Bruce M. Conforth grew up during the folk/blues revival of the 1960s as experienced in New York City's Greenwich Village. He received his PhD in ethnomusicology and folklore from Indiana University and served as the first Curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. He is now a member of the faculty of the American Culture Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Among collectors of African American folksong, Lawrence Gellert is undeservedly obscure. Eccentric and controversial, he led an adventurous life, many details of which are uncertain. His family moved from Hungary to New York City in 1906. Around 1920, he relocated to North Carolina for his health. There he established special rapport with African Americans, whose music he loved. Treated as an insider, he was able, at considerable risk, to collect songs usually unheard outside the black community in that segregated era. His collecting, done in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi in the 1920s and 1930s, predated several better-known efforts. Influenced by leftists, for a while he associated with the Communist Party, which embraced his collections as proletarian songs of protest. The music was much broader in subject matter, however, and he cared little for politics. Conforth has spent decades researching Gellert's accomplishments and here provides the first comprehensive scholarly study of this complex man. Suitable for academic libraries and large public libraries, it should interest scholars in numerous fields, especially African American studies and ethnomusicology. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above.

Bruce M. Conforth grew up during the folk/blues revival of the 1960s as experienced in New York City's Greenwich Village. He received his PhD in ethnomusicology and folklore from Indiana University and served as the first Curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. He is now a member of the faculty of the American Culture Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Among collectors of African American folksong, Lawrence Gellert is undeservedly obscure. Eccentric and controversial, he led an adventurous life, many details of which are uncertain. His family moved from Hungary to New York City in 1906. Around 1920, he relocated to North Carolina for his health. There he established special rapport with African Americans, whose music he loved. Treated as an insider, he was able, at considerable risk, to collect songs usually unheard outside the black community in that segregated era. His collecting, done in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi in the 1920s and 1930s, predated several better-known efforts. Influenced by leftists, for a while he associated with the Communist Party, which embraced his collections as proletarian songs of protest. The music was much broader in subject matter, however, and he cared little for politics. Conforth has spent decades researching Gellert's accomplishments and here provides the first comprehensive scholarly study of this complex man. Suitable for academic libraries and large public libraries, it should interest scholars in numerous fields, especially African American studies and ethnomusicology. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above.

Bruce M. Conforth grew up during the folk/blues revival of the 1960s as experienced in New York City's Greenwich Village. He received his PhD in ethnomusicology and folklore from Indiana University and served as the first Curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. He is now a member of the faculty of the American Culture Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Among collectors of African American folksong, Lawrence Gellert is undeservedly obscure. Eccentric and controversial, he led an adventurous life, many details of which are uncertain. His family moved from Hungary to New York City in 1906. Around 1920, he relocated to North Carolina for his health. There he established special rapport with African Americans, whose music he loved. Treated as an insider, he was able, at considerable risk, to collect songs usually unheard outside the black community in that segregated era. His collecting, done in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi in the 1920s and 1930s, predated several better-known efforts. Influenced by leftists, for a while he associated with the Communist Party, which embraced his collections as proletarian songs of protest. The music was much broader in subject matter, however, and he cared little for politics. Conforth has spent decades researching Gellert's accomplishments and here provides the first comprehensive scholarly study of this complex man. Suitable for academic libraries and large public libraries, it should interest scholars in numerous fields, especially African American studies and ethnomusicology. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and above.