via his daughter Anna L. Chairetakis. Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998
NOTE: Mr. Lomax was born in Austin Texas in 1915 and is a world renowned ethnomusicologist. In 1933, at the age of 18, he assisted his father, John Avery Lomax, on their first recording field trip for the Library of Congress. Working alone and with his father, as well as his sister Bess, Zora Neale Hurston, Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, John Work, and others, Alan Lomax recorded folk and traditional music for the Library of Congress throughout the United States and Caribbean. Artists such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Aunt Mollie Jackson, and Muddy Waters made their first recordings on these field trips.
Rounder Records is in the process of issuing the Alan Lomax Collection, drawing from Alan's entire lifetime of recordings. The Collection features reissues of discs long out of print and new material from the Lomax archives, all remastered in 20-bit digital sound. For more information visit World Music's Alan Lomax links.
Mr. Lomax recently suffered a stroke. His daughter tells me he is recovering nicely. - SB
Dear Chancellor Broski,
I write to ask for your support in preserving the historic Maxwell Street district. Like Harlem, Maxwell Street was the haven sought by African Americans escaping the oppressive Southern system. Like Harlem, it came to provide a social and economic environment that stimulated and nurtured a prolonged flowering in the lively arts. It was to this multi-ethnic urban immigrant community that the most gifted African American musicians of the Mississippi River states came to pour forth their talents. And it was here that one of the most important events in music history took place -- the development of an urban blues music that matched industrial culture in spirit and power, and would reach out to touch the people of the world. It should no more be demolished than Harlem.
Over fifty years ago, in the South, I recorded for the first time some of the musicians who would come to Maxwell Street and eventually achieve worldwide influence and renown. Put quite simply, the Maxwell Street district is a living monument to American creativity, the site of some of the most profound social and cultural transformations of this century.
Our futures will be profoundly impoverished if we obliterate the significant places of the past. Purely from the standpoint of civic pride and commerce, given the global fascination with the Blues and the blues musicians that Maxwell Street produced, it seems to me that its preservation would be a priority for the University and for the city of Chicago.
Thank you for your kind attention. I would appreciate it if you could keep me informed about what is being done in this matter.
Sincerely,
Alan Lomax
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