wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

http://books.google.com/books?id=USnfNiUzfcwC&pg=PA366&dq=Document+records+Blues+Larry+Cohn&hl=en&ei=SIdRTbz2K8Tflgevl-z2Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&sqi=2&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Gray does not suggest that the omissions were purposeful or that Larry Cohn had ulterior or commercial motives beyond love of the blues. But he does think it is a shame to have presented the senior Lomax so unfairly.

It would be very interesting to know who altered the tape so as to put John Lomax in a bad light, as Michael Gray asserts. And also, who did issue the LP, if Mr. Cohn did not?

I never released anything by McTell on LP.
I gave what I had received from the Library
of Congress to a friend, just to share.
Anything derived from, released, etc., had
nothing to do with me, as I was not a
participant.

I obtained the McT tape from L. of C. as a
fan and scholar, not with any aim or plan
to benefit commercially.

Larry Cohn

At the end did he say there is still a lot of unexamined material at the LOC? A whole box of Woody Guthrie recordings? Lord I wish someone would go through those boxes.

Corrections: Corson sent Larry Cohn truncated LOC John & Ruby Lomax interview with McTell in 1960 not 1950. See:
Michael Gray, Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell (Chicago Review Press, 2009), p. 273

On copyright issue, Pete Seeger & Lomaxes and other scholars and afficionados have been scapegoated for $$ins of multi-million $$ Music Publishing Industry. Best info is Rian Malan's 2000 article in Rolling Stone (later made into a documentary film). For summary is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_Sleeps_Tonight
and discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Lion_Sleeps_Tonight

Interviewed (5-4-2010) by Washington [D.C] City Paper, Szwed said this:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/artsdesk/music/2010/05/04/tomorrow-john-szwed-discusses-folklorist-alan-lomax-the-man-who-recorded-the-world/:

WCP: In a July 2002 piece for counterpunch.org, author Dave Marsh attacked Lomax as a prissy, stereotypical folklorist who stole a copyright credit from Leadbelly, failed to pay Muddy Waters, plagiarized and failed to credit John Work of Fisk University, and gained more attention for himself than for the talented musicians he recorded. Do you address these allegations in the book? Did you talk to author Robert Gordon regarding his research that he did for his Muddy Waters bio, and/or look at that work as it relates to Lomax?

JS: Yes, I take up all the Lomax stories, most of which I believe to be wrong. Why they’re wrong is not terribly interesting, but I was obliged to deal with it to get to what I think was the valuable and even exciting parts of his life and work. Let’s just say that Dave Marsh, who has done so much valuable and fine reporting, drove off a cliff with his obituary of Lomax. Talk about kicking a man when he’s down!

I never spoke to Gordon, but I did exchange e-mails with his co-author Bruce Nemerov… I tell a much simpler and less villain-laden story than they do, based on what I believe is more information.

WCP: Because of the passage of time was it hard to do interviews because people have passed away, and documents and tapes and records may no longer be available?

JS: Those are not really problems… There are still a lot of people alive—Pete Seeger, for instance, and many others not so well known.. . And Lomax used the best equipment to record and film, and nearly everything has survived. In fact, a lot of his films and recordings are just coming out now for the first time. The problem, as with everything in life, is sorting out who has first-hand knowledge and who is guessing or passing on stories uncritically. Mballen (talk) 20:20, 1 June 2010

Explain all you like but the proof is in the pudding, Anyone who uses someone for their own agenda normally, as well in this case shows little respect for the subject. They couldnt be satisfied for a poor musician to sing what he chooses to sing.Thats why Folk music as we know it is a bunch of protest songs sung by white people with college degrees who hate gospel unless its song from Black baptists. Selective bias recorded history.

During the Cold War there was a vilification of both Lomaxes. Willie McTell's biographer Michael Gray writes that in1950 Rae Corson of the Library of Congress sent blues historian Larry Cohn a truncated versions of John and Ruby Lomax's 1940 interview of McTell, which Cohn then misleadingly issued on LP as the "complete" LOC recording. Itentirely erased the participation of Ruby Lomax and cut out, among other things, John Lomax addressing McTell as “Mr. McTell” and laughing at the end of his performance of “Chainey” and saying “that’s great!” .. The omissions perpetuated the image that had grown up around [John] Lomax as an unfeeling person who harassed his informants. According to Gray:

The widely sold version of the McTell-Lomax sessions deletes conversations and information, removes Ruby Lomax from the room almost entirely – making John Lomax seem to monopolize things and keep her silent, which he doesn’t at all – and robs Lomax of several touches of warmth and humanity, including questions asked by Ruby Terrill and John Lomax.

Gray calls the casual excision of these “rare and touching moments” “beyond reason.”: These omissions distort, and they’re an impertinence – and to be perpetuating them is exactly the kind of interventionism John Lomax is so scorned for by today’s folklorists, whose hands are supposedly so much cleaner. It leaves Lomax more sinned against than sinning.

Taken from Jas Obrecht archive: In less than an hour, McTell gave the American public some of the finest records he’d ever make. But the Library of Congress session did not go easily for McTell. One of the more telling exchanges between the folklorist and the bluesman occurred when Lomax asked McTell if he knew “any songs about colored people havin’ hard times here in the South . . . Complainin’ about the hard times and sometimes mistreatment of the whites. Have you got any songs that talk about that?” “No, sir,” McTell responded. “I haven’t, not at the present time, because the whites is mighty good to the Southern people, as far as I know.” Lomax pressed on: “‘Ain’t It Hard to Be a N!!!!, N!!!!’ – do you know that one?” “No,” McTell answered. “That’s not our time.” A moment later Lomax observed, “You keep movin’ around like you’re uncomfortable. What’s the matter, Willie?” McTell quickly shifted to another topic: “Well, I was in an automobile accident last night, little shook up. No one got hurt, but it was all jostled up mighty bad. Shake up – still sore from it, but no one got hurt.”

Regarding Lomax . Yes you are right that it was the Senoir but are wrong concering Blind Willie wearas hes askiing willie if he knows any N!@@# songs and suggests if he knows a certain one and Willies response was one that showed someone not as caught up those tunes but music is music. These folklorists were leftists and if you ve read anything about AlanLOmax and his english girlfriend assistant , where she states he was no doubt left leaning an paranoid . The would coax blues artists to sing songs that they wouldnt normally sing ie Leadbelly. They made him into their own valve. As MLKs speeches were written partly by SCLC higher ups from the white persuasion.Do somelistening its all there.

To Paris: Alan Lomax never recorded McTell--John Lomax did and he was very conservative. Check your facts.

Alan was a radical and he also would coach blues artists what to sing ie Blind Willie mcctell .