Last Cavalier: The Life and Times of John A. Lomax, 1867-1948 (Folklore and Society)

Rating:
Summary: Porterfield is to Lomax what Boswell was to Johnson.
Review: I just finished LAST CAVALIER and without question consider it the best biography I've read in years. This book may well signal John Lomax's overdue emergence as a national treasure for his collecting and preserving of thousands of cowboy songs including "Home on the Range"--as well as for bringing musical artists like Leadbelly to national attention. Lomax already is a treasure in his home state of Texas. If you're a reading Texan and/or have any interest whatsoever in country or black music, the roots of American folklore, the ambiance of the Texas mileau in the first half of this century, or a profound character study of one of the country's great promoters of native culture, this uncompromising biography was written for you. However, the book transcends regionalism both in the writing and its universal perspective and message. One practically has to go to Flaubert's rendering of Emma Bovary to find such an incisive pyschological study of someone so well-meaning and successful, and yet so flawed, as John Lomax. Porterfield makes his character so relatable and understandable that we can love and hate him at the same time--and even identify with this American original, if only from a distance. The author also renders his impeccably researched material with all the skill and technique of a first-rate novelist. He is as authoratative and compelling in his treatment of Lomax as James Boswell was with Samuel Johnson.