“America has a patchwork culture of the dreams and songs of all its people,” observed Alan Lomax. In the late 1970s Lomax took to the road with a television crew to document regional American folklore with deep historical roots, which he now felt he could understand much better after his research on world music and his fieldwork abroad.

This catalog represents 400 hours of raw, unedited footage shot over the course of seven years (1978–1985) in preparation for PBS projects. The material, constitutes a valuable visual documentation and a resource for researchers and filmmakers, the soundtrack also being of great interest. Represented from the Southern U.S. are former levee and railroad workers, farm women, bluesmen, and young tall-tale rhymers from the Mississippi Delta; New Orleans jazz parades; Cajun cowboys; Sea Island game songs; Sacred Harp singers from Alabama; clogging contests from Virginia; country gospel, Primitive Baptists, and coal miners from Kentucky and Tennessee; bootleggers, balladeers, tobacco workers, and a Georgia bluegrass festival. There is also footage of break dancers in Philadelphia; Italian and Italian American folk musicians at the Giglio Festival in Brooklyn; Latino car clubs; Yaqui Indian dancers, and Norteno musicians from Arizona; as well as folk artists from all around the country at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. There is also in-depth commentary by Alan Lomax. Five completed documentaries in the American Patchwork series were aired on PBS in 1990.

An invaluable resource for researchers and filmmakers, the video catalog consists of unedited performances, interviews, and folkloric scenes selected from 400 hours of footage. The video was shot over the course of seven years (1978–1985) in preparation for a PBS series, American Patchwork, which aired in 1991. Lomax’s collaborators on the project included John Bishop and Worth Long in Mississippi, Barry Ancelet and Bill Russell in Louisiana, and Jim Griffiths in Tuscon, Arizona. The following collections include filmed commentary by Alan Lomax.

Mississippi Delta and Hill Country (1978)
Bluesmen; fife-and-drum ensembles; former muleskinners and railroad tie-tampers; and tall-tale reciters. Performers include Skip James collaborator Jack Owens, diddley-bow player Lonnie Pitchford, fife legend Otha Turner, and R. L. Burnside in his first film appearance.

Appalachia (1982–1983)
Cloggers and buck dancers; bluegrass and string bands; white gospel groups; stories, folktales, and ballads from coal miners, tobacco farmers, and former bootleggers, filmed in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Performers include Ray Hicks, Nimrod Workman, Tommy Jarrell, and Raymond Fairchild, the man reputed to be the fastest banjo player in the world.

New Orleans (1982)
Funeral parades; Mardi Gras Indians; the Dirty Dozen Brass Band; and scenes from Jazz Fest and Preservation Hall.

Cajun Louisiana (1982–1983)
Cajun cowboys; string bands; zydeco groups; fiddlers, and scenes from the Cajun and creole Mardi Gras celebrations. Performers include Dennis McGhee; Dewey Balfa; Canray Fontenot; Michael Doucet; and Boozoo Chavis.

Arizona (1983)
Pascua Yaqui dancers; Norteño bands; Papagos rituals; Apache desert rodeos; and Tuscon’s Latino car clubs.

Alabama Sacred Harp (1982)
Filmed at the National Sacred Harp Convention in Fyffe, Alabama, and accompanied by a thunderous 8-track soundtrack.

Johns Island, South Carolina (1983)
Spirituals, folktales, and children’s game songs from Janie Hunter of the South Carolina sea island, Johns Island.

Philadelphia Breakdancing (1982)
Footage of Ellison Guilford and his siblings’ early hip-hop breakdancing troupe, the Disco Kings and Queens, shot in Philadelphia’s Market Square.

Brooklyn Giglio (1982)
Performances, hand-games, and the legendary carrying of the tower at the annual Giglio festival, celebrated by Italian-American descendents of the Italian city of Nola, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Smithsonian Folklife Festival (1983)