Folk singer John Lomax III spotlights famous family at library show

Approximately two dozen people converged on the South Cheatham Country Public Library in Kingston Springs Tuesday evening, Feb. 13, to hear John Lomax III perform selections from the thousands of folk songs collected by his trailblazing grandfather, John Avery Lomax, and Grammy-winning uncle, Alan Lomax, and now residing in the Library of Congress.

Called “Lomax on Lomax” and sponsored by The Kingston Springs Gazette, the free event was part concert, part storytelling and even an occasional sing-along. Among the audience were musician Kevin Stewart, a frequent performer at the Fillin' Station; Susan Sizemore, host of the “Fifty Forward/Squeeze the Day” podcast; Ark volunteers Sandy Neese (Meals on Wheels) and Sarah Coode (Noah's Closet); and entertainment publicist Erin Morris Huttlinger.

Lomax sang all the songs a capella and enlivened his presentation with a slide show of song titles, photos of family members and illustrations of covers of numerous books written by and about his family. He launched his first “Lomax on Lomax” show two years ago as a house concert and has since staged it in an array of venues throughout the South and Southwest, ranging from the Country Music Hall of Fame to The Woody Guthrie Center.

He began the library show with “The Buffalo Skinners,” a tale of hard times, job disappointment and murder, which appeared in his grandfather's first collection, “Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads,” published in 1910.

Then came “Home on the Ranger,” which the crowd sang along to. Lomax explained that the cowboy classic began as a poem with the music added later. Other songs the audience joined in on included “The Sloop John B” (which Alan Lomax collected in Nassau and afterward became a pop hit for The Beach Boys), “Good Night Irene” (written by Lomax “discovery” Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter and then a pop hit for The Weavers); “M.T.A” (co-written by Lomax's aunt, Beth Lomax Hawes as a political protest and subsequently made famous by The Kingston Trio; and “Rock Island Line” (also credited to Lead Belly and a pop hit for Lonnie Donegan).

Some of the humorous songs Lomax learned from his father, also a singer and collector, notably “The Virgin Sturgeon” (“Maybe the only song about the sex life of marine animals,” he said) and “Ballad of Aimee McPherson” (concerning the illicit amours of a once famous radio evangelist).

Before Lomax turned to performing, he was a prominent entertainment journalist, record exporter and talent manager of such luminaries as Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt. He is currently recording an album to coincide with his shows.