Alan Lomax– Song Hunter

Alan Lomax– Song Hunter premiered last night on PBS.  It is a
beautiful portrait of a man on a mission, a mission inherited from his
father John Lomax: to document the folk traditions that are the musical
wellsprings from which most, if not all, music is derived.  For most of
the 20th century, John and Alan recorded and preserved the music of
this country of ours: the people’s voice, not his master’s, if you
will.  The documentary also crosses the Atlantic to search out some of
the still living voices he recorded through-out Europe.  There is an
interview where Alan addresses radio.  The common man couldn’t afford a
transmitter, only a receiver.  How wonderful to live in a time where we
can all transmit.  Go ahead try, someone out there will tune in.  Touch
them.  Thank god the family Lomax performed such a wonderful service.
Not that we are comparing, but I’ll take the field recording over the
atom bomb any day.  Maybe someday we will live in a world where a
human’s worth is measured not by the physical power of their
discoveries, but how much joy that human brings to the world.  Better
yet, someday we will live in a world where we understand that every
human is beyond measure.

Alan Lomax died in 2002.  Even though I have a nice collection of the field recordings he made over the years, I never thought too much about the man.  I can hear his voice so clearly interviewing Muddy Waters. 

recording of August 24-31, 1941, Stovall Plantation, Stovall, Mississippi

Question: I wonder if you’d tell me, if you can remember, ah when it was that you made that blues, Muddy Water?
Answer: I made that Blue up in ‘38…

Question: Remember the time, the year, the..?
Answer: I made it up ’bout the 8th of October in ‘38.

Question: Do you remember where you were when you were doin’ your
singin’? No, I mean, how it happened? No, I mean, where you were
sittin’, what you were thinkin’ about?
Answer: Thinkin’ a punchin’ on my car. And I’d been mistreated by a
girl and it just looked like it run in my mind to sing that song.

Question: Tell me the, tell me a little of the story of it, if you
don’t mind? I mean if it’s not too personal, I mean I wanna know the
facts on how you felt and why you felt the way you did, that’s a very
beautiful song.
Answer: Well, I just felt blue, an the song came into my mind an come
to me just like that song and I start to singin’ an went on.

Question: Well, when you ah, do you, do you, know is that tune, the tune from any other blues that you know?
Answer: Well, yes, it’s been some blues played like that.

Question: What, what tune, other blues do you remember, are like that same tune?
Answer: Well, this song come from the cottonfield and the boy went, put
the record out, Robert Young, he put it out, Walking Blues.

Question: What was the title he put it out under?
Answer: He put it out, on as "Man Walking Blues"

Question: Uh-huh, did you know the tune before you heard it on the record?
Answer: Yes, sir, I knew the tune before I heard it on the record.

Question: Uh-huh, who’d you learn it from?
Answer: I learn it from Son House.

Question: Son House, who’s that?
Answer: That’s a boy, pick a guitar and I don’t …(inaudible)

Question: Oh, and how old, how old is Son House?
Answer: Ah, I’m not even sure his age, he’s about forty-two

Question: Did you know Johnson, yourself?
Answer: Robert Johnson? No, I didn’t know him, personally

Question: Is a, is a, House a better player than Johnson is, you think?
Answer: I think they both ’bout equal.

Question: Uh-huh, well ah, how did it come to first that you wanted to play the guitar? Why did you decide that you gonna?
Answer: I just loved the music and saw Son singin’ an playin’ and I just wanted to do it an I took after it.

Question: Well, about how much have you practiced? How many hours when
you were first pickin’ it up, how long did you have to play everyday to
learn how to play?
Answer: An hour and a half to two hours.

Question: Uh-huh, everyday?
Answer: Everyday.

Question: Uh-huh, you remember what the first piece you ever tried to learn was?
Answer: First piece I ever tried to learn was, How Long (Blues) whatever you wanna call it.

Question: Uh-huh, did you learn that from a record or from seein’ it?
Answer: I learned that from the record.

Question: How would you do? How would you learn that song?
Answer: We just heard the song, ya know, put out, ah, Leroy Carr (?) put it out.

Question: Would you sit down with the record and play a little of it and then try and play it?
Answer: I just got the song in my ear and then went on and just tried to play it.

Question: Well, how did you learn how to play with this bottle?
Answer: Picked that up from Son House.

Question: Uh-huh, what do you call that?
Answer: Just a bottle-neck. I call it a slide.

Question: You call it a slide?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Wear on your little finger?
Answer: Yes.

Question: And how do you have that guitar tuned? What’s the name of that tuning?
Answer: Spanish (strums guitar)

Question: Spanish?
Question: Do you know any other ways to tune the guitar than that?
Answer: Well, I know the natural. Show you the natural.

Question: Do you have another tuning, ah besides that?
Answer: Yes sir, I have another tuning.

Question: What’s the name of that other tuning?
Answer: That’s just straight E, yes sir.

Question: Straight E? Do you have another name for a straight E?
Answer: Another song for a straight E?

Question: No, I mean no is there any other name for that tuning than straight E?
Answer: Well, we call it, we call it, a "cross noting"

Question: Uh-huh, well can you play that other Country Blues that you played there then while ago that fast one?
Answer: Yes.

Question: In this same tune here?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Uh-huh, well can you play that other Country Blues that you played there then while ago that fast one?
Answer: Yes.

Question: Well, just a minute, I’ll tell you when I’m ready