Pioneering Folklore: Who Was John Lomax?

John Avery Lomax was a trailblazing folklorist, musicologist, and educator. Born in Mississippi and raised in Texas, he grew up immersed in the songs of the cowboys on the Chisholm Trail. Lomax transformed his passion into his first book, Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads (1934). As the curator of the Archive of Folksong at the Library of Congress, he helped establish the primary institution for the preservation of American folk songs and culture. His groundbreaking work collecting American folk songs and popularizing the academic study of folklore was monumental.

John Avery Lomax was born in Goodman, Mississippi, in 1867. Amidst the chaos that followed the Civil War, his family left Mississippi and traveled by wagon to Texas when he was two years old. The Lomazes settled just outside of the frontier town of Merdian. As a child, John worked on the family homestead and developed a fascination with the cowboys who passed by on their way up the Chisholm Trail. He copied their style and wrote down the lyrics to their songs. 

He studied English literature at the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard, where he was mentored by the leading folklorist of the day, George Lyman Kittredge. At Harvard Kittredge and his colleagues encouraged Johns’s interest in cowboy songs and inspired him to begin collecting ballads. After Harvard, he lectured at Texas A&M, became the first secretary of the Texas Folklore Society, and published his first book Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads in 1910. 

On The Road

As the Great Depression hit the United States in 1931, like most Americans the Lomaxes were hit for six. Refusing to give up on his work, John traveled to New York and secured an advance from Macmillan Publishers to produce an anthology of American folk songs, that would include the black music of the South. 

The next day, he went to Washington and gained the support of the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong. With a grant to cover their expenses, a car, and recording equipment, John and his 18-year-old son, Alan, hit the road. 

Their journey took them across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky, where they recorded the ballads of poor farmers on southern plantations, field hollers, and work songs in lumber camps, state penitentiaries, and prison farms. The recordings they collected became founding statements of modern cannon of American folk music.  

Unlike the “white” tradition of folk ballads, in the prisons of the South, the Lomaxes uncovered songs about cotton, boll weevils, the misery of hard labor, and the hot southern sun. These songs were characterized by deep personal significance and sincerity (Szwed, 2010). John quickly realized that what he had found was something special. Besides the hundreds of recordings archived at the Library of Congress, the result of the trip was American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934). 

Emerging at a time when Americans were beginning to think seriously about their national culture and heritage, American Ballads and Folk Songs introduced black American folk culture as something worthy of appreciation. However, while the book featured songs sung by cowboys and convicts, lumberjacks, soldiers, miners, and hobos, it was criticized for excluding Spanish and Native American songs from the national picture. It was nonetheless highly influential.  

Lomax and Lead Belly

John Lomax is perhaps best known for his relationship with Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, a folk singer and convicted murderer he met during a recording trip to Angola State Prison in Louisiana. After Lead Belly’s release, he contacted John in search of work. A magisterial talent – and the true gem of his fieldwork efforts – John enthusiastically agreed and hired Lead Belly as his assistant in September 1934. 

Together, they traveled the South for 2 months and recorded over 100 records. Subsequently, they were joined by Alan and traveled to Washington, Philadelphia, and New York to promote American Ballads and Folk Songs. Along the way, Lead Belly performed in front of large audiences and began attracting tabloid attention. John became his manager and got him his first recording contract in 1935. In the end, sales were poor despite his relative fame, and their relationship soured. After six months together they called it a day. 

John Lomax’s legacy is substantial and multifaceted. In his collection of folksongs, he visited all but one of 48 contiguous United States, recording music that otherwise may have been lost. His contributions to the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong are invaluable. His field methodologies continue to inform the practice of contemporary folklorists. Likewise, his publications, from American Ballads and Folk Songs to Our Singing Country (1941) have had a lasting impact on the academic study of folklore. 

Among the musicians that Lomax discovered, Lead Belly stands out as the most significant. His diverse repertoire and profound influence on subsequent generations of musicians have cemented his place as one of the most important folk musicians of the twentieth century. Perhaps John Lomax’s greatest legacy is the work carried forth and advanced by his son Alan, who became a legendary musicologist, author, broadcaster, and oral historian, who raised the profile of folk music worldwide.