Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax was one of the most important field recorders and folklorist in American music history, the man who documented and preserved the musical traditions of the American South (and eventually the world) through decades of recording expeditions for the Library of Congress and other institutions. With his father John Lomax, he recorded Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Vera Hall, Son House, and hundreds of other artists in the field, often making the first recordings of musicians who would later become legendary. His recordings at Parchman Farm, in the Mississippi Delta, and across the rural South preserved musical traditions that might otherwise have been lost entirely. His work at the Library of Congress from 1937 to 1942 created one of the most important archives in American cultural history.