“The folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax was a prodigious collector of traditional music from all over the world and a tireless missionary for that cause. Long before the Internet existed, he envisioned a “global jukebox” to disseminate and analyze the material he had gathered during decades of fieldwork.
A decade after his death technology has finally caught up to Lomax’s imagination. Just as he dreamed, his vast archive — some 5,000 hours of sound recordings, 400,000 feet of film, 3,000 videotapes, 5,000 photographs and piles of manuscripts, much of it tucked away in forgotten or inaccessible corners — is being digitized so that the collection can be accessed online.
About 17,000 music tracks will be available for free streaming by the end of February, and later some of that music may be for sale as CDs or digital downloads.…”
Article in Jan 30 2012 NY Times by Larry Rohterp
Pic is Mississippi Fred McDowell. If you click on it, there are 6 musicians and you can play snippets. They show the range of the wonderful and authentic Lomax collection. Wow! I just started clicking on the links at Cultural Equity Archive at the bottom of the 6 pics. How am I gonna get any work done today?
Right up there with Folkways! http://www.folkways.si.edu/
…and Universal will claim the copyright over all of it.
I'm really excited about this. More Mississippi Fred, please. Great blog, by the way.