Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Did a missing document cost a man his place in music history?
By Robert K. Elder
Chicago Tribune
Even when he found the manuscript jammed into the back of a filing cabinet, author Robert Gordon didn’t recognize exactly what he had unearthed.
Wrapped in a powder-blue cover, it was a long-lost piece of blues history: the 1941-1942 field study manuscript that chronicles African-American music and culture in rural Mississippi. Adding to its historical mystique, the manuscript documents the discovery of blues legend Muddy Waters by Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax and musicologist John Work III, a professor at Fisk University in Nashville.
Sixty years ago, the original field study findings were meant to be jointly edited and published by the Library of Congress and Fisk University, a predominantly African-American liberal arts institution. But Work’s manuscript was mishandled, lost, found, lost again and, eventually, forgotten.
Decades later, Lomax wrote "Land Where the Blues Began," a prize-winning book that drew on his recollections of Mississippi Delta trips. Work was mentioned only three times in the volume.
This month, Vanderbilt University Press is releasing "Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942," as written by Work, plus essays by his colleagues Lewis Wade Jones and Samuel C. Adams, who also took part in the research.
With the book’s publication, editors Gordon and Bruce Nemerov are attempting to shed light on the famed ethno-music research and recast the contributions of Work.
"It’s justice. What we’re doing is justice," Gordon says. "A guy who had incredible impact on these famous field trips who has been completely written out of them."
"Lost Delta Found" also conjures up contentious issues about race, the interpretation of history and protection of legacies.
Matthew Barton, who worked for Lomax for seven years in the 1980s and is now employed at the Library of Congress, applauds the publication of "Lost Delta Found." He has some concerns about treatment of Lomax in the book’s introduction, however.
"I’m just worried that people will get the wrong impression from their introduction," Barton says. "They cast (Lomax) in a rather negative light, as someone who was undermining John Work."
The "Lost Delta Found" editors attest that Work’s contributions to the trips were all but ignored by Lomax. It’s a view Work’s son, John Work IV, supports.
"There have been so many African-American artists or scholars of one sort or another that have either been discounted or hidden or just left out of the mainstream. From my viewpoint, this was a perfect example of that," says Work, a retired economist and author of "Race, Economics and Corporate America."
"I was delighted to see this come to light and see my father get credit for the substantial work he did," Work says. "I do believe that Robert and Bruce did some great historiography here. They simply lay down the facts instead of editorializing. Those guys are detectives of the first order, as I see it."
However, while neither Gordon nor Nemerov explicitly lay blame on Lomax for the manuscript’s disappearance, implications permeate their introduction.
They write that the bound manuscript "a noncirculating original, was found stashed in the back of a file cabinet drawer in the Alan Lomax Archives. ... (It) had a soft powder-blue cover identifying it as the product of, and the property of ... Fisk University. It has since been returned."
"They use very loaded language. They are making conjectures, there is no evidence for any of this," says Ellen Harold, Lomax’s niece by marriage, editor and Italian translator at the Alan Lomax Archives in New York’s Hunter College.
"They said he had the manuscript. It was lost repeatedly, by other people. That was not Lomax’s fault," Harold says. "He preserved it, and he also preserved Work’s recordings of black fiddle music."
Ronald D. Cohen, editor of "Alan Lomax: Selected Writings, 1934-1997" and history professor at Indiana University Northwest has been a longtime Lomax defender. As Cohen read the book, he wrote a response e-mail to the Chicago Tribune.
"It appears their main complaint against Lomax is that he did not credit Work with initiating the project (or even being part of it) in ‘Land Where the Blues Began’ ...," Cohen writes. "Gordon has much good to say about Lomax’s importance, but wants to give most of the credit to Work and his colleagues. I think this is probably most correct. Lomax was never one to share much of the credit."
As for the manuscript, Harold says, it’s unclear exactly when it became "lost." Work wrote the Library of Congress in 1958, Harold says, asking for permission to include his work from the Coahoma study in a book he was planning to write - though he never did.
"Nothing in the letter or in the reply from the Library of Congress indicates that his essay was missing at that time, and it seems reasonable to assume that he had a copy in his possession," Barton says.
Lomax, however, released his own account of the journey, "The Land Where the Blues Began," in 1993. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, though it drew criticism for condensing the two trips into one. He mentions Work in the volume three times, including an entry in the acknowledgments.
Cohen points out that "Land Where the Blues Began" is "Lomax’s story about his life and knowledge, and not about other scholars. I guess this is to be expected."
As for how the Work manuscript ended up in Lomax’s archives at Hunter College, Fisk librarian Jessie Carnie Smith draws a blank.
"I just can’t tell you how that got out," Smith says.
"The Gordon/Nemerov book is most fascinating and also does not seem to stress too much the Muddy Waters connection," Cohen says. "They seem most interested in publishing for the first time these fascinating documents, which are certainly welcomed."
"Alan would love that this is out now," Harold adds. "I feel it’s a shame to pit them against each other because each one had their good qualities, whatever disagreements they had. They were on the right side together, on music’s side." ¶ 8/23/2005 12:27:00 PM
By Robert K. Elder
Chicago Tribune
Even when he found the manuscript jammed into the back of a filing cabinet, author Robert Gordon didn’t recognize exactly what he had unearthed.
