Alan Lomax

Lomax was the son of pioneering musicologist and folklorist John A. Lomax, with whom he started his career by recording songs sung by sharecroppers and prisoners in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. He attended The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut and then went on to earn a degree in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. He also did graduate studies with Melville J. Herskovits at Columbia and with Ray Birdwhistell at the University of Pennsylvania. To some, he is best known for his theories of Cantometrics, Choreometrics, and Parlametrics, elaborated from 1960 until his death with the help of collaborators Victor Grauer, Conrad Arensberg, Forrestine Paulay, and Roswell Rudd.