Search - Tangle Eye :: Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed

Africanness sneaks up on you

Tony Thomas | SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA | 02/28/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this used thinking it was a sampler from the "Long River of Song," the great series of African American traditional music recorded by the late Alan Lomax and his father John Lomax across the South in the 1930s and the early 1940s for the Library of Congress. In his last years, Lomax who died a couple years ago, edited the thousands of recordings his father and he had made into a set of CDs covering the whole South. There is such great music there. People really neglect Black folk music and they will realize why they shouldn't once they hear these recordings.



Say what you will about them--and I have critiqued the view of culture and manipulations of tradition the Lomaxes have done elsewhere, see in particular my Amazon review of the complete Mississippi recordings Lomax did with Muddy Waters--the whole Long River of Song is simply essential for anyone who wants to know the real roots of Black music, the real roots of so much non-Black southern traditional music, and for the matter just to listen to some good sounds.



On this CD, we have contemporary jazz-blues musicians sampling these traditional Black southern songs--blues, dance music, chain gang music, cries to God--and coming up with a comfortable mix between the original folk musicians and themselves. The outcome shows the marriage of contemporary Black music with its folk roots.



At first I was annoyed because I thought I was going to hear more traditional music. I am a traditional banjo, fiddle, and guitar player who seeks to replicate the sounds of traditional black string band music. However, as the CD went on, I became to see what was in common to all the selections was the common Africanness of the music. The basic rhythm patters of the music, how you move and dance in African Aerican is revealed by the way the two musics move In many ways this reminds me of recordings contemporary black bluesologists like Taj Mahal have made with African string players.



This is nice. But if you want real music get Lomax's Long River of Song CDs. They are organized by state with a special gorgeous Black Appalachia Album.



Just for those who do not know, John Lomax who died in the 1940s, I believe, and Alan Lomax who died a couple years ago were the chief American folklorists of the 20th Century. This began with John's love and collection of cowboy songs from his Native Texas. In the 1930s Lomax Senior was able to convince the library of congress to support his travelling about the country, especially in the South, collecting traditional folk music, accompanied by his very young son.



The Lomaxes published many of the songs that they found in a series of books from the 1930s until the late 1980s. Many of the recordings they made for the Library of Congress were released to the public and helped to provide a basis for the 1930s-1940s and the 1950s folk music revivals. They helped to find folk singers like Leadbelly and recorded such great folk singers as Woody Guthrie.

"

Ingenious and effective...

nicjaytee | London | 03/28/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The idea behind this intriguing album is to combine original vocal recordings from the 40's & 50's with "up to date" blues/hip-hop arrangements. A recipe for disaster? Fortunately not... rather an atmospheric and exciting remix that successfully marries the raw power of these "true blues" singers with sympathetically structured backing tracks. The end effect? Well, the problem with a lot of old blues recordings is their thin and often rudimentary instrumentation that adds little to the emotion of the vocals - by placing them in a more complex and much richer framework, Lomax adds to their power rather than abusing it. Clever and, with only a few exceptions, highly effective. But, like many of these strange marriages, better not to analyse it too much and to take what's on offer at face value... quite simply one of the best "modern" blues albums of recent years."

Free your mind, and your ass will follow!

D. Snoble | Van Etten, NY United States | 05/15/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the words of Mac "Dr John" Rebennack -You can't shut the Fonk up! This is one fonky mixture of second line R&B, techno, and of course some of the wonderful early recordings of Alan Lomax. Not a bad track to be found here, but coolest of all is the final cut, "Soldier". This marriage of Hi-test Techno and Gospel on Steroids has to be heard to be believed. This cut alone is worth the price of many CDs. Sweeeet!
Buy it, you'll like it!"