Alan Lomax Archive

Mississippi Delta & Hill Country (1978):
Bluesmen; fife-and-drum ensembles; former muleskinners and railroad tie-tampers; and tall-tale reciters. Performers include Skip James collaborator Jack Owens, diddley-bow player Lonnie Pitchford, former Mississippi Sheik Sam Chatmon, fife legend Otha Turner, and R. L. Burnside in his first film appearance. Camera by John Bishop; fieldwork in collaboration with Worth Long.

Appalachia (1982-1983):
Cloggers and buck dancers; bluegrass and string bands; white gospel groups; stories, folktales, and ballads from coal miners, tobacco farmers, and former bootleggers, filmed in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Performers include Ray and Stanley Hicks; union activist and singer Nimrod Workman; fiddler Tommy Jarrell; the ballad singers of Sodom Laurel, Madison County, N.C.; the Piedmont blues stylists John Dee Holeman and Algia Mae Hinton, and the National Sacred Harp Convention in Fyffe, Alabama.

Cajun Louisiana (1982-1985):

Cajun cowboys, string bands, zydeco groups, fiddlers, and scenes from the Cajun and creole Mardi Gras celebrations. Performers include Dennis McGee, Dewey Balfa, Canray Fontenot, Bois Sec Ardoin, Michael Doucet & BeauSoleil, Boozoo Chavis.