A Folklorist of Black America

http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4334
Date Written:  2015-01-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2015
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX20865

A review of Beuxw Conforth's book, "African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics:The Larry Gellert Story".

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

This new book explores the curious career of a white collector of Black music. The kid brother to Hungarian-born Hugo Gellert, probably the best-known Communist artist in his day, Lawrence Gellert was a folklorist who collected some of the earliest field recordings of African American music in the South. Written by Bruce Conforth, one-time curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and professor at the University of Michigan, this is the first published biography about a man who also helped popularize the "protest" song several decades before the 1960s.