EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) - The Great Lakes Folk Festival in East Lansing on Sunday will be the first stop of a traveling exhibit celebrating the 75th anniversary of a song collecting tour through the Upper Midwest.
The Lansing State Journal reports that it commemorates a trip that began in Detroit on Aug. 1, 1938, by 23-year-old Alan Lomax. He carried a recorder and movie camera to gather folk music. Lomax was in charge of the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk-Song.
He thought he would collect songs in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, but ended up recording mostly in Michigan. Lomax recorded more than 1,000 songs that remained largely in archives until now.
The Michigan State University Museum and American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress collaborated on the exhibit.
