s o v A Quarterly of the

Volume XV, Number 3 . October 1996

Laura Boulton as Musical until after she had returned from her fourth Raconteur, 1935-1941 trip to Africa, the 1934 Straus West African Expedition. by Frank D. Gunderson During the colonial period in Africa, Laura Craytor Boulton. The name conjures which spanned roughly from the late up many things to many people: "Music nineteenth century to the early 1960s, Hunter" and early public sector researchers enjoyed numerous privileges ethnomusicologist, explorer, film maker, that were a result of the "opening Up" of early feminist and woman of letters, Africa, in search of the "pristine and consummate publicity hound. Of her many untouched." That their resulting depictions roles, her forte was that of the storyteller, the were either half-truths imagined by the raconteur. The early materials which she obseIVer or were of recently invented gathered for her lectures should be traditions, was seldom self-evident. 4 Further, understood in the colonial context of the many research expeditions operated under Euro-American explorer of exotic locales, the philosophical influence of the nineteenth who "would have music wherever she century biological sciences, which goes,"l sUIVeying all-that-she-sees~ This encouraged researchers to hunt and gather essay examines Laura Boulton's storytelling birds, antelope horns, or musical specimens lecture career and the effects she had on her with equal vigor. This scientific "booty" audiences during the Great Depression, a would then be brought back to more tumultuous period that defined her "civilized" sites to be analyzed and subsequent public life. compared, displayed and archived. The Laura Boulton was no stranger to Straus expedition was such an endeavor. public speaking, indeed her first documented Organized by Lauro's husband Rudyard and public talk took place in 1916 when she was funded by the wealthy widow of a diplomat, just seventeen years old, a curiously the Straus expedition set out to collect and prophetic address to her high school cl~ss 3 identify rare birds and insects for the entitled liThe Worth of a Woman's Life." Her Carnegie Museum, and to make African training as a singer gave her further public music recordings. performance confidence. Inspired by her The Straus trip became crucial to ornithologist husbands successful career as Lauro's subsequent lecture career, primarily a lecturer, in 1930 she began giving talks because of special advances in electrical about her first two trips to Africa, where she recording technology being made at the time. played cylinder recordings she had collected Walter Garwick, the gentleman who custom in the field for her audience. Her lecture built her recording equipment throughout the career, however, didn't truly get under way

1 1930s, attested to the superb quality of her keen on exotic and escapist fare, and in recordings upon her return: those days before the Discovery Channel I think the quality of your records is and Marlin Perkin's Wild Kingdom television finer than any other collection made series, Laura Boulton was in the position to in the field that I know anything deliver it to them. Following the popularity of about. I have listened to samples the Cubist and the Surrealist art movements from most of the expeditions. You did in Europe, "Africa" and "things African" were an excellent job for after all the . especially en vogue. A publicist wrote "Her instrument can only do part of the lecture is a good substitute for a trip to s job. Africa. ,,8 Laura wrote about her lecture These more enhanced recordings content: represented a turning point in the early The lecture may be confined to , history of ~ in that they African music; or native customs; or enabled Laura to "push the envelope" and rare bird and animal life and evoke her African musical experiences for spectacular insect life; or it may her audiences in a way that no scholar or combine the life of the people lecturer up to that point had been able to (ceremonial and artistic), with the do. natural history subjects. The illustrations may include motion Popular Entertainment pictures ofbird, animal and insect life, Laura was anxious to capitalize on little known and never before the general publids long-standing interest in photographed, such as the black Timbuktu, and thus within a month of her heron of the Niger river, which shades return hired William B. Feakins Lecture and its eyes with its wings while fishing, Concert Management to serve as her the scaly anteater which is so rare, promoter and manager. Her first reviews even among the natives, that they were positive. The director of the Carnegie believe it lives in the sky, the termites, Museum wrote: in their seldom-seen flight, and driver I was greatly impressed by the ants on the march. In addition magnitude of the research you have to the motion pictures, slides in color conducted and the effective results which transcend the specialized interest of ethnographers and should appeal to the wider circles of Resound musicians and composers. 7 A Quarterly of the By this time, Laura Boulton felt competent to Archives of Traditional Music lecture on a number of topics, and did not Jonathan Cargill. EdiJoT limit herself to African music by any means. We an pleased 10 ocapt C6fffmenJ.s. ktJus, and SIIbmissions. Pkax address)'OflT With lecture titles such as The Origins of con-espontienu 10 RESOUND at: Archives oCTrlditional Music Music, Rhythm in the Jungle, Timbuktu and Morrison Hall 117 Indiana Univcnity Beyond, Africa: Cradle of Art, : The Bloomingtoll.lN 47405

