Alan Lomax's Massive Archive Goes Online (2012) | Hacker News Reader

Alan Lomax's Massive Archive Goes Online (2012)

npr.org

78 pointsbenbreen13 comments

This article is from 2012. It's definitely exciting that the Lomax archive is online — but it could be worth updating the title.

On another note, if you're interested in Lomax you might also be interested in Sublime Frequencies [1], Awesome Tapes from Africa [2] or the Nonesuch Explorer Series. Both are mostly focussed on music outside the US, but they all seem to capture something similar to what Lomax was after.

1 - http://www.sublimefrequencies.com/ 2 - http://www.awesometapes.com/

Jeez, I can't believe I missed that it's from 2012 - thanks for pointing that out. A friend sent me the link this morning and I just assumed it was recent. As it happens I was just reading an article about this type of time-warp effect (in this case, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe's 2013 death getting circulated on social media last week like it had just happened):

http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/chinua-achebe-no-l...

Thanks for sharing sublimefrequencies.com and awesometapes.com! What a great discovery. I love the more obscure, non-mainstream music from around.

If you never heard of Lomax, you might still have heard some of his recordings, which where extensively sampled in Moby's Play.

Yes, Moby integrates his recordings very well with modern music.

If you're interested in this, you should check out Jayme Stone's Lomax Project, modern interpretations of some of the music collected by Lomax.

http://jaymestone.com/projects/lomaxproject

Alan and his father, John, recorded and archived some incredibly important music and there's a mountain of it to pour through. If you're just getting into it, the most famous is most likely the "Sourthern Journey" from 59-60 which has all types of field recordings, gospel, blues, bluegrass, folk, hollers, etc. The early Deep River of Song recordings from the 1930s are quite good as well. Lots of international music and lots of great interviews. If you like Muddy Waters, his first recordings were done by Lomax and are starkly different from his later band/electric stuff.

There are interesting (aka crazy) copyright issues surrounding these recordings. Lomax had copyrights on songs he only recorded? And modern artists need to license them if they are sampled?

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2011/jay-z-and-alan-lomax/

The BBC broadcast an "Archive on 4" featuring Alan Lomax earlier this year:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b050sbzw

Well worth a listen.

If the BBC block this for non-UK users I have a local copy I could stick on my YouTube account. Let me know.

thought it'd been on what.cd for years?

woo hoo! another priceless, unmissable cultural experience to pour my time into!

This last weekend I read Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. It's been a while since I read for fun. This is at least partly because the list of books that I want to read (e.g. priceless, unmissable cultural experiences) is longer than the time I have to dedicate to reading.

There will always be more I want to experience than I have time for. Not always sure what to do about that. Lomax's collection is amazing and invaluable. I do hope some people mine this and gems that I really shouldn't miss somehow cross into my experience.

This collection is awesome. Totally worth the time. Alan Lomax is genius who saw the future. The Global Jukebox lives!

I know what you mean, I haven't read for pleasure in a long time, but listening is more possible, and this archive is totally worth the effort. The interface could use a little work tho.

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