John W. Work & Lewis Wade Jones 
Lost Delta Found [PDF ebook] 
Rediscovering the Fisk University-Library of Congress Coahoma County Study, 1941-1942

Blues Hall of Fame Inductee—Named a ‘Classic of Blues Literature’ by the Blues Foundation, 2019



This remarkable book recovers three invaluable perspectives, long thought to have been lost, on the culture and music of the Mississippi Delta.



In 1941 and ’42 African American schol-ars from Fisk University—among them the noted composer and musicologist John W. Work III, sociologist Lewis Wade Jones, and graduate student Samuel C. Adams Jr.—joined folklorist Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress on research trips to Coahoma County, Mississippi. Their mis­sion was “to document adequately the cul­tural and social backgrounds for music in the community.” Among the fruits of the project were the earliest recordings by the legendary blues singer and guitar­ist Muddy Waters.



The hallmark of the study was to have been a joint publica­tion of its findings by Fisk and the Library of Congress. While this publication was never completed,
Lost Delta Found is com­posed of the writings, interviews, notes, and musical transcriptions produced by Work, Jones, and Adams in the Coahoma County study. Their work captures, with compelling immediacy, a place, a people, a way of life, and a set of rich musical tra­ditions as they existed in the 1940s.





Illustrated with photos and more than 160 musical transcriptions.

Sobre el autor

Bruce Nemerov was a professional musician, record producer, and composer from 1969–1991 before joining the Center for Popular Music at MTSU. He is also the author of The Story Behind the Song: 150 Songs That Chronicle the 20th Century. He describes himself as ‘Born in the North / Raised in the South / Schooled out West / Ain’t dead yet.’