New Gateway to Africa, Intimate Glimpses of Gloria J. GIhroD, DindM Native Africa, African Folklore, Cairo MIU7 Russell Buckauaa, ~ 4incIiJ, and to Marilya B. Grat, NdUrist Capetown by Caravan, we can see that SUZIIIUIe Mqe, l..ibtvriIUI many of her lectures were not about music at all. In a decade of economic turmoil and uncertainty, the lecture-going public was

2 and unique musical re-recordings seasoned speakers that included may be used, or anyone of these telepathists, Peruvian bird callers, Mark methods of illustration may be Twain impersonators, Paul Robeson, Eleanor chosen.9 Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, and Nirgidma, the Besides the anecdotes depicting her Mongolian Princess. Yet audiences testified adventures, Laura sang to her audiences the that Laurcts educative and entertaining African songs she had learned, and told lecture performances were among the best. many folk stories she had collected. IO "One of the best travel series we have ever In a sense, Laura Boulton storytelling had told at the club," said one review.ll "The lectures were so novel that they must have audience listened as if they were children seemed close to the realm of what we call hearing marvelous fairy tales for the first today multimedia performance art. Her use time in their lives," said another.12 "It is very of new media like the gramophone and seldom that one has a lecturer who has so motion pictures and her unusual lecture thorough and scientific a grasp of her subject content guaranteed success. By 1937, Laura and at the same time can make the talk more was giving sixty lectures a year, at $125 a entertaining than a play, "13 wrote a third. lecture. Her talks received rave reviews, and her presentations were increasingly "Monkey Meat and Caterpillar Sauce" polished. But Laura was hardly alone on the To a significant degree, Laura Boulton lecture circuit. Competing with her for that was subject to the whims of journalists out to "hard-earned Depression-era dollar" were a create an exotic story, working in a hodge podge of post-Vaudeville era acts and longstanding tradition of sensationalist writing. With fantastic headlines like Blood­ Curdling Sounds, Music in the Raw, Monkey I.AURA BOULTON Meat and Caterpillar Sauce, 14 and Chicago

'RESENTS Woman Plays African 'Death' Machine,15 we can see that many images conjured by these ArRICA _ articles were quite laughable, if not racist. IN Laura herself was treated by the press as SOUND something of a freak show. In her black buccaneers' hat and string of pearls, she was FII.MS "the African explorer who looks like a flapper,"16 a nickname she dearly hated. A Capmatmq. HCNDIiDv Provram Exdusiyo Phonograph B_cia There is the commonly-evoked statement that with Motloa Pic:twes Laura looked as if she would be "more at home serving ladies' function than To secure a.. tilma cmd sowsd. reconiiDga b this prDqfam Lcwra tea at a Boulton mado four lri~ to Africa wiSh Uw Jallowinq expoditions: tramping through the jungle," but she was SkCl~ C.utral JUric_ Exped1tioa (r., u.. A--. w...- .. x __ !&ofti'. JI •• T ...) one who "refuses to sit at home and tend to Camoqie South "'mccm Expediti- Ir_c...... _~~ her knitting." One writer tells us that "Laura Pulitzer AD90Ia ExpdtioD fr.. c:-..- M---. ~J Boulton juggles puR adders in one hand SUCN& W.st AIdcan .ExpediIicm while recording African music in the other.,,17 ,r.. r ..w~ _ -, --.y. ~) 1bis journalistic sensationalism both haunted and benefited Laura's public reputation Figure: "Laura Boulton-Presents Africa in Sound throughout her career. and Films, H publiCity from William B. Feakins, Inc. It is certain that Laura had little input Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, l.B Publicity: II B (1935). Indiana University Archives of about what writers had to say about her Traditional Music, BlOOmington. lectures, and there is considerable evidence

