sweartotellthetruth

Swear to Tell the Truth for Tuesday, April 1, 2014 (1:00-2:30 pm)

This week’s show is a full 90-minute survey of African-American vernacular music from the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Music. Others should share in the credit for the Archive’s achievement but it was John and Alan Lomax who brought a vision to the Archive that made its holdings an essential repository of vernacular music culture. Lacking a proper budget and a clear mandate, the Archive needed direction and purpose and, from 1933 to 1942, the Lomaxes turned the Archive into an indispensable source for understanding the hidden musical culture of that age and of the past.  Although John Lomax’ original intention to exclude blues from his field collecting seems wrongheaded and dogmatic, the Library did succeed in capturing a lot of non-blues music that would never have appeared on commercial records. And, when they met up with blues and gospel in the field, John, and, particularly, Alan seem to have quickly revised their assessment of blues as manufactured pop and recognized its folk content and folkloric significance. our special includes blues, gospel, work songs and hollers recorded for the Archive between 1933 and 1942

On the Show:

Pete Harris – Ernest Williams & James “Iron Head” Baker – Rochelle French – Leadbelly – Dock Reed & Vera Hall – Blind Willie McTell – Washington  White – Paramount Singers – Thomas “Jaybird” Jones – and others

Listen to the program at FM 93.3 in Hamilton or on CFMU online at cfmu.mcmaster.ca. The program will be available to stream or as a podcast until April 28th.

Contact Us

To reach us with comments or queries, write us at sweartotellthetruth@gmail.com.

You can also follow the program at sweartotellthetruth@nosignifying on Twitter.

Next week (April 8th)

We don’t know right now. Come back and check closer to the show date.

cmc