Gathers lyrics and music for hundreds of folksongs from the American frontier

Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

Literature & Fiction

Lomax, John A.

Lomax, Alan

Dramas & Plays

Schirmer Reference

Set in an era as harsh and fertile as Delta silt, The Land Where the Blues Began reveals how the river of African-American culture overtook its repressive banks--to give us R &amp; B, soul, rock 'n' roll, and the only purely American art form, the blues. Alan Lomax takes us on an adventure into the "bad old days" of the post-slavery, Jim Crow Mississippi Delta--the birthplace of the blues--when railroads and levees were being built and cotton boomed at the expense of Southern working-class African Americans. Singing of their misery and their barely concealed rage, the Bluesman enlisted their African heritage to keep their souls alive and in the process created the first satirical song form in the English language. We meet Muddy Waters (the father of modern blues), learn how Robert Johnson met his end, and are introduced to Fred McDowell and Son House, who taught Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton how to play the blues.

The Land Where Blues Began

Arts & Photography

Music

Delta

The Land Where the Blues Began - 1993 publication.

Pantheon Books

"A book to cherish permanently." — The New York Times. With this ample collection of authentic ballads and songs, you can immerse yourself in the rich tradition and heritage of American folk music. Discover the diversity, spontaneity, free-flowing melody, and sheer invention of scores of songs sung by cowboys and convicts, lumberjacks, hobos, miners, plantation slaves, mountaineers, soldiers, and many others. One of the remarkable features of this collection is its authenticity. Many of the songs were recorded "on location" by noted folklorist John A. Lomax and his even more famous son, Alan, as they traveled around the United States. The results are firsthand versions of music and lyrics for over 200 railroad songs, chain-gang songs, mountain songs, Creole songs, cocaine and whisky songs, "reels," minstrel songs, songs of childhood, and a host of others. Among them are such time-honored favorites as "John Henry," "Goin' Home," "Frankie and Albert," "Down in the Valley," "Little Brown Jug," "Alabama-Bound," "Shortenin' Bread," "Skip to My Lou," "Frog Went a-Courtin'," and a host of others. An excellent introduction, notes on each song, a bibliography, and an index round out this extensive and valuable collection. Musician, musicologists, folklorists, singers — anyone interested in American folk music — will welcome this treasury of timeless song gathered in one handy, inexpensive volume.

American Ballads and Folk Songs (Dover Books On Music: Folk Songs)

Dover Publications

Traces the jazz musician's career journey from Storyville to Broadway, showing the ways in which his unique compositions reflected the problems of America's poor

Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and 'Inventor of Jazz'

Biographies & Memoirs

University of California Press

When it appeared in 1950, this biography of Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton became an instant classic of jazz literature. Now back in print and updated with a new afterword by Lawrence Gushee, Mister Jelly Roll will enchant a new generation of readers with the fascinating story of one of the world's most influential composers of jazz. Jelly Roll's voice spins out his life in something close to song, each sentence rich with the sound and atmosphere of the period in which Morton, and jazz, exploded on the American and international scene. This edition includes scores of Jelly Roll's own arrangements, a discography and an updated bibliography, a chronology of his compositions, a new genealogical tree of Jelly Roll's forebears, and Alan Lomax's preface from the hard-to-find 1993 edition of this classic work. Lawrence Gushee's afterword provides new factual information and reasserts the importance of this work of African American biography to the study of jazz and American culture.

Mister Jelly Roll;: The fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and inventor of jazz

Arts & Literature

When it appeared in 1950, this biography of Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton became an instant classic of jazz literature. Now back in print and updated with a new afterword by Lawrence Gushee, Mister Jelly Roll will enchant a new generation of readers with the fascinating story of one of the world's most influential composers of jazz. Jelly Roll's voice spins out his life in something close to song, each sentence rich with the sound and atmosphere of the period in which Morton, and jazz, exploded on the American and international scene. This edition includes scores of Jelly Roll's own arrangements, a discography and an updated bibliography, a chronology of his compositions, a new genealogical tree of Jelly Roll's forebears, and Alan Lomax's preface from the hard-to-find 1993 edition of this classic work. Lawrence Gushee's afterword provides new factual information and reasserts the importance of this work of African American biography to the study of jazz and American culture.

Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz"

Gushee, Lawrence

Lomax, who has done more than anyone else to make black music of the South known as a glorious expression of American art, summs up sixty years of "discovering the African American musical heritage in this journey through the Mississippi Delta.

The Land Where the Blues Began

Pantheon

Jean Ritchie is the best known and most respected singer of traditional ballads in the United States. It has been nearly thirty years since she originally published Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians, and the music found here tells the story of the "Singing Ritchie Family" at a time when railroads, coal mines, and hillbilly radio were making their first incursions into the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Built upon a foundation of balladry inherited from old-world Scotland, the family's repertoire was certainly eclectic but not haphazard. The Child ballads, lyric folksongs, play party or frolic songs, Old Regular Baptist lined hymns, Native American ballads, "hant" songs, and carols brought together in this collection were assembled by family members who actively sought out fragments of tunes and completed them by adding or embellishing verses and melodies. This new edition has faithfully retained all seventy-seven line scores of the songs and added four new ones, Loving Hannah, Lovin' Henry, Her Mantle So Green, and The Reckless and Rambling Boy. The original headnotes and photographs tell the history of the song as well as how it became a part of the family's life. Chords are indicated for accompaniment; however, music notation and the printed word can present only a reasonable facsimile of any actual song. Jean's singing is simply the best guide to how the song should be sung, so a new audiography and videography have been added to this edition.

Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians

Pen, Ron

RITCHIE,JEAN

Univ Pr of Kentucky

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lomax, Alan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lomax, Alan

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lomax, Alan. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads

The Land Where Blues Began

The Land Where the Blues Began - 1993 publication.

American Ballads and Folk Songs (Dover Books On Music: Folk Songs)

Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and 'Inventor of Jazz'

Mister Jelly Roll;: The fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and inventor of jazz

Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and "Inventor of Jazz"

The Land Where the Blues Began

Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and 'Inventor of Jazz'

Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians