Marsh on Lomax
no one
Dave Marsh
Seeing Alan Lomax's obituary on the front page of the New York Times
irked the hell out of me. Harry Smith syndrome all over again-the Great
White "Discoverer" as the axis of cultural genesis. Lomax, wrote Jon
Pareles, "advocated what he called 'cultural
equity: the right of every culture to have equal time on the air and
equal time in the classroom.'"
He did?
In 1993, when Lomax published The Land Where the Blues Began, his memoir
of blues research in the deep South, Peter Bochan invited him to do a
WBAI interview. Bochan ventured to Lomax that Elvis Presley stood as a
great product of the Southern folk cultures. Lomax firmly denied this,
and said that Bochan couldn't even know that Presley had listened as a
boy to Sister Rosetta Tharpe's gospel radio show because "You weren't
there." He said this so persistently and adamantly-with all the stupid
"folklorist" purism that ruined the folk music revival-that Bochan went
home and intercut Lomax's prissy voice and dumb assertions with excerpts
from Beavis and Butthead. It aired that way.
Even sticking to the blues, Lomax cut a dubious figure. As a veteran
blues observer wrote me, "Don't get too caught up in grieving for Alan
Lomax. For every fine musical contribution that he made, there was an
evil venal manipulation of copyright, publishing and ownership of the
collected material."
The most notorious concerns "Goodnight Irene." Lomax and his father
recorded Leadbelly's song first, so when the song needed to be formally
copyrighted because the Weavers were about to have a huge hit with it,
representatives of the Ledbetter family approached him. Lomax agreed
that this copyright should be established. He adamantly refused to take
his name off the song, or to surrender income from it, even though
Leadbelly's family was impoverished in the wake of his death two years
earlier.
Lomax believed folk culture needed guidance from superior beings like
himself. Lomax told Bochan what he believed; nothing in poor people's
culture truly happened unless someone like him documented it. He hated
rock'n'roll-down to instigating the assault against Bob Dylan's sound
system at Newport in '65-because it had no need of mediation by experts
like himself.
The nature of the expert mattered, too. Lomax's obit made the front page
mainly because he "discovered" Son House and Muddy Waters. But in Can't
Be Satisfied, his new Muddy Waters biography, Gordon shows that Lomax's
discoveries weren't the serendipitous events the great white hunter
portrayed. Lomax was led to House and then Waters by the great Negro
scholar, John Work III of Fisk University. Gordon even shows Lomax
plagiarizing Work, and not on a minor point. (See page 51) In his book,
Lomax offers precisely one sentence about Work. He eliminated Work from
his second Mississippi trip. He also burned Muddy Waters for the $20 he
promised for making the records.
Maybe the fact that Lomax served as a folk music "missionary" (to use
Bob Dylan's term) offsets all this. Provided that it doesn't turn out
that Lomax used and discarded ethnic workers worldwide the way he used
Work, I guess there's a case to be made. But I do hope that people
understand that when Pareles says that "Mr. Lomax wasn't interested in
simply discovering stars," part of the meaning is that he didn't want
them to get in the way of his self-importance.
Sometime soon, we need to figure out why it is that, when it comes to
cultures like those of Mississippi black people, we celebrate the
milkman more than the milk. Meanwhile, every sentence that will be
uttered about Lomax this week-including these-would be better used to
describe the great musicians he recorded in the U.S., the Bahamas, and
elsewhere. Reading Gordon's book serves as a good corrective.
Cleoma
Even though Alan Lomax was a jerk and ripped off Leadbelly, and even though his
Cantometrics theories were simplistic and ridiculous --
I STILL feel a deep appreciation for his work (as opposed to admiring him as a
human being) and am so thankful to have had the chance to hear so many great
sounds that I never would have otherwise heard.
To tell the truth, I heard so many different stories over the years (all
negative) about Alan Lomax the person (and many of these were from people that
actually did know him and had worked with him) that I never had any desire to
meet the man -- but I surely have listened countless times to recordings that
he made and continue to learn from and enjoy recordings of people like Marcus
Martin, Wayne Perry, etc.
I think that it's possible to love and appreciate the work without deifying the
worker.
Suzy Thompson
To reply to this posting, remove "nojunk" from my email address.
Jim Capaldi
about everybody and every thing!
--
Jim Capaldi
Pete Seeger Appreciation Page
http://home.earthlink.net/~jimcapaldi
"no one" <sp...@nada.com> wrote in message news:3D3C0F4...@nada.com...
no one
> And just what have you contributed to folk music? Other than being so angry
> about everybody and every thing!
You are shouting at the messenger not the author....
Find dave Marsh in the virtual flesh at Rock and Rap Confidential
www.rockrap.com
In fact, you will find that Marsh has contributed quite a lot to the
music world, and while I do not agree with some of the points in this
particular missive, I think the points have a valid place in the
discussion..... which is why I passed this on.
But of course, why have a discussion:
"Doh! Facts are meaningless! You can use facts to prove anything
that's even REMOTELY true!" - Homer Simpson"
Outfidel
> Dave Marsh
Ouch, those are pretty harsh words. I wonder what they'll be saying about
Dave Marsh when he passes away?