3 that she had some concern about the way begin to happen when I play some of these they were representing her. In a letter to a records for an audience. Many seem to go Mr. Kittridge she writes: "Unfortunately the into a hypnotic trance.,,23 Several personal artide which you saw in the newspaper was, correspondents verified similar reactions to as is often the case with newspapers, slightly the physical and emotional intensity of the exaggerated." 18 A reporter confided to her recordings she played for them: readers that: Allow me to congratulate you on your ... she is most anxious to have me wonderful lecture this evening. I was stress that she regards her work as a very pleased at your story of the way serious piece of scientific research. It the drums affected some people. For is just a happy accident that people a while I had the insane desire to get who can afford season symphony up and dance and dap my hands! tickets and who entertain visiting Even now I feel so strange I cannot opera stars and top notch musicians write well, much less to go to you in their homes, happen to like what personally and tell you how I she has done. 19 appreciated your programs. I am Yet Laura was also aware of the benefits of shaky. 24 sensationalist publicity, as it drew larger Reported speech in one article demonstrated crowds to her subsequent talks. In a letter to however that other audience members were one of her many publicists, she writes: "... no less enthused: one wants to hear about serenity. What they "Isn't it wonderful?" Edna Kellog want to hear and expect to hear about Africa asked. "It would drive me mad," is 'glamour, excitement, and humor, I and the another declared. 25 exotic qualities of the land and its people. "20 Hearing these recordings was akin to "going native,,26 wrote one reviewer, a commonly evokecbolonial-era aphorism initially used to "Laura Boulton juggles puH adders in warn colonial administrators about the one hand while recording African dangers of "getting to close to the natives" music in the other." . lest they lose their ability to govern, and later used in popular culture as a sarcastic rebuke to anyone who spent too much time hanging For Lauro's upper-class socialite around "The Other." audiences, her lectures were important events to see and to be seen at by others, but Laura Boulton's Influence on Modernist attending them was not without its dangers. Composers and "The Jazz Question" For some, Lauro's African recordings seemed In both academic circles and in the to fulfill the strange expectations created by popular press of the time, African music was the press about this exotic new music represented as being at an early stage in the previously heard only in Tarzan films. overall evolution of music, with the modem Reviewers wrote that this was "music that will classical orchestra being at the top of the titillate and assail your ears, "21 and that lithe evolutionary heap. However unlike the more music and the pictures together seem to academic ethnomusicologists of her time reach down to deep primitive instincts which (Hornbostel, Sachs), Laura did not see an the veneer of our civilization seems to have "unbridgeable gulf,,27 between Western art buried. "22 Laura had some curious music and African music. Composers whom obserVations about her audience's response she met shared her pragmatic views, and to her African recordings: "Strange things since they believed themselves to be at the

4 top of the musical food chain, they sampled Western composition.28 Laurds musical offerings as readily as they We know that ...__ -.,.. ___ • tasted the Kennebec Salmon and Curried Aaron Copland Chicken a l'Indienne offered at her lectures. used materials Many believed this music, even though Boulton had exiting, was "rCNl" and unformed, and thus it collected in the was the modem composers' duty or burden early 1940s for to"ennoble" it. For those brave composers his En Salon interested in "going native," at least Mexico. 29 momentarily, Laurcis act was considered a S tow k 0 w ski Figure: "Lecture Record and "must see/must hear" source of exotic aural t ran s c rib e d Income," lecture notes, 1935. inspiration. Her lecture audiences iricluded excerpts from her Laura Boulton Correspondence Af . f' Id and Papers Collection, LB Lectures. musical luminaries whose names read like a ~lcan Ie Indiana University Archives of Who's Who list of early twentieth century recordings in Traditional Music, BlOOmington. Euro-American modernist music. Igor 1935, and based at least one of his Stravinsky, Leopold Stokowski, Walter compositions on her field work.30 In an oft­ Damrosch, Olgar Samaroff, Henry Cowell, repeated story with multiple variations, Laura Rudolph Ganz, Olin Downes, Charles tells how at a house party at the .home of Seeger, Ruth Crawford, Paul Bowles, Colin music educator Rudolph Ganz, Igor McPhee, Edgar Varese, Dane Rudyar and StravinSky listened repeatedly to one of her Aaron Copland are all known to have been African recordings of five drummers playing present at her lecture demonstrations and five different interlocking rhythm patterns, post-lecture parties held in New York, and finally admitted that he had met worthy Chicago and Los Angeles during the 1930s. competition,31 and that "1 could listen to those Many composers gathered to hear her under drums all night.,,32 the auspices of the American Society for Those composers who heard Laurcis Comparative Musicology, a sister recordings were evidently surprised that so­ organization to the Gesellschaft fUr called "primitives and savages" could create Vergleichende Musikwissenschaft and a such complex music. Laura writes ".. .it has precursor organization to the Society for been a great revelation that anything so Ethnomusicology. melodious as the flutes, marimba orchestras The 1930s were a very fruitful time for and part choruses, or so stirring as the Western art composers interested in rhythms of the drum orchestras could come u33 incorporating non-Western musical materials out of "savage II Airica. It is however no into their own works, perhaps due to the surprise that these composers referenced newly available recording media and radio. their understanding of this music to the One reviewer put it this way: classical repertoire with which they were These primitive melodies appeal to familiar. The composer and music critic J. the modern composer seeking a Fred Lisfelt was reminded of Italian Opera, 34 departure from conventional music, while the conductor Walter Damrosh and the Classical music of the future compared the West African flutes he heard to may have African dances and their Debussy, West African kora music to that of music as its ancestor. A study of this Mozart, and called a West African drum music shows that we have only ensemble a "symphony of rhythm".35 Laura . scratched the surface of rhythm was flattered and deeply inspired by the although African rhythm patterns are recognition of her work by composers, and it being used more and more in modern . was this kind of recognition that became a

