A course in the Visual Studies program at U.C. Berkeley--the old songs, and the feel of the places they come from--taken in all possible senses...
Monday, January 29, 2007
Song Trailer: John Lomax
John Lomax (1867-1948) conducted "field recordings" in 1933, first at Texas prison farms, then Louisiana, and Mississippi. Recordings during this time included Lead Belly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The photograph on the bottom is from John Lomax with Lead Belly from the newsreel "March of Time." It's completely staged, as was the custom with newsreels back then. Below I've copied and pasted some info about it from the following webpage:
This webpage suggests that John Lomax and Lead Belly parted on bad terms, whereas Alan Lomax and Lead Belly remained friends. Here is the quote from the FAQ section relating to the photograph:
... What is the source of the prison stripes story? On January 8, 1935, John Lomax and Lead Belly appeared on Time magazine’s March of Time radio show featuring reenacted news (news was not yet recorded in real time.) The radio dramatization told how Lead Belly was released from prison and featured some of his songs. It was broadcast nationwide and heard in millions of homes. Soon after, Time initiated production of filmed newsreels, also consisting of reenacted stories, to be shown in movie theaters. The story of Lomax’s discovery of Lead Belly was the second one of these, and was made over a two-day period in February 1935. John A. Lomax is credited with assisting in writing the screenplay — though Alan Lomax actually wrote a first version which was overridden — and both John A. and Lead Belly appeared in it. In the first scene, Lead Belly wore stripes to dramatize the occasion of their meeting in Angola. This scene was to be balanced with depiction of Lead Belly’s marriage to Martha Promise (in which the singer is shown wearing a suit) and his singing of “Goodnight, Irene.” The final scene featured an orchestra playing “Goodnight, Irene” in the background as Lead Belly’s songs are deposited in the Library of Congress along with the Declaration of Independence, a copy of which was shown...
2 comments:
The photograph on the bottom is from John Lomax with Lead Belly from the newsreel "March of Time." It's completely staged, as was the custom with newsreels back then. Below I've copied and pasted some info about it from the following webpage:
http://www.culturalequity.org/ace/leadbelly_faqs.html
This webpage suggests that John Lomax and Lead Belly parted on bad terms, whereas Alan Lomax and Lead Belly remained friends. Here is the quote from the FAQ section relating to the photograph:
...
What is the source of the prison stripes story?
On January 8, 1935, John Lomax and Lead Belly appeared on Time magazine’s March of Time radio show featuring reenacted news (news was not yet recorded in real time.) The radio dramatization told how Lead Belly was released from prison and featured some of his songs. It was broadcast nationwide and heard in millions of homes. Soon after, Time initiated production of filmed newsreels, also consisting of reenacted stories, to be shown in movie theaters. The story of Lomax’s discovery of Lead Belly was the second one of these, and was made over a two-day period in February 1935. John A. Lomax is credited with assisting in writing the screenplay — though Alan Lomax actually wrote a first version which was overridden — and both John A. and Lead Belly appeared in it. In the first scene, Lead Belly wore stripes to dramatize the occasion of their meeting in Angola. This scene was to be balanced with depiction of Lead Belly’s marriage to Martha Promise (in which the singer is shown wearing a suit) and his singing of “Goodnight, Irene.” The final scene featured an orchestra playing “Goodnight, Irene” in the background as Lead Belly’s songs are deposited in the Library of Congress along with the Declaration of Independence, a copy of which was shown...
In case you're wondering, the car trunk photo shows some of the field recording equipment.
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