One line I question is this:
> Sometime soon, we need to figure out why it is that, when it comes to
> cultures like those of Mississippi black people, we celebrate the
> milkman more than the milk.
Without Alan Lomax (and his father), many of us would have gone without
milk. And I don't see how one can argue that the Lomaxes are more
celebrated --
either by the general public or by the music industry -- than Muddy Waters,
Leadbelly,
Woody Guthrie, and many of the other artists whom the Lomaxes "discovered".
Steve and Trish
news:jOi%8.130835$6r.50...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> "no one" <sp...@nada.com> wrote in message news:3D3C0F4...@nada.com...
> > MR. BIG STUFF
> > Dave Marsh
>
> Ouch, those are pretty harsh words. I wonder what they'll be saying about
> Dave Marsh when he passes away?
>
> One line I question is this:
>
> > Sometime soon, we need to figure out why it is that, when it comes to
> > cultures like those of Mississippi black people, we celebrate the
> > milkman more than the milk.
I think this is a misprint. IMHO what was meant was:
"when it comes to cultures like those of Mississippi black people, we
celebrate the
milk more than the milkman."
many examples of this is seen in early and mid 20th century academic
collecting in the appalachians...the music was mined and the "folk" ripped
off, in much the same way the coal companies bought their land for 50 bucks,
retained claim to the mineral rights, stripped out the coal and destroyed
their communities...the collector-musicians who immersed themselves in
indigenous cultures, like mike seeger, came later...
i've never met lomax, but many accounts describe him as a greedy asshole.
big deal....if you can't separate his work from his personality and want to
deify him as saint folkmusic (see capaldi post above), well sit around a
people's music network conference and bumtitty your banjo to the tune of i
been doin' some hard travelin'.....
s
> Without Alan Lomax (and his father), many of us would have gone without
> milk. And I don't see how one can argue that the Lomaxes are more
> celebrated --
> either by the general public or by the music industry -- than Muddy
Waters,
> Leadbelly,
> Woody Guthrie, and many of the other artists whom the Lomaxes
"discovered".
>
>
>
--
______________________________________
Steve Senderoff & Trish Vierling
"...Ya run your E string down oh, I don't know, about three frets...anyway,
it corresponds to the third note on the A string...here's ya tuning..."
.........Tommy Jarrell
http://steventrish.home.mindspring.com/webpage_files/start.html
ADG01369
Songs of North America for the next few hundred years. Sure he was an
asshole... he wasn't the only one. There are many people who have exploited the
works of singers and writers, collecting and publishing - businessmen who
essentially ended up with very valuable properties without doing anything or
with having paid anything for the material.
Dave Marsh still collaborates with them... as do we all. They are friends. Just
because someone is one the right side of an issue or two doesn't make him a
saint or even a good-guy. And just because someone is an asshole doesn't mean
we can't honor the work they've done or the talent they employed to do so.
I loved Alan Lomax for the good he did, as I love many others whose sense of
integrity may be somewhat different from my own. I love Dave saying what he had
to say. My father reminded us, on various occasions, that the world seems to
require both what’s right and what’s wrong. He thanked those willing to be
assholes noting that if they were to stop, well, maybe some of us would have to
take their places - and maintain the balance of the world.
Thanks to all, living or dead, willing to have been themselves… And Alan was
certainly one of those.
As Usual,
adg
Gerry Myerson
adg0...@aol.com (ADG01369) wrote:
> My father reminded us, on various occasions, that the world seems to
> require both what's right and what's wrong. He thanked those willing
> to be assholes noting that if they were to stop, well, maybe some of
> us would have to take their places....
Your father continues to teach us. I love it. Thanks!
--
Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email)
FurryM
Milk instead of the Milkman. I don't think anyone would rather listen
to Lomax then Leadbelly or Fred Mcdowell.Incidentally No mention of
Fred in any article , Obit, or Post I have read as yet. Recordings of
Fred are IMHO Lomax's greatest contribution. If you haven't heard
Fred , Go buy some.
Lomax himself thought a folk singer was just a vessel for delivering
the more important Folk song unodorned by contrivances of personal
style. This is probably a product of the arrogance so many have
attributed to him, his role as archivist takes on new importance from
this perspective. This opinion can also and probably more accurately
be attributed to his socailist leanings and his Political agenda.
It is an opinion that makes little sense outside the context of his
socialist perspective. Music does not exist in a vaccum , what Lomax
veiwed as unadorned by personal style was drenched to the bone in
personal style. He is extremely arrogant, It is the arrogance of an
educated man, who thinks his books are the source of intellect or
wisdom. A Man who thinks he has discovered the Importance of what the
common uneducated country folk were oblivious to as they repeated
these songs by rote in their blissful ignorance. Lomax is guilty of
the same crimes as every academic Socail Anthropologist of the 20th
century, the arrogant and at times wholly ignorant trappings of
cultural relativism.
