A wake really ought to have a few songs. And if possible some kind of presence by the deaparted.

Here is both - contained in a link to a page on the Alan Lomax site, with a video film about a project of his called "The Amazing Global Jukebox" - and it's got Alan talking about it at the beginning and especially at the end of the clip (which klasts about ten minutes of streaming video; and there's some thought provoking stuff in between.

Incidentally, one field recording he made which we've probably all heard recently, along with a whole lot of other people who didn't think they liked folk music too much, is "Po' Lazarus" which opens "O Brother Where Art Thou."