5 major motivating force in her career. spanned nearly fifty years. People from all Western art composers were not the walks of life, from academics to kindergarten only ones interested in Boulton's music. She students, from well-known composers to perked the interests of jazz composers and ladies' tea clubs attended and benefited from aficionados as well, at a time when this music her informative and entertaining lectures. was gaining international interest. Her Laura was driven by this public contact. publicist was aware of this, and wrote: Rather than publish studies based on her Serious musicians and students of swing will fieldwork, Laura Boulton felt more at home find much interesting material in them [her telling stories about what she had seen and recordings] and even 'jitterbugs' will go for done in the field to audiences both attracted the strange rhythms and cross rhythms in the to and repulsed by her material. Through drums.,,36 Though the jitterbug was at the ethnographic storytelling, Laura Boulton height of its popularity, most white attempted in her own way to change peoples' Americans held popular but mis-informed Eurocentric attitudes about world musics and notions about jazz music, to include: African music in particular. Though (1) Jazz music was somehow neglected in the ethnomusicological canons interchangeable with African music. due to her scant published work, she was (2) Jazz and African musics were nevertheless an early advocate for world based on formless free-for-all musics and strove to make a career out of an improvisation. ethnomusicological impulse before that term (3) IIAfrican music was jazz in a purer was ever coined, let alone codified into a state ,,37 from which modem jazz had legitimate academic discipline. "evolved. ,,38 Laura Boulton attempted to clarify popular Frank D. Gunderson opinions such as these: "Native African Bloomington, 1996 music is not 'swing' music, nor does it particularly resemble any other type of jazz. Frank stays busy But it is important to the modern composer archiving the Laura Boulton Collection at who stresses rhythm.,,39 To illustrate this Indiana University. He further, she mentions an experiment that she is also writing his conducted where she played American jazz dissertation: ~usic records for a group of Africans on one of her and Labor in Western expeditions, an act which elicited blank Tanzania- Wesleyan University stares.40 However, in other instances she seemed to reify public notions about African music and its relation to jazz: "The (African] town boys go for the Anlerican jazz, but the REFERENCES CITED primitive natives consider it rather dull in 1. 1948. "Woman Explorer Brings Tales of 5 comparison to their own. "41 African Trips," The Phoenix Gazette, November 26. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers The Worth of a Woman's Ufe Revisited Collection, LB Clippings: IT A (1948). Indiana Much more so than her own University Archives of Traditional Music, autobiography revealed, Laura Boulton was Bloomington. a complex and often contradictory public figure who reached thousands of people with 2. Pratt, Marie Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transcu1turation, London and "music is universal her message that a New York: Routledge. language,"42 in a lecture career that

