If there's one thing the internet is really good at it's archiving. And here is one massive archive of Alan Lomax's field recordings of folk music traditions from around the world.
Lomax worked from the 1930s to the ‘90s, and travelled from the Deep South to the mountains of West Virginia, all the way to Europe, the Caribbean and Asia. The Association for Cultural Equity, the nonprofit organization he founded in New York in the ‘80s have digitised 17,000 sound recordings taken throughout his career.
For anyone interested in the origins of music it's a goldmine, eg. here's the extensive blues archive. Just click the arrow by the name and you'll here voices from America's blues history come alive once more.
There are also video recordings, radio programs, photographs, discussions and interviews. This amazing resource of lost treasures waiting to be found is all free to access. Here's the main site : culturalequity.org
In the 1970's Alan Lomax also added video recordings to his collection.
Here's Belton Sutherland (vocal and guitar) performing an improvised blues on Clyde Maxwell's porch. Shot by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long at Maxwell's farm near Canton, Mississippi, September 3, 1978.
