USA Folk Music on Records: The Alan Lomax Collection. World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: , Vol. I, England; Vol. II, Ireland; Vol. III, Scotland

Here, among the 100‐plus volumes of the Alan Lomax collection currently being issued by Rounder Records, the UK listener will find home ground. The three volumes are rich in diverse examples of the traditions of these islands. Folk song enthusiasts range across many categories and their criteria vary just as bizarrely as do those of religious sects . At one end of the scale, there are the classic academic collections (Gavin Greig in Scotland, Cecil Sharp in England, to name two) that for too long have nestled, sometimes to the point of withering, in libraries and learned societies. At the...