The late Alan Lomax, like his father John A. Lomax before him, was one of America’s most influential and tireless scholars and chroniclers of folk and ethnic music. Yet Lomax also enthusiastically embraced rock n’ roll as it became a powerful cultural force in the 1950s. He also had a life-long fascination with the evolution of music performances and how particular songs were adapted from one style or era to the next.

This intriguing 22-song collection was culled from the hundreds of grassroots recordings that Lomax, who died in 2002 at 87, collected from the early 1930s, onward. The common thread is that they have all found their way, in one form or another, into the lexicon of modern rock and pop music. Cuts like Leadbelly’s 1934 rendition of "Midnight Special," Woody Guthrie’s 1940 recording of an old slave lament called "Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad," the Cleveland Simmons Group’s 1935 version of "Sloop John B," the Duke of Iron’s 1946 calypso version of "Ugly Woman," and Georgia Turner’s 1937 "House Of The Rising Sun" offer vivid glimpses at how great songs evolve with changing times and changing tastes, as they are passed from one generation of musicians to the next. --Bob Allen