6 3. 1916. "Thirty-Second Commencement of Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Kingsville High School," May 19. Laura Boulton Clippings: IIA (1932). Indiana University Archives Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Publicity: IT B (1916). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. 12. n.d. Sun-Telegraph. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB 4. Ranger, Terrence. 1983. "The Invention of Clippings: II A n.d. (1930Is). Indiana University Tradition in Colonial Africa," in The Invention of Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Tradition, Hawbsbawm and Ranger, Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 13. Edgell, G.H. 1941. Museum of Fine Arts, May 6. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers 5. Garwick, Walter. 1935. Letter to Laura Collection, LB Publicity: II B (1941). Indiana Boulton, Janucny 14. Laura Boulton University Archives of Traditional Music, Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Bloomington. Correspondence: I A 35 004. Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. 14. 1941. "Monkey Meat and Caterpillar Sauce," New Orleans Times Picayune, December 7. 6. Shelemay, Kay Kaufman. 1991. "Recording Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Technology, the Record Industry, and Collection, LB Clippings: IT A (1941). Indiana Ethnomusicological Scholarship," in University Archives of Traditional Music, Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of , Bloomington. Music, Bruno Nett! and Phillip Bohlman, Ed. Chicago and London: .15. 1937. UChicago Woman Plays African IDeath Press. 1 Machine, U Chicago Sunday Tribune, June 13. Laura Bolton Correspondence and Papers 7. Avinoff, A. 1935. Letter to Laura Boulton, Collection, LB Collection, LB Clippings: ITA (1937). Janucny 26. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Papers Collection, LB Correspondence: I A 35 Bloomington. 013. Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. 16. 1935. "Music Explorer Accompanies Husband

to Far Places in Africa, U The Home Newspaper, 8. n.d. "Laura Boulton Brings You Africa, Mexico, n.d. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers and the West Indies in all Their Haunting Collection, LB Clippings: IT A (1935). Indiana Mystery," Columbia Lecture Bureau. Laura University Archives of Traditional Music, Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, Bloomington. LB Publicity: IT B (1930Is). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. 17. 1936. San Francisco News, October 10. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers 9. Boulton, Laura. 1938. Letter to Mrs. Churchhill Collection, LB Clippings: II A (1936). Indiana Humphrey, October 29. Laura Boulton University Archives of Traditional Music, Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Bloomington. Correspondence: I B 049 (1938). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, 18. Boulton, Laura. 1936, June 6. Letter to Mr. Bloomington. Kittridge. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Correspondence: I 36 B 054. 10. 1932. Chicago Engineersl Notes, May. Laura Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, Bloomington. LB Publicity: II B (1932). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, BlOOmington. 19. 1935. Chicago American, March 27. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, 11. 1932. Arts Club, May. Laura Boulton LB Clippings: IT A (1935). Indiana University

7 Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Chicago Press.

20. Boulton, Laura. 1935, June 6. Letter to Mr. 28. 1935. uMusic Canned in Africa Heard in

Allais. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Lecture Here, U Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Papers Collection, LB Correspondence: 135 B 039. November 15. Laura Boulton Correspondence Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, and Papers, LB Clippings: II A (1935). Indiana Bloomington. University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. 21. n.d. Rhythm in the Jungle. Victor press release. Laura Boulton Correspondence and 29. 1940. Wolff, William. "What Can the Jungle Papers Collection, LB Publicity: II B (1930s). Give to Modern Music?'U The Record Weekly, Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, February 24. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Bloomington. Papers Collection, LB Clippings: II A (1940). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, 22. n.d. 1.aura Boulton Brings You Africa, BlOOmington. Mexico, and the West Indies in all their Haunting Mystery, U Columbia Lecture Bureau. Laura 30. Boulton, Laura. n.d. -Music, _ unpublished Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, manuscript draft, page 4. Laura Boulton LB Publicity: II B n.d. (1930s). Indiana University Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Drafts. Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. 23. n.d. "Hear That African Drum! Record Traps its Rhythm," Cleveland News. Laura Boulton 31. 1935. Daily Tribune, March 20. Laura Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, Clippings: II A n.d. (1930s). Indiana University LB Clippings: II A (1935). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington.

24. Golding, Ruth. 1937. Letter to Laura Boulton. 32. Boulton, Laura. 1935, January 17. Letter ro Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Mrs. Rudolph Gonz. Laura Boulton · Collection, LB Correspondence: I 37A. Indiana Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB University Archives of Traditional Music, Correspondence: I 35 B 003. Indiana University Bloomington. Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington.

