I’ve always been a folkie, and today I heard of the death of the greatest influence on modern music who never made it into the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame: Alan Lomax, Library of Congress recordist, living-room engineer, preserver of American tradition, inspirer of rock ‘n’ roll.
It was his dad John who passed on to us “Home On the Range” and other cowboy standards.
It was Alan who discovered Leadbelly, without whom we would not have “House of the Rising Sun.” It was Alan who discovered Muddy Waters, without whom the Rolling Stones would have sounded different or never existed. Without Alan’s roamin’ and ramblin’, would anybody today remember the Delta blues, antebellum Southern work songs, hobo songs or the Appalachian mountain songs? Would we even have ever had modern folk music, classic country & western or classic rock?
Not to mention that Alan and others like Woody Guthrie helped us make great strides toward racial tolerance and diversity, at least in the cultural field. Before them, popular music was often reactionary and even racist. After them, musicians eagerly sought influences from different cultures.
It wasn’t for nothing that Alan defined his mission as “giving voice to the voiceless.”
I was a kid when I got my first songbook: an Alan Lomax compilation, which I still have. Everything from the colonial song “The Dying British Sergeant” to “The Ballad of the Titanic.” I later learned to play “John Henry,” “Goodnight Irene,” “Midnight Special,” “Big Rock Candy Mountains,” and “Hallelujah I’m A Bum.” I was elated when some of them were revived by “red hobo” singer Utah Phillips and the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Ha-ha, you laugh at folk music, it’s dead and gone you say. But why are so many folk standards revived over and over by modern rock bands?
Alan Lomax, you rest easy at that old hootenanny in the sky.
The rest of you, next time you pass by the record store, tip your hat and remember Alan Lomax.