Photographs from Alan Lomax’s “Southern Journey” a long series of recordings of various music such as blues, gospel, country, and spirituals from prisoners, recently freed slaves, poor southerners and largely black communities where these genres originated, this series became the first official stereo recordings of traditional african american southern folk music, celebrating generational heritage and the struggles of black life in the south at the time and impacted the creation and commercial spread of american music as we know it pioneering the “american” country sound, many of the singers, musicians and dancers present in these recordings and pictures are unnamed to this day.
happy juneteenth! if you have the time I really recommended taking a listen to some of these recordings to celebrate the voices of my ancestors and their music of resilience, especially as many of these clips are from after chattel slavery was abolished here in america and this series reflects the hope and newfound freedom black americans in the south were feeling as they looked towards the future
