A huge trea­sure trove of songs and inter­views record­ed by the leg­endary folk­lorist Alan Lomax from the 1940s into the 1990s has been dig­i­tized and made avail­able online for free lis­ten­ing. The Asso­ci­a­tion for Cul­tur­al Equi­ty, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion found­ed by Lomax in the 1980s, has post­ed some 20,000 record­ings.

“For the first time,” Cul­tur­al Equi­ty Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Don Flem­ing told NPR’s Joel Rose, “every­thing that we’ve dig­i­tized of Alan’s field record­ing trips are online, on our Web site. It’s every take, all the way through. False takes, inter­views, music.”

It’s an amaz­ing resource. For a quick taste, here are a few exam­ples from one of the best-known areas of Lomax’s research, his record­ings of tra­di­tion­al African Amer­i­can cul­ture:

• “John Hen­ry” sung by pris­on­ers at the Mis­sis­sip­pi State Pen­i­ten­tiary, Parch­man Farm, in 1947.
• “Come Up Horsey,” a chil­dren’s lul­la­by sung in 1948 by Vera Hall, whose moth­er was a slave.
• “In a Shan­ty in Old Shan­ty Town” per­formed by Big Bill Broonzy, 1952.
• “Sto­ry of a slave who asked the dev­il to take his mas­ter,” told by Bessie Jones in 1961.

But that’s just scratch­ing the sur­face of what’s inside the enor­mous archive. Lomax’s work extend­ed far beyond the Deep South, into oth­er areas and cul­tures of Amer­i­ca, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. “He believed that all cul­tures should be looked at on an even play­ing field,” his daugh­ter Anna Lomax Wood told NPR. “Not that they’re all alike. But they should be giv­en the same dig­ni­ty, or they had the same dig­ni­ty and worth as any oth­er.”

You can lis­ten to Rose’s piece about the archive on the NPR web­site, as well as a 1990 inter­view with Lomax by Ter­ry Gross of Fresh Air, which includes sam­ple record­ings from Woody Guthrie, Jel­ly Roll Mor­ton, Lead Bel­ly and Mis­sis­sip­pi Fred McDow­ell. To dive into the Lomax audio archive, you can search the vast col­lec­tion by artist, date, genre, coun­try and oth­er cat­e­gories.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post orig­i­nal­ly appeared on our site in March 2012.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New, Inter­ac­tive Web Site Puts Online Thou­sands of Inter­na­tion­al Folk Songs Record­ed by the Great Folk­lorist Alan Lomax

Woody Guthrie Cre­ates a Doo­dle-Filled List of 33 New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions (1943): Beat Fas­cism, Write a Song a Day, and Keep the Hop­ing Machine Run­ning

A Playlist of Songs to Get You Through Hard Times: Stream 20 Tracks from the Alan Lomax Col­lec­tion

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

A num­ber of years ago, in a post on the pio­neer­ing com­pos­er of the orig­i­nal Doc­tor Who theme, we wrote that “the ear­ly era of exper­i­men­tal elec­tron­ic music belonged to Delia Der­byshire.” Derbyshire—who almost gave Paul McCart­ney a ver­sion of “Yes­ter­day” with an elec­tron­ic back­ing in place of strings—helped invent the ear­ly elec­tron­ic music of the six­ties through her work with the Radio­phon­ic Work­shop, the sound effects lab­o­ra­to­ry of the BBC. She went on to form one of the most influ­en­tial, if large­ly obscure, elec­tron­ic acts of the decade, White Noise. And yet, call­ing the ear­ly eras of elec­tron­ic music hers is an exag­ger­a­tion. Of course her many col­lab­o­ra­tors deserve men­tion, as well as musi­cians like Bruce Haack, Pierre Hen­ry, Kraftwerk, Bri­an Eno, and so many oth­ers. But what gets almost com­plete­ly left out of many his­to­ries of elec­tron­ic music, as with so many oth­er his­to­ries, is the promi­nent role so many women besides Der­byshire played in the devel­op­ment of the sounds we now hear around us all the time.

