Folks here might or might not know of the thousands of recordings available from John and Alan Lomas archives at the website
http://www.culturalequity.org/
In particular there is a group in the UK trying to research one particular Ballad Opera written by one Langston Hughes and Alan Lomax - "The Man Who Went To War" - starring Paul Robeson and Josh White.
Unfortunately the LOC has deemed the recording too 'precious' to upload and make available - despite what remains of the reel-reel tape media being digitised. Actually it is more likely the content and the fact that the Ballad Opera was written by a black, and the production had an all black cast (apart from Lomax himself). There are tones of racism here.
Failing all attempts to obtain this recording we are planning to reconstruct the Ballad Opera - a 5 year project to be partly financed privately and partly through crowd-funding.
This email is informational. But is also an appeal that if anyone can obtain this recording from the LOC we'd be eternally grateful.
C.J.Brady
P.S. Despite owning copyright the BBC does not have this recording in its archives, and is not even interested in acquiring a copy.