25. 1935. 'Arts Qub Defies March Winds to Hear 33. Boulton, Laura. 1935. Letter to Mrs. Peabody, and See Charms of Central Africa, U Chicago May 17. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Daily News. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Correspondence: I 37 B 034, Papers Collection, LB Clipping: II A (1937). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Bloomington. 34. Lisfelt, Fred J. 1935. "Laura Boulton,. 26. 1940. "Mexican Conquest, _ Program: A Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph, n.d. Laura Boulton Magazine for Program and Entertainment Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB Committees, June. Laura Boulton Clippings: IIA (1935). Indiana University Archives Correspondence and Papers Collection, LB of Traditional Music, BlOOmington. Clippings: II A (1940s). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. ' 35. Boulton, Laura. n.d. uMusic,1I unpublished manuscript draft, page 104. Laura Boulton 27. Waterman, Christopher. 1991. "Uneven Corresponde.nce and Papars Collection, LB

De";elopment of Africanist Ethnomusicology, M in Drafts. Indiana University Archives of Traditional Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, Bloomington. Music, Chicago and London: University of

8 36. 1939. Victor Records press release. Laura African authors recorded in the 1970s while Boulton Correspondence and Papers Collection, working as a Special Projects Officer for the LB Publicity: IT A (1939). Indiana University Voice of America. These interviews contain Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. the raw material for a series of seventy-eight half-hour Voice of America broadcasts titled: 37. 1931. -Pure African Music,'· Sunday Sun "Conversations with African Writers. II Nichols Telegraph, June 28. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers, LB Clippings: IT A presented the 175 tapes of both original (1931). Indiana University Archives of Traditional interviews and program broadcasts to the Music, Bloomington. Archives of Traditional Music, where they will be catalogued and dubbed for public 38. 1929. uMrs. Oscar Straus to Head Exploring listening.

Party in Africa, U New York Herald, January 28. The collection contains a vast wealth Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers, LB of information on African literature, much of Clippings: ITA (1929). Indiana University Archives it original and otherwise available only in the of Traditional Music, Bloomington. Ubrary of Congress. During the course of the interviews, each author discusses his 39. 1936. "Jungle Music Has Rhythm All Its Own, purposes, inhibitions, and dilemmas, in the Explorer Hnds, U Oakland Tribune, September 23. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers, LB context of his own countrYs history, and, in Clippings: ITA (1936). Indiana University Archives most cases, the tone and inner workings of of Traditional Music, Bloomington. his writings. Ten of the eighty-three authors are women and thirty of them work in twenty­ 40. 1936. "U.S. Singer in the Jungle/ Oakland one Africari languages. Some authors have Tribune, September 23. Laura Boulton since died, among them: Okot p'Bitek of Correspondence and Papers, LB Clippings: IT A , Musa Galaal of Somalia, (1936). Indiana University Archives of Traditional Mohammed Magzoub of , Albert Music, Bloomington. Kayper-Mensah of , Abbie Gubegna of , Thomas Dekker of , 41. 1948. IIAfrican Music Found Unlike Bongo and Alhaji Abubakar Imam of . Bongo,. Leas Angeles Times, February. Laura Boulton Correspondence and Papers, I.B Nichols provides photographs, Clippings: IT A (1948). Indiana University recording transcriptions and accompanying Archives of Traditional Music, Bloomington. materials such as personal correspondence and news clippings for each interviewee. In 42. Boulton, Laura. 1969. The Music Hunter: The addition to the above-mentioned Voice of Autobiography of a Career, New York: America broadcast series, Nichols has Doubleday and Company. published two books based on these interviews, Conversations with African Writers (Voice of America, 1981) and African Writers at the Microphone (Three Continents Lee Nichols Visits Indiana Press, 1984). University A journalist for nearly fifty years, by Mary Russell Bucknum Nichols worked for daily, black and labor newspapers, followed by seventeen years with United Press International. He was Journalist and author Lee Nichols recently employed by the Voice of America in 1958, visited the Indiana University campus to and originated the VOA's English-to-Africa deliver the first installment of his gift to the service in 1963, directing it for ten years. University-taped interviews with eighty-three Designated a Special Projects Officer in

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