In recog­ni­tion of this fact, musi­cian, DJ, and “escaped housewife/schoolteacher” Bar­bara Gold­en devot­ed two episodes of her KPFA radio pro­gram “Crack o’ Dawn” to women in elec­tron­ic music, once in 2010 and again in 2013. She shares each broad­cast with co-host Jon Lei­deck­er (“Wob­bly”), and in each seg­ment, the two ban­ter in casu­al radio show style, offer­ing his­to­ry and con­text for each musi­cian and com­pos­er. High­light­ed on Ubu’s for­mer Twit­ter stream, the first show, “Women in Elec­tron­ic Music 1938–1982 Part 1” (above) gives Der­byshire her due, with three tracks from her, includ­ing the Doc­tor Who theme.

It also includes music from twen­ty one oth­er com­posers, begin­ning with Clara Rock­more, a refin­er and pop­u­lar­iz­er of the theremin, that weird instru­ment designed to sim­u­late a high, tremu­lous human voice. Also fea­tured is Wendy Carlos’s “Timesteps,” an orig­i­nal piece from her A Clock­work Orange score.

The sec­ond show, above, fills in sev­er­al gaps in the orig­i­nal broad­cast and “could eas­i­ly be six hours” says co-host Lei­deck­er, giv­en the sheer amount of elec­tron­ic music out there com­posed and record­ed by women over the past sev­en­ty years. This show includes one of our host Golden’s own com­po­si­tions, “Melody Sum­n­er Car­na­han,” as well as music from Lau­rie Ander­son and musique con­crete com­pos­er Doris Hays. These two broad­casts alone cov­er an enor­mous range of styl­is­tic and tech­no­log­i­cal ground, but for even more disco­graph­i­cal his­to­ry of women in elec­tron­ic music, see the playlist below, com­piled by “Nerd­girl” Antye Greie-Ripat­ti. Com­mis­sioned by Club Trans­me­di­ale Berlin, the mix includes such well-known names as Yoko Ono, Bjork, and M.I.A., as well as fore­moth­ers Der­byshire and Car­los, and dozens more.

In lieu of the radio-show chat­ter of Gold­en and Lei­deck­er, we have Greie-Ripatti’s post detail­ing each artist’s time peri­od, coun­try of ori­gin, and con­tri­bu­tions to elec­tron­ic music his­to­ry. Many of the com­posers rep­re­sent­ed here worked for major radio and film stu­dios, scored fea­ture films (like 1956’s For­bid­den Plan­et), invent­ed and inno­vat­ed new instru­ments and tech­niques, wrote for orches­tras, and passed on their knowl­edge as edu­ca­tors and pro­duc­ers. Greie-Ripatti’s page quotes a Dan­ish elec­tron­ic pro­duc­er and per­former say­ing “there is a lot of women in elec­tron­ic music… invis­i­ble women.” Thanks to efforts like hers and Golden’s, these pio­neer­ing cre­ators need no longer go unseen or, more impor­tant­ly, unheard.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2015.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet Delia Der­byshire, the Dr. Who Com­pos­er Who Almost Turned The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” Into Ear­ly Elec­tron­i­ca

Watch Com­pos­er Wendy Car­los Demo an Orig­i­nal Moog Syn­the­siz­er (1989)

Meet Four Women Who Pio­neered Elec­tron­ic Music: Daphne Oram, Lau­rie Spiegel, Éliane Radigue & Pauline Oliv­eros

New Doc­u­men­tary Sis­ters with Tran­sis­tors Tells the Sto­ry of Elec­tron­ic Music’s Female Pio­neers

Mr. Rogers Intro­duces Kids to Exper­i­men­tal Elec­tron­ic Music by Bruce Haack & Esther Nel­son (1968)

Hear Elec­tron­ic Lady­land, a Mix­tape Fea­tur­ing 55 Tracks from 35 Pio­neer­ing Women in Elec­tron­ic Music

Thomas Dol­by Explains How a Syn­the­siz­er Works on a Jim Hen­son Kids Show (1989)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. 

