Alan Lomax talked about his other side in Land Where The Blues Began---about the racism inherant in his being a product of southern culture. He also spoke to those same aspects of his father's character. He, after recognizing these downsides, sought to purge them from his personality. Joseph Campbell, for all his good work, was also quite antisemitic. It took me a while to get just part way past allowing that sad fact to color my feelings about the man. I'm still working on that one. But I choose to appreciate and give for all the monumental collecting work that the Lomax family has done. As I said in the other Lomax thread, It just doesn't matter that he put a copyright on trad stuff he found. There was no alternative precedent then and there was no ethical negative judgment tied to doing what they did. When the Weavers saw that doing it was possibly somewhat unfair and shady, you never saw the name PAUL CAMPBELL (their chosen group pseudonym) on traditional material ever again. Michael Cooney now sends royalties on his recordings of traditionbal songs to the Library Of Congress Folk Culture division because he feels everyone who records those songs ought to support more collecting work.

The things noted here in this thread by it's originators might be strictly true but it's of no more real importance than fining out that the greatest pitcher in baseball history often threw a spitter. If the catcher didn't mind getting spit on his glove (and never got too bent out o' shape over it), then what the hell? And don't give me that crap about truth being an absolute----because it isn't. One guys freedom fighter is the other woman's rapist.

Art Thieme