Winner of a National Book Critics Circle award, a rollicking and unforgettable memoir by the man who helped bring the music of the blues into the mainstream
“Without Lomax it’s possible that there would have been no blues explosion, no R&B movement, no Beatles and no Stones and no Velvet Underground.” —Brian Eno
A self-described “song-hunter,” the folklorist Alan Lomax traveled the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s and ’40s, armed with primitive recording equipment and a keen love of the Delta’s music heritage. Crisscrossing the towns and hamlets where the blues began, Lomax gave voice to such greats as Leadbelly, Fred MacDowell, Muddy Waters, and many others, all of whom made their debut recordings with him.
The Land Where the Blues Began is both a fascinating recollection of a pivotal time in American music history and an intimate portrait of the struggles blues