Fortunately , I don't know anyone who agrees with Lomax on the Beehive
collective nature of the "folk" song. The US as a whole OVER
celebrates the individual to the point where someone prominently
argueing Lomax's perspective is Healthy. Culturally we tend to turn a
handful of artists into icons and deem their work of the utmost
importance, until their names resound louder than their work. Lomax's
work celebrate the tradition as a whole focusing especially on the
unsung hero who IS the tradition.
To use Blugrass as an example , because Bill Monroe is a distinctively
singular figure, I can think of no other tradition that can be so
attributed to one noteable source. If Bill Monroe were a tradition
unto himself Blugrass would be Dead now if not still born in the first
place.Many of the songs in the Bluegrass canon Pre-date Blugrass,
melodies carried a far from the British Isles to be recast in the Blue
ridge mountains a century later, mark one end of the tradition , and a
small army of bluegrass musicians, most of whom don't make a living
playing Bluegrass, carrying the tradition forward, mark the other end
of the tradition. Most traditions have much broader roots, but, even
Bill Monroe is not an Island unto himself. Tradition is communal. If
nothing else Lomax's work celebrated that.
The USA's celebration of the individual at the dawn of the age of mass
communication threatened century old traditions.Trail blazing
individualists don't carry on traditions, they don't travel with the
pack, they innovate, they find a new approach to the old problem. Now
when we've come full circle to realize that artists like Bob Dylan are
Individualist Traditionalists aint it nice to have the recordings of
FRED MCDOWELL to come home to?
Despite whatever ideological or Morale diffrences anyone may have with
Lomax's perspective, agenda, and reasons for doing what he did , Just
be glad Lomax was Lugging that heavy recording equipment through the
woods, across the creek, and up the mountain because there was
something pure there that needed to be preserved. On that much I hope
everyone can agree.
David Rintoul
Just be glad Lomax was lugging that heavy recording equipment through the
woods, across the creek, and up the mountain because there was something
pure there that needed to be preserved. On that much I hope everyone can
agree.
-----------
I definitely agree with that.
You also make another interesting point about the value of the song as well
as the value of the singer's performance. Lomax and the other field
recorders were out mainly to preserve and promote the songs themselves. On
the other hand I think Harry Smith, for example, took more interest in the
performances on the sound recordings he collected. The odder and more
obscure the interpretation the better, as far as Harry was concerned. Each
approach gives us a little different point of view.
Music all starts with a song. But, then, I think a great song takes on a
life of its own. Once that happens, singers add it to their repertoires and
give it their own interpretation. They also pass it along. A truly great
song can find its own way around the world. At that point, sort of like a
well travelled person, a well-travelled song can be a bit hard to recognize,
but it has usually changed for the better.
To me, that's what the folk process is all about, and it's why I've always
been fascinated with folk music.
--
David Rintoul
david....@sympatico.ca
http://www3.sympatico.ca/david.rintoul
"In prosperity, our friends know us. In adversity, we know our friends."
J. Churton Collins
wen...@cix.compulink.co.uk
cle...@aol.comnojunk (Cleoma) wrote:
>
> I think that it's possible to love and appreciate the work without
> deifying the
> worker.
> Suzy Thompson
> To reply to this posting, remove "nojunk" from my email address.
Indeed. I hadn't heard any of these stories about Lomax, but I did know
of course that the industry treated black musicians appallingly wrt
copyright and royalties.
Seems to me the ultimate test of a discoverer is indeed the discoveries.
wg
(hi, Suzy!)
Tom Gruning
Well, okay...I'll bite. Part two of the following segment was the only
part that seemed a bit over the top.
FurryM" <furry...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:6ff1a254.02072...@posting.google.com...
>He is extremely arrogant, It is the arrogance of an
> educated man, who thinks his books are the source of intellect or
> wisdom. A Man who thinks he has discovered the Importance of what
the
> common uneducated country folk were oblivious to as they repeated
> these songs by rote in their blissful ignorance.
Part Two:
>Lomax is guilty of
> the same crimes as every academic Socail Anthropologist of the 20th
> century, the arrogant and at times wholly ignorant trappings of
> cultural relativism.
Actually, with the first part of this I agree. Lomax was clearly and
irrefutably arrogant. However, most cultural anthropologists (and
ethnomusicologists, for that matter) have, in the past thirty years or
so, come to grips with the sort of cultural relativism and downright
paternalistic attitude that marked Lomax and his work. Damn near every
ethnology written in the last couple of decades starts with a
disclaimer that refutes FurryM's implication that all academics are
arrogant assholes who are magnanimously "giving voice to the [read
hapless or moronic] voiceless".
Most of the works beyond the disclaimers suggest that ethnographers
are (usually) painfully aware of the problems that come of "othering"
the folk, no matter who those folk may be. Paternalism hasn't flown in
the social sciences for some time. If your statement was directed
specifically to the first half of the 20th Century, it would be harder
to argue with.
In any case, painting with such a broad brush is almost always
problematic.
Please cut us (flawed academics) some slack. We do tend to be our own
harshest critics (until we're too old to know better).
Best,
Tom Gruning
http://www.geocities.com/tomgruning