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The Man Who Recorded The World: A Biography Of Alan Lomax (2010)

by John Szwed(Favorite Author)

3.7 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0434012327 (ISBN13: 9780434012329)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

William Heinemann

review 1: Picked this up for the roots music history and boy did Lomax have his hand in every pot and then some. Lead Belly, Zora Neale Hurston, Woody Guthrie, and even Margaret Mead were personal friends, just to name a few. But I quickly became drawn to Lomax as a personality - I mean he was a true Artist, with all the bohemian genius and unstable personal life that suggests. He poured everything into his life's work, with complete disregard to his personal wealth or popular convention. His fight was steadfast against cultural appropriation and for racial justice. His contributions to ethnomusicology and his ideas about democratizing popular media were insanely ahead of his time. What a guy, basically. Favorite fact: As Voyager passes into deep space, I take comfort in the fact th... moreat Lomax chose many of the music selections that represent our species! I should probably mention that my five stars is not as much for Szwed's prose as it is for the subject, but I can't imagine finding a more thorough or readable account of Lomax.Oh, and singing friends, this book is truly about his efforts to record the world, not just the American South, but there are actually more relevant references to Sacred Harp than the singular page included in the index. Highly recommended.
review 2: Alan Lomax was a wonder - folklorist, writer, performer, record producer, recording engineer, filmmaker, scholar, but most of all, the world's foremost authority on folk music. He began his career by recording folk songs in the field, and by the end of his life had developed his theory of cantometrics, which was nothing less than an attempt to classify, compare, and relate all of the world's music.Szwed's biography is full of details about his work; so much so that I found myself skimming passages. However, it's short on personal details. Here's the end of one chapter; the passage concerns Lomax's relationship with Joan Halifax: "Later that year they traveled to Morocco for more recordings for cantometrics. When they returned they made plans to be married in Florida, where Joan had grown up and where her family still lived, but Alan never appeared for the wedding. Their relationship ended shortly thereafter." Is that really all of the story we get?But, to be fair, Lomax's life was, to a large extent, defined by his work. He worked constantly, taking on so many projects that he couldn't finish them all. And his work resulted in little financial reward - in 1986 he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts; his adjusted gross income for the previous year was $11,531.But his work lives on, largely through his field recordings - hours and hours of them have been issued over the years on various labels. I have many of them - on CD, LP, and even 78 RPM records - and it was fascinating to listen to the recordings as they were discussed in the book.If Goodreads allowed half stars, I would give this book three and a half stars, in spite of its weaknesses. As it is, I'm so in awe of Lomax's contributions to the world's culture that I'll gladly give it the extra half star. less

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