Alan Lomax films on FolkStream

A while ago, Jan Michielsen of 4 Wheel Drive (who will be playing in Ireland in just over a month's time) drew our attention to the treasury of films available on the FolkStreams website. Now FOAOTMAD, in its latest mailout, has noted that one of these, filmed by the late Alan Lomax, is Appalachian journey, which traces the development of mountain music from ballads and fiddle-and-banjo duets (both black and white) through to the emergence of bluegrass and team clogging.

Also among the Lomax films available is Dreams and songs of the noble old, which includes ten minutes or so of the immortal Tommy Jarrell among its many other treasures. Both films are about 57 minutes long and very much worth seeing.

Update 27 Feb. By chance, today another film on FolkStreams has been drawn to our notice: It ain't city music, shot by Tom Davenport in Warrenton, VA, at the National Country Music Contests of 1971 and 1972. Practically everything heard is bluegrass, mostly from offstage jams. This 15-minute film has already influenced the BIB editor's approach to playing 'Foggy Mountain breakdown'.