African Diaspora at Internet Archive: The Lomaxes

Since I wrote about Alan Lomax's sister, Bess Lomax Hawes, in yesterday's post, I wanted to follow up today with a book that Bess Lomax Hawes and Alan Lomax wrote together with Jacob Delworth Elder (an anthropologist from Tobago): Brown Girl in the Ring : an Anthology of Some Games From the Eastern Caribbean.

For each of the song games in the book, there is information about the cultural context along with details about how the game is played, plus the music and lyrics:

I also wanted to share a foundational collection by Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax: American Ballads and Folk Songs, first published in 1934, which is full of African American songs.

There are specifically African American sections, like "Negro Bad Men," "The Blues," "Negro Spirituals," and "Creole Negroes." Some of the thematic sections also contain African American songs; you'll find "John Henry" in the "Working on the Railroad" section which opens the book for example, and "Foller de Drinkin' Gou'd" is included in the "Reels."

For each song, there is the tune transcribed, plus notes about the songs too; for example, here's Foller de Drinkin' Gou'd.

You can find out more about both John Lomax and Alan Lomax at Wikipedia; John Lomax, Jr. was also a folklorist and performer. You can also listen to many of the songs that Alan Lomax recorded over his decades of research (beginning with the work he did with his father) at the Alan Lomax Digital Archive,

Alan Lomax is also the author of this book about the blues: The Land Where the Blues Began.

Finally, I wanted to mention a fascinating article published by John Lomax in the Journal of American Folklore in 1913: Stories of an African Prince: Yoruba Tales. Lomax was collecting songs and stories from students at the State Normal and Industrial School for Negroes, at Prairie View, Texas (now Prairie View A&M University), and there he  met Lattevi Ajaji, a Yoruba man from Lagos, Nigeria, who told the 16 stories you can read in the article: The Elephant and the Rooster ~ The Election of the King of Animal ~ The Man and the Rabbit ~ The Gorilla and the Mother ~ The Man and His Pigs ~ The Bear and the Fox ~ The Two Roosters ~ The Fox and the Bird ~ The Man and the Ghosts ~ The Ass and the Driver ~ The Rabbit and the Fox ~ The Fly and the Ant ~ The Devil and His Friend ~ The Twins ~ The Famine and the Spider ~ A King and His Daughter.

So, thanks to John Lomax and later Bess Lomax and Alan Lomax, so much of African American musical tradition was recorded and carried forward, waiting for you now, just a click away at the Internet Archive.

Brown Girl in the Ring:

An Anthology of Some Games from the Eastern Caribbean

by Alan Lomax, J. D. Elder, and Bess Lomax Hawe

American Ballads and Folk Songs

by John Lomax and Alan Lomax

The Land Where the Blues Began.

by Alan Lomax