Be careful. What Lomax refers to in Folk Song Style and Culture is what he calls the high lonesome complaint. This refers to a type of song which has a narrow meandering melismatic melody, often sung in a rhythmically free fashion, with massive amounts of decoration. Black field hollers from the American south are one example which Lomax quotes, as are some of the songs found among the Wolofs of Senegal and the Gambia, and further examples can be found in North Africa, southern Europe, the middle east and Asia. Lomax argues that the high lonesome complaint is a product of heavily regulated despotic societies which severely restrict individual freedom.

The high lonesome SOUND, although it's been applied to blues singers, esp Skip James, and to singers like Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, is for me interminably linked with the harsh, high pitched and sparsely decorated singing of performers like Dock Boggs and Roscoe Holcomb, and just maybe, Hobart Smith.

BTW., my Mustrad article on cantometrics didn't review Lomax's book, The Land Where the Blues Began. That review was written by Ray Templeton, my article being merely an attempt to sort out one or two details which Ray seemed confused over.