The First Familyof American Roots Music

The River of Lomax

A hundred and fifty years of American song, drawn as one river. Almost everything you listen to flows back up it to a Lomax field recording.

Name an artist you love and see who begat them.
drag to pan the river · zoom to fit it all
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Come stand at the door → The Storm Door · staying human as the tech comes on. Free.
What the water became

Count the water

Follow every stream back to its spring, and the honors stack up behind the names. A share of what one family's field recordings turned into.

65Grammy winners downstream
44in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
24in the National Recording Registry, kept forever
3steps, at most, back to a Lomax recording
and the family that made it
5 generations 150 years 10,000+ Library of Congress field recordings 92 Rounder CDs 51 books 2 National Medals of Arts

One family, a wax cylinder and a reel of tape, and most of a century of American song runs back to the day they stood in a field and pressed record.

One family, three generations

The First Family

One hundred and fifty years, one machine that listened. Tap a face to meet them.

    Portraits: Library of Congress, Lomax Collection (public domain); John Lomax III · Nashville Scene, 2019. Later kin shown by monogram.