On Tuesday August 22nd at 10pm, WNET Channel 13 will present “Lomax the Songhunter” as part of the PBS series “POV“. The program is broadcast nationally, please check your local PBS station listings if you are not in the NYC area.

The name of Alan Lomax conjures up the history of the 20th century folk revival. His father, John Lomax, was a seminal figure in the collecting and understanding of folklore at the start of the 20th century. As a young man, Alan joined him on song collecting trips and recorded songs in the American South and Southwest during the 30’s and 40’s. Together they would create help develop the Library of Congress’ Archive of American Folk Song, a important resource for American folk song. Alan would go on to work in radio as well as conduct his own song collecting. Alan also became involved in social causes and recognized the role of song and protest. His politics and the witchhunts of post-war American would see Alan re-locating to Europe where he would collect songs in GreatBritainn, Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Spain. He returned to the United States during the folk revival days of the 1960’s and continued his work in cataloging indigenous music from around the globe. He would pass away in 2002 at the age of 87.

Dutchfilmmakerr Roger Kappers began work on this documentary in 2001. He visited Alan and his daughter Anna at their home in Florida. Alan Lomax, who was 86 at the time, had suffered a stroke and could not communicate effectively. Kappers decided to retrace some of Lomax’s song hunting expeditions that were undertaken 60 years earlier to see the impact of Lomax’s work. Kapper went looking for individuals who may remember Lomax’s earlier visits and to try to experience the type of work that Alan was doing. Revisiting the often remote locations, Kapper was met with many dead ends (as Lomax experienced as well), but he did meet up with a number of people who were either recorded by Lomax or watched him at work.

In addition to this footage, the film will feature interviews with Pete Seeger (who in his younger days spent time cataloging records for Lomax), Peggy Seeger, Jean Ritchie and Shirley Collins (who worked with Lomax on a collecting trip in the Southern United States in 1959 and also had a romantic relationship with the collector). Several of Lomax’s colleagues also join in the discussion including English folklorist Peter Kennedy, ethnomusicologist Henrietta Yurchenco and the head of the Archive of Folk Culture at the American Folklife Center – Michael Taft. (In 2004 the American Folklife Center would become home for the recordings, papers and documents of the Alan Lomax Collection .)

This promises to be a fascinating look at one of the shapers of the folk revival, and also one its more controversial figures. In an age where “folk music” has largely focused on singer-songwriters, it is important to understand the work of individuals like Alan Lomax and the education they gave us into our songs, history and culture.

There are plans to have the film released as a DVD as well as a CD soundtrack in the future.