Details

ISBN-10: 0826514863
ISBN-13: 9780826514868
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Publish Date: 05/15/2020
Dimensions: 10.00" L, 7.00" W, 0.75" H

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

Editor: Robert Gordon
Editor: Bruce Nemerov

Paperback

Price: $18.95

Overview

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 schol-ars from Fisk University–among them the noted composer and musicologist John W. Work III, 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 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. While this publication was never completed, Lost Delta Found is com­posed of the writings, interviews, notes, and musical transcriptions produced by Work, Jones, and Adams in the Coahoma County study. Their work captures, with compelling immediacy, a place, a people, a way of life, and a set of rich musical tra­ditions as they existed in the 1940s.

Illustrated with photos and more than 160 musical transcriptions.

Read More
Reviews
"Lost Delta Found: Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942 presents a unique and valuable perspective on the pioneering Coahoma County study that also was recounted in Alan Lomax's Land Where the Blues Began, a prior Classics of Blues Literature honoree. Written by African American scholars from Fisk University, Lost Delta Found documents their crucial but often overlooked work on the project."
The Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame induction announcement, 2019
More Reviews

Details

ISBN-10: 0826514863
ISBN-13: 9780826514868
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Publish Date: 05/15/2020
Dimensions: 10.00" L, 7.00" W, 0.75" H
Skip to content