Some three months before the formal foundation
of the School of Scottish Studies, at the University of Edinburgh, Alan Lomax (1915–2002) arrived from
America in order to gather material for the World Albums of Folk and Primitive
Music which Columbia Records were then sponsoring. Lomax is undoubtedly one of
the most influential American ethnomusicologists of his generation and much of his work can
be heard and seen on the extensive Cultural Equity website. Lomax
has also been the subject of a recent biographical study entitled A Biography of Alan Lomax: The Man Who Recorded the
World (2010).
He conducted interviews and made fieldwork
recordings with the likes of American folk music luminaries such as Woody
Guthrie, Lead Belly and Muddy Waters. Based in London between 1950 and 1958,
Lomax turned his attention to the British folk music scene, and after being in
Ireland, he then naturally turned his sights on Scotland. His first thoughts
might have been to whom he could turn to in order to open up the riches of
Scottish traditions and, in particular, of Gaelic song. By initially contacting Hamish Henderson, Lomax
was introduced to Sorley and Calum Maclean, both of whom were more than happy
to help the young American in his enterprise to record the Gaelic music of the
Highlands and Islands.
On the 16th of July 1951,
Maclean wrote in his diary that Lomax had made contact:
I began transcribing this morning and I
today worked on the material I recorded from John MacDonald. I kept on
transcribing all day today until about ten o’clock at night. I received word on
the phone today from Alan Lomax, the American, who had made a great collection
of songs. He said that he was in Edinburgh and that he was coming up to see me
tomorrow. He’ll be welcome, if he gets here.
The very next day, Lomax arrived and was made
more than welcome. Both collectors then went to record songs from a Moidart woman then living in
Onich, Nether Lochaber:
It was very wet this morning. Before I
left the house, I received word from Alan Lomax that he was down in Inveraray.
He was coming up from Glasgow but something went wrong. He told me he would meet
me in about four hours’ time. It was raining very heavily when I went to Mass
in Roybridge. I saw John MacDonald and I told him that Alan Lomax was coming
tonight. John said that he would come next Sunday and that he had six or seven
other stories to tell. After I returned home, I began transcribing and I spent
an hour or two at this work. About five o’clock in the afternoon Alan Lomax, a big,
heavyset man, arrived. He pleased me exceedingly. He told me that he had recorded
songs from Calum Johnston and Flora MacNeil in Barra. I heard that there was a
woman, Mrs MacKellaig, down in Onich and I decided that I’d go to visit her and
see if she would give us songs. There was heavy rainfall when we got down
there. A young, handsome lassie let us in and asked us to stay until her mother
appeared. She was quite busy – according to what the lassie said. We didn’t
need to wait terribly long before the housewife herself appeared. She was a
small, beautiful woman. She belonged to Moidart. She had songs and she sang
them well. She sang six or seven songs that she heard from the old folk in
Moidart, especially those from her own mother. Alan Lomax was terribly pleased
with these songs. At any rate, I was happy with that. It was about eleven
o’clock at night when we returned home. We stayed a while in John MacDonell’s
house.
On the 18th of July they then made their way from Speanbridge to go and do some further fieldwork collecting on the Isle of Skye and which also afforded Maclean the opportunity to go back home to visit his mother on the Isle of Raasay.
Reference:
On the 18th of July they then made their way from Speanbridge to go and do some further fieldwork collecting on the Isle of Skye and which also afforded Maclean the opportunity to go back home to visit his mother on the Isle of Raasay.
Reference:
Calum
I. Maclean, The Highlands (Inbhir
Nis: Club Leabhar, 1975)
Image:
Alan Lomax
No comments:
Post a Comment