Anto­nio Vivaldi’s The Four Sea­sons reigns as one of the world’s most rec­og­niz­able ear­ly 18th-cen­tu­ry pieces, thanks to its fre­quent appear­ances in films and tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials.

Upon its debut in 1725, The Four Sea­sons stunned lis­ten­ers by telling a sto­ry with­out the help of a human voice. Vival­di drew on four exist­ing son­nets (pos­si­bly of his own prove­nance), using strings to paint a nar­ra­tive filled with spring thun­der­storms, summer’s swel­ter, autum­nal hunts and har­vests, and the icy winds of win­ter.

The com­pos­er stud­ded his score with pre­cise­ly placed lines from the son­nets, to con­vey his expec­ta­tions that the musi­cians would use their instru­ments to son­i­cal­ly embody the expe­ri­ences being described.

For two hun­dred years, musi­cians cleaved close­ly to Vivaldi’s orig­i­nal orches­tra­tion.

The last hun­dred years, how­ev­er, have seen a wide range of instru­ments and inter­pre­ta­tions. Drums, synths, an elec­tric gui­tar, a Chi­nese pipa, an Indi­an saran­gi, a pair of Inu­it throat singers, a Japan­ese a cap­pel­la women’s cho­rus, a Theremin and a musi­cal saw are among those to have tak­en a stab at The Four Sea­sons’ drows­ing goatherd, bark­ing dog, and twit­ter­ing birdies.

Remem­ber­ing that Vival­di him­self was a great inno­va­tor, we sug­gest that there’s noth­ing wrong with tak­ing a break from all that to revis­it the orig­i­nal fla­vor.

The San Fran­cis­co-based ear­ly music ensem­ble, Voic­es of Music does so beau­ti­ful­ly, above, with a video playlist of live per­for­mances giv­en between 2015 and 2018, with the four con­cer­tos edit­ed to be pre­sent­ed in their tra­di­tion­al order.

Voic­es of Music co-direc­tors David Tayler and Han­neke van Proos­dij were adamant that these high qual­i­ty audio record­ings would leave lis­ten­ers feel­ing as if they are in the same room with the musi­cians and their baroque instru­ments. As Tayler told Ear­ly Music Amer­i­ca:

We did tests where we sat in the audi­ence lis­ten­ing to the mix. We stopped when we got to the point that it sound­ed like sit­ting in the audi­ence. We didn’t want some­thing that looked like a con­cert, with a CD play­ing in the back­ground.

Mul­ti­ple sta­tionery cam­eras ensured that the most­ly stand­ing per­form­ers’ spon­ta­neous phys­i­cal respons­es to the music and each oth­er would not pass unre­marked. As tempt­ing as it is to savor these joy­ful sounds with ears alone, we rec­om­mend tak­ing it in with your eyes, too. The plea­sure these vir­tu­osos take in Vival­di and each oth­er is a delight.

You also won’t want to miss the Eng­lish trans­la­tions of the son­net, bro­ken into sub­ti­tles and timed to appear at the exact place where they appear in Vivaldi’s 300 year-old score.

Spring:

Alle­gro — 0:00

Largo — 3:32

Alle­gro — 6:13

Sum­mer:

Alle­gro non molto — 10:09

Ada­gio — 15:31

Presto — 17:46

Autumn:

Alle­gro — 20:42

Ada­gio molto — 26:14

Alle­gro — 28:25

Win­ter:

Alle­gro non molto — 31:56

Largo — 35:29

Alle­gro — 37:25

While the audi­ence reac­tions were edit­ed from the pre­sen­ta­tion above, we’d be remiss if we didn’t direct you to a playlist where­in these vir­tu­oso play­ers are seen gra­cious­ly accept­ing the applause of the crowds who were lucky enough to catch these per­for­mances in per­son.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2021.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Vivaldi’s Four Sea­sons Visu­al­ized in Col­or­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed Scores

The Authen­tic Vivaldi’s The Four Sea­sons: Watch a Per­for­mance Based on Orig­i­nal Man­u­scripts & Played with 18th-Cen­tu­ry Instru­ments

Why We Love Vivaldi’s “Four Sea­sons”: An Ani­mat­ed Music Les­son

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, the­ater­mak­er, and the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist in NYC.

