We saw a rather splendid Dutch documentary over the passion and life work of Alan Lomax the other evening:
For those who do not know his story he took over the work of his father - recording for the Library of Congress the folk music of America. Many of the early blues artists were captured by these pair (see Leadbelly in the photo) as well as Guthrie, Dylan etc etc (hundreds of thousands of recordings survive). What I did not appreciate is then Alan took his work to Europe, recording in France, the UK (I loved the weaving songs of the outer Hebrides - very similar to the chain gang songs in America), Italy and Spain. He worked tirelessly and selfishly (being away from his family for months on end!) and his passion and enthusiasm positively shone from the screen. I think as John Peel was for new music , Alan Lomax was for Folk Music. The world sadly misses them both.
The passion reminded my wife of that of Jacques Brel - ah but that will be the subject of a future posting
Unfortunately my credit card company is now loving the afore mentioned Alan Lomax as iTunes/Amazon is being used to extend my CD collection again!