York). In 1963 he became director of the cantometrics project at Columbia University, an international study of the folksong in its cultural matrix (see Cantometrics); he also founded the Association for Cultural Equity at Hunter College, CUNY.
Lomax’s search to find and record songs and singers took him on lengthy journeys through the rural southern USA to farms, churches, small night clubs and prison farms. Travelling when recording techniques were in their infancy, he and his father transported a 300-lb disc recorder in a station wagon on back roads and farm lanes. Lomax found and documented an American folk heritage in the blues steeped in African roots, and a Western heritage flavoured with cowboy lore. From the outset, his work among the creators of the vast tapestry of American and African-American folksong convinced him to urge a very broad view of the data to make possible a comprehensive study of the song in its cultural context. Working with a team of scholars and assistants, he sought to compare data on song melody and structure with ethnographic, political, economic, biological and sociological data. One result was a correlation of behavioural data with textual and musical song profiles. Working with the musicologist Bill Grauer, he reported the identification of ten regional song matrices applicable to the majority of some 400 world song traditions represented in the Lomax archives. His contribution to folksong scholarship is thus best considered in terms of his pioneering advocacy of a view of the particular within a panoramic ethnic context.
As a writer, Lomax has discussed the behavioural aspect of song performance and the place of folksong in society in his articles ‘Folk Song Style’ (1959) and ‘Song Structure and Social Structure’ (1962), and in Folk Song Style and Culture (1968). He has prepared biographies of the jazz musician Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton (Mister Jelly Roll 1950) and Rev. Renfrew and Nora Reed, a black American preacher and a blues singer (The Rainbow Sign, 1959), providing valuable insight into black American life and culture in the southern USA. The folksong collections he has compiled include Folk Song USA (1947), Cowboy Songs (1986) and Three Thousand Years of Black Poetry (New York, 1970, with R. Abdul), an anthology including composed poetry, song texts, African praise-poetry, and texts taken from oral tradition. His search for the roots of the blues is chronicled in Land Where the Blues Began (1993). He has also edited important collections of recorded traditional folksongs (Columbia World Library of Folk and Primitive Music), American folksongs (Southern Journey) and blues (including the Library of Congress recordings of Jelly Morton, Roll Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, as well as the collection Muddy Waters: the Complete Plantation Recordings). The publication of Lomax’s extensive library of field recordings began in 1997 and is projected to run to 100 CDs.
with S.R. Cowell: American Folk Song and Folk Lore: a Regional Bibliography (New York, 1942/R)
Mister Jelly Roll (New York, 1950, 2/1973/R)
‘Folk Song Style’, American Anthropologist, new ser., lxi (1959), 927–54
Harriett and her Harmonium: an American Adventure with Thirteen Folksongs (New York, c1959)
The Rainbow Sign (New York, 1959)
‘Song Structure and Social Structure’, Ethnology, i (1962), 425–51
with E. Trager: ‘Phonotactique du chant populaire’, L’homme, iv (1964), 5–55
Folk Song Style and Culture (Washingon DC, 1968/R)
with I. Bartenieff and F. Paulay: ‘Choreometrics: a Method for the Study of Cross-Cultural Pattern in Film’, Research Film, vi (1969), 505–17
‘The Homogeneity of African and Afro-American Musical Styles’, Afro-American Anthropology, ed. N.E. Whitten and J.F. Szwed (New York, 1970), 181–201
‘Choreometrics and Ethnographic Filmmaking’, Filmmakers Newsletter, iv/4 (1971), 22–30
with J. Halifax: ‘Folk Song Texts as Cultural Indicators’, Structural Analysis of Oral Tradition, ed. P. and E.K. Maranda (Philadelphia, 1971), 235–67
with M. Berkowitz: ‘The Evolutionary Taxonomy of Culture’, Science, clxxvii (1972), 228–39
Cantometrics: an Approach to the Anthropology of Music (Berkeley, 1977)
Index of World Song (New York, 1977)
The Land Where the Blues Began (New York, 1993)
with J.D. Elder and B. Lomax Hawes: Brown Girl in the Ring (New York, 1997)
Cowboy Songs and Frontier Ballads (New York, 1910/R, rev. and enlarged 1938/R with J.A. Lomax)
with J.A. Lomax: American Ballads and Folk Songs (New York, 1934/R)
with J.A. Lomax: Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Lead Belly (New York, 1936, 3/1959)
with J.A. Lomax: Our Singing Country (New York, 1941)
with J.A. Lomax: Folk Song U.S.A: the 111 Best American Ballads (New York, 1947, repr. as Best Loved American Songs, rev. 2/1975 by M. Gilson)
with J.A. Lomax: Leadbelly: a Collection of World Famous Songs (New York, 1959, 2/1965 as The Leadbelly Legend)
The Folk Songs of North America in the English Language (Garden City, NY, 1960)
Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People (New York, 1967)
J. Berrett: ‘Alan Lomax: some Reconsiderations’, JJS, vi/1 (1979), 54–63
D. Lonergan : ‘Alan Lomax: an Essay and Bibliography’, Music Reference Services Quarterly, iii/2 (1994), 3–16
M. Parrish: ‘Documenting the Folk Music of the World’, Sing Out: the Folk Song Magazine, xl/3 (1995–6), 30–35
E.P. Olsen: ‘Ambassador of the Blues’, World & I, xii/1 (1997), 176–83
(b Austin, 21 Jan 1921). Folk music performer, scholar and arts administrator, daughter of (1) John Lomax. She was introduced to folk music and music scholarship at an early age and was educated at the University of Texas (1937–8), Bryn Mawr College (BA 1941) and the University of California (MA 1970). From 1941 to 1952 she was a member of the Almanac Singers and participated in the recording of such albums as Talking Union, Citizen CIO, American Folk Songs and Songs of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. She continued her work in folk music after being appointed assistant professor of anthropology in 1963 at California State College, Northridge, where she rose to the rank of professor in 1974. In 1977 she became director of the Folk Arts Program of the National Endowment of the Arts; she is credited with establishing folk arts programmes in virtually every state and territory of the USA by the time of her retirement in 1992. Under her leadership at NEA, the National Heritage Program was begun, honouring traditional artists from across the nation. Her many publications have focussed primarily on childlore. Throughout her career she has served on numerous grant panels and taken an active role in the production of folk festivals, films and summer programmes. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993.
‘La Llorona in Juvenile Hall’, Western Folklore, xxvii (1968), 153–70
with B. Smith Jones: Step it Down: Games, Plays, Songs and Stories from the Afro-American Heritage (New York, 1972)
‘Folksongs and Function: some Thoughts on the American Lullabye’, Journal of American Folklore, lxxxvii (1974), 140–48
‘Practice Makes Perfect: Lessons in Active Ethnomusicology’, EthM, xxxvi (1992), 337–43
‘Reminiscences and Exhortations: Growing Up in American Folk Music’, EthM, xxxix (1995), 179–93