Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942 - Hardcover

Work III, John W; Jones, Lewis Wade; Adams Jr, Samuel C

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826514855 ISBN 13: 9780826514851

Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005

Synopsis

Blues Hall of Fame Inductee—Named a "Classic of Blues Literature" by the Blues Foundation, 2019

This remarkable book recovers three invaluable perspectives, long thought to have been lost, on the culture and music of the Mississippi Delta.

In 1941 and '42 African American scholars from Fisk University—among them the noted composer and musicologist John W. Work, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel C. Adams Jr.—joined folklorist Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress on research trips to Coahoma County, Mississippi. Their mission was to explore the musical habits and history of the black community there and "to document adequately the cultural and social backgrounds for music in the community." Among the fruits of the project were the earliest recordings by the legendary blues singer and guitarist Muddy Waters. The hallmark of the study was to have been a joint publication of its findings by Fisk and the Library of Congress. However, the field notes and manuscripts by the Fisk researchers became lost in Washington. Lomax's own book drawing on the project's findings, The Land Where the Blues Began, did not appear until 1993, and although it won a National Book Critics Circle Award, it was flawed by a number of historical inaccuracies.

Recently uncovered by author and filmmaker Robert Gordon, the writings, interviews, notes, and musical transcriptions produced by Work, Jones, and Adams in the Coahoma County study now appear in print for the first time. Their work captures, with compelling immediacy, a place, a people, a way of life, and a set of rich musical traditions as they existed sixty years ago. Until the surfacing of these documents, Lomax's perspective was all that was known of the Coahoma County project and its research. Now, at last, the voices of the other contributors can be heard.

Including essays by Bruce Nemerov and Gordon on the careers and contributions of Work, Jones, and Adams, Lost Delta Found will become an indispensable historical resource, as marvelously readable as it is enlightening.

Illustrated with photos and more than 160 musical transcriptions.

About this title

From the Publisher:

"We have never known the truth of how the great music of African-Americans in the Mississippi Delta was discovered and made known to the rest of the world. Here, myths are dispelled, mysteries solved, lost treasures found, veils lifted from facts and ideas long suppressed. The names of Lewis Jones, Samuel Adams and, above all, John Work rise now to the front ranks of American music scholarship. We are very fortunate to have this materials, and even more so because we have Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov shepherd us through its rediscovery. From this time forward, all folk music history takes a sharp bend - toward the light." - Dave Marsh

"This is an untold story about America and its culture that history has conspired to make a forgotten story, told here with grace, quiet anger, and a will to raise the dead. John Work worked to raise the dead; now Robert Gordon and Bruce Nemerov have done the same for him." - Greil Marcus

"Essential reading for anyone interested in United States history and culture of the South during the early decades of the twentieth century, this book concerns the music and sociology of a rural American culture when changes were transpiring because of migration, urbanization, and generational gaps. In addition to providing important insights about black life in rural Mississippi in the 1940s, the book demonstrates that John W. Work III, an African-American music scholar, was a pioneer and forerunner in dealing with social issues in music research. At a time when ethnomusicology was in its infancy as a scholarly discipline (the term ethnomusicology had not been coined) and most researchers (blacks and non-blacks) were focused on the study of so-called elite, serious, or art music, Work was conducting fieldwork among rural blacks because he realized that social context was an essential variable in understanding musical creativity and the shortcomings of promoting one genre over another. His excellent and intuitive analyses give fresh, new, and different interpretations regarding both secular and sacred black vernacular music. LOST DELTA FOUND not only explains why John W. Work (a culture bearer) was silenced as a researcher and received little support for his efforts to promote a more holistic view of African-American music and culture, the book also reveals why it has taken sixty years for Work's research methods and findings to be made available to the public." - Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje, Director, Ethnomusicology Archive, UCLA

"This is a very welcome and significant addition to the scholarly record. The project brings critical voices of African American scholars to the fore. The attendant contextualizing material, drawing on correspondence and interviews, adds to the work that was formerly known primarily as the work of Alan Lomax and helps us better understand a complex history between Fisk and The Library of Congress." - Ruth M. Stone, Director, Ethnomusicology Institute, Indiana University

About the Author:

John W. Work III (1901–1966) was a gifted composer and educator. One of the first African American academics to argue the value of African American folk music, he preserved this heritage both in his book, American Negro Songs and Spirituals, and through his work with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, which he directed from 1947 until 1956. He retired from Fisk University in 1966.

Lewis Wade Jones (1910–1979) was an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences at Fisk University from 1932 to 1942, where he worked closely with Charles S. Johnson. In 1949 the two co-wrote A Statistical Analysis of Southern Counties: Shifts in the Negro Population of Alabama. After leaving Fisk, Jones moved to the Tuskegee Institute School of Education, where he was a professor of sociology.

After receiving his master's degree from Fisk University, Samuel C. Adams Jr. (1920–2001) attended the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD in 1953. He had a long and distinguished career in public service, highlighted by his appointment to the post of Ambassador to the Republic of Niger in 1968–1969.

Robert Gordon is the author of Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, among other books. He directed the PBS documentary Muddy Waters: Can't Be Satisfied and was the writer of the Memphis episode of Martin Scorsese's The Blues series.

Bruce Nemerov was a professional musician, record producer, and composer from 1969–1991 before joining the Center for Popular Music at MTSU. He is also the author of The Story Behind the Song: 150 Songs That Chronicle the 20th Century. He describes himself as "Born in the North / Raised in the South / Schooled out West / Ain't dead yet."

About this edition

• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0826514855
• ISBN 13: 9780826514851
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 316
• Editor: Gordon Robert, Nemerov Bruce