Son of famous folk music archivist John Lomax who followed in his father's footsteps to become the curator of the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong. He also coauthored several books about folk and cowboy songs with John Lomax.

After his father retired from his work at the Library of Congress Archive of American Folksong Alan turned a massive grant from the Carnegie Foundation into a recording studio for the archive so more things could be documented onsite. One of the musicians to record there (another Lomax discovery) was Woody Guthrie who was also a frequent guest on the radio show that Alan Lomax hosted.

Alan Lomax went off to war in 1942 and on his return took the position of Director of Folk Music for Decca Records. Soon after Alan received a motherhuge Guggenheim grant to continue with his fieldwork.

From the 1950's to the present Alan has compiled numerous CDs of archived music and written many more books on the history of music and a study of comparative musicology that he calls "Cantometrics." I can't claim that I really understand the whole of it but it seems like a comprehensive system for mapping out the connections between cultures and music from the limited impression that I'm able to get from Lomax's writing.

Alan Lomax also created a PBS series about folklore called American Patchwork that I haven't been able to catch yet.

If you haven't read the John Lomax node and you're interested please head on over there because the Lomaxes acted as a team since Alan was a little boy and most of their projects are, if not collaborative at very least referential to each other.

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