More than a few of us can claim, with some con­fi­dence, to know every Bea­t­les song. And indeed it may be true, in that we’ve heard every track of all their stu­dio albums. But as decade after decade of Bea­t­les schol­ar­ship has demon­strat­ed, there’s know­ing their songs, and then there’s know­ing their songs. Musi­cian and YouTu­ber David Ben­nett has made it his project to attain the sec­ond kind of knowl­edge, and on his ded­i­cat­ed series UnBea­t­led, to share it with the pub­lic. In each UnBea­t­led video he ana­lyzes just one song — “Help!,” “Here Comes the Sun,” “Pen­ny Lane,” and so on — at a lev­el of detail fine enough to neces­si­tate not just break­ing it down to its com­po­nent tracks, but also exam­in­ing the demos and unre­leased takes record­ed in the stu­dio.

This process can reveal a great deal about the Bea­t­les’ song­writ­ing process, as Ben­nett explains in the video at the top of the post. In the course of twen­ty min­utes, he cov­ers eleven songs, a selec­tion not nec­es­sar­i­ly lim­it­ed to the group’s uni­ver­sal­ly praised com­po­si­tions.

Take the first, “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine,” whose ear­ly record­ings dif­fer both lyri­cal­ly, melod­i­cal­ly, and in time sig­na­ture from the ver­sion we know (and may or may not love), begin­ning with an idea of John’s and being fur­ther shaped by Paul through its iter­a­tions. Anoth­er of John’s musi­cal seeds is “Every­body Had a Hard Year,” whose fin­ger­pick­ing pat­tern (orig­i­nal­ly learned from Dono­van in India) is also heard in “Julia” and “Dear Pru­dence,”  and which evolved, with dif­fer­ent chords, into the mid­dle sec­tion of “I’ve Got a Feel­ing.”

Such inter­con­nec­tions come as rewards of close and deep lis­ten­ing to the Bea­t­les canon. And cer­tain songs turn out to be worlds of their own: “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er,” for instance, was assem­bled out of two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent record­ings, then adjust­ed in tem­po and pitch to match in the mid­dle. One of those takes includes the voice of pro­duc­er George Mar­tin count­ing in the orches­tra, the pitch of which sug­gests that its mem­bers had orig­i­nal­ly played in a dif­fer­ent key than the one we hear. As Ben­nett notes, using the then rel­a­tive­ly nov­el tech­nol­o­gy of “vari-speed” had become prac­ti­cal­ly stan­dard in the Bea­t­les’ stu­dio process, as such tech­no­log­i­cal lay­er­ing and adjust­ment itself became a key part of their song­writ­ing process. It con­tributed much to their sig­na­ture “vibey, psy­che­del­ic, uncan­ny sound”: sought after by many bands over the past six decades, but nev­er tru­ly repli­cat­ed.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How John Lennon Wrote the Bea­t­les’ Best Song, “A Day in the Life”

“Tomor­row Nev­er Knows”: How The Bea­t­les Invent­ed the Future With Stu­dio Mag­ic, Tape Loops & LSD

Is “Rain” the Per­fect Bea­t­les Song?: A New Video Explores the Rad­i­cal Inno­va­tions of the 1966 B‑Side

The “Straw­ber­ry Fields For­ev­er” Demos: The Mak­ing of a Bea­t­les Clas­sic (1966)

How the Bea­t­les Exper­i­ment­ed with Indi­an Music & Pio­neered a New Rock and Roll Sound

How George Mar­tin Defined the Sound of the Bea­t­les: From String Quar­tets to Back­wards Gui­tar Solos

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.