Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport 1966

Shot after hours at Newport Folk in 1966 by American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, this recording features 14 performances by such blues greats as Son House, Skip James and Howlin’ Wolf among others.

The Land Where the Blues Began

An exploration of the musical and social origins of the blues, shot on location in Mississippi in 1978 by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long in association with the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television and broadcast on PBS in 1980. This re-release in 2009 includes two hours of additional music.

Appalachian Journey

Appalachian Journey is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). It offers songs, dances, stories, and religious rituals of the Southern Appalachians. Preachers, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, moonshiners, cloggers, and square dancers recount the good times and the hard times of rural life there. Performers include Tommy Jarrell, Janette Carter, Ray and Stanley Hicks, Frank Proffitt Jr., Sheila Kay Adams, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, Raymond Fairchi...

Oss Oss Wee Oss

Padstow, a fishing village on the coast of Cornwall, celebrates May Day with an ancient custom: two osses (hobby-horses) dance through the town streets accompanied by drums and accordions. All Padstownians participate in the event, which has now become a tourist attraction drawing over tens of thousands of annual visitors. Folklorists Alan Lomax and Peter Kennedy and filmmaker George Pickow collected footage at the festival in 1951, producing a pioneering work in the use of sound, low-light photography, and conversational presentation of nar...