Wrapped in a powder-blue cover, it was a long-lost piece of blues history: the 1941-1942 field study manuscript that chronicles African-American music and culture in rural Mississippi. Adding to its historical mystique, the manuscript documents the discovery of blues legend Muddy Waters by Library of Congress folklorist Alan Lomax and musicologist John Work III, a professor at Fisk University in Nashville.
Sixty years ago, the original field study findings were meant to be jointly edited and published by the Library of Congress and Fisk University, a predominantly African-American liberal arts institution. But Work’s manuscript was mishandled, lost, found, lost again and, eventually, forgotten.
Decades later, Lomax wrote "Land Where the Blues Began," a prize-winning book that drew on his recollections of Mississippi Delta trips. Work was mentioned only three times in the volume.
This month, Vanderbilt University Press is releasing "Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942," as written by Work, plus essays by his colleagues Lewis Wade Jones and Samuel C. Adams, who also took part in the research.
With the book’s publication, editors Gordon and Bruce Nemerov are attempting to shed light on the famed ethno-music research and recast the contributions of Work.
"It’s justice. What we’re doing is justice," Gordon says. "A guy who had incredible impact on these famous field trips who has been completely written out of them."
"Lost Delta Found" also conjures up contentious issues about race, the interpretation of history and protection of legacies.
Matthew Barton, who worked for Lomax for seven years in the 1980s and is now employed at the Library of Congress, applauds the publication of "Lost Delta Found." He has some concerns about treatment of Lomax in the book’s introduction, however.
"I’m just worried that people will get the wrong impression from their introduction," Barton says. "They cast (Lomax) in a rather negative light, as someone who was undermining John Work."
The "Lost Delta Found" editors attest that Work’s contributions to the trips were all but ignored by Lomax. It’s a view Work’s son, John Work IV, supports.
"There have been so many African-American artists or scholars of one sort or another that have either been discounted or hidden or just left out of the mainstream. From my viewpoint, this was a perfect example of that," says Work, a retired economist and author of "Race, Economics and Corporate America."
"I was delighted to see this come to light and see my father get credit for the substantial work he did," Work says. "I do believe that Robert and Bruce did some great historiography here. They simply lay down the facts instead of editorializing. Those guys are detectives of the first order, as I see it."
However, while neither Gordon nor Nemerov explicitly lay blame on Lomax for the manuscript’s disappearance, implications permeate their introduction.
They write that the bound manuscript "a noncirculating original, was found stashed in the back of a file cabinet drawer in the Alan Lomax Archives. ... (It) had a soft powder-blue cover identifying it as the product of, and the property of ... Fisk University. It has since been returned."
"They use very loaded language. They are making conjectures, there is no evidence for any of this," says Ellen Harold, Lomax’s niece by marriage, editor and Italian translator at the Alan Lomax Archives in New York’s Hunter College.
"They said he had the manuscript. It was lost repeatedly, by other people. That was not Lomax’s fault," Harold says. "He preserved it, and he also preserved Work’s recordings of black fiddle music."
Ronald D. Cohen, editor of "Alan Lomax: Selected Writings, 1934-1997" and history professor at Indiana University Northwest has been a longtime Lomax defender. As Cohen read the book, he wrote a response e-mail to the Chicago Tribune.
"It appears their main complaint against Lomax is that he did not credit Work with initiating the project (or even being part of it) in ‘Land Where the Blues Began’ ...," Cohen writes. "Gordon has much good to say about Lomax’s importance, but wants to give most of the credit to Work and his colleagues. I think this is probably most correct. Lomax was never one to share much of the credit."
As for the manuscript, Harold says, it’s unclear exactly when it became "lost." Work wrote the Library of Congress in 1958, Harold says, asking for permission to include his work from the Coahoma study in a book he was planning to write - though he never did.
"Nothing in the letter or in the reply from the Library of Congress indicates that his essay was missing at that time, and it seems reasonable to assume that he had a copy in his possession," Barton says.
Lomax, however, released his own account of the journey, "The Land Where the Blues Began," in 1993. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, though it drew criticism for condensing the two trips into one. He mentions Work in the volume three times, including an entry in the acknowledgments.
Cohen points out that "Land Where the Blues Began" is "Lomax’s story about his life and knowledge, and not about other scholars. I guess this is to be expected."
As for how the Work manuscript ended up in Lomax’s archives at Hunter College, Fisk librarian Jessie Carnie Smith draws a blank.
"I just can’t tell you how that got out," Smith says.
"The Gordon/Nemerov book is most fascinating and also does not seem to stress too much the Muddy Waters connection," Cohen says. "They seem most interested in publishing for the first time these fascinating documents, which are certainly welcomed."
"Alan would love that this is out now," Harold adds. "I feel it’s a shame to pit them against each other because each one had their good qualities, whatever disagreements they had. They were on the right side together, on music’s side." ¶ 8/23/2005 12:27:00 PM
