Charles Lummis Recording History

Portrait of Rosendo Uruchurtu taken at El Alisal, Highland Park, June 5, 1904. Photo by Charles F. Lummis. Braun Research Library Collection, Autry National Center, Los Angeles; P.33391B

 

I recently found a wonderful article from 2009, written by Kim Walters and Michael Khanchalian, in the Autry’s Convergence magazine. Keeping Archaeology Alive- The race against time to save the Lummis sound recordings. I wanted to write a post to synopsize this interesting article.

Lummis, founder of the Southwest Museum, dedicated much of his life to preserving cultures that he felt were vanishing. He also believed that a large part of the culture of the Hispanic people of the Southwest would be forgotten if not recorded. The music, he felt, was as important as the visual records that he photographed during his travels.

In 1904, the newly founded Southwest Society began recording Californio folksongs on Edison recorder and wax cylinders. In a passage from his 1923 Spanish Songs of Old California songbook Lummis explained:

Personally, I feel that we who today inherit California are under a filial obligation to save whatever we may of the incomparable Romance, which has made the name California a word to conjure with for 400 years. I feel that we cannot decently dodge a certain trusteeship to save the Old Missions from ruin and the Old Songs from oblivion. And I am convinced that from a purely selfish standpoint, our musical repertory is in crying need of enrichment-more by heartfelt musicians that by tailor-made ones, more from folksong than from potboilers. For 38 years I have been collecting the old, old songs of the Southwest; beginning long before the phonograph but utilizing that in later years. I have thus recorded more than 450 unpublished Spanish Songs (and know many more in my “Attic”). It was barely in time, the very people who taught them to me have mostly forgotten them, or dies and few of their children know them. But it is a sin and a folly to let each song perish. We need them now!

The singers that Lummis hired for his Hispanic music recordings were mostly from families in Los Angeles. The recordings included Serenades associated with rancho life and nursery songs from the Mission schools. Almost all of the recordings were done at El Alisal, Lummis’ home in Highland Park.

In addition to Hispanic music, the collection includes several hundred Native American songs from 23 different tribes. The wax cylinder collection contains more than 900 recordings, including about 450 Spanish songs and more than 100 Isletan songs. The entire Lummis archive held by the Braun Research Library includes correspondence, sheet music, song workbooks and photographs of the singers.

I’m hoping that we will be able to include some of these exciting recordings in the documentary. Through the tireless efforts of many, including Dr. Michael Khanchalian and his team, there are now over 450 cylinder that have been digitized. Lummis would be so pleased!

For more information visit:

http://theautry.org/research/libraries-and-archives

Why did Lummis choose to walk across America?

Charles Lummis is an American classic: blustery, a little insecure, but ready for anything and willing to work hard to realize his dreams. His tramp across America is the perfect example. In some ways, it was less of a crazy notion in the 1880s than it is today. Trains, planes and automobiles were yet to make a trip across the continent a routine event.Transcontinental trains did not start running until the 1870s. Before that, getting across the continent involved arduous stage coach routes, or a slow, bumpy slog by wagon or horse. Some people walked, of course, but not many did it for fun!

Lummis owed some of his inspiration to the great naturalists, like Alexander von Humboldt and John Muir who logged long journeys of discovery through the Americas. Lummis was more interested in people. What he discovered on his tramp across America was eye-opening for him. It was an America he had never experienced back in New England. It changed his life. Our new tramp promises to open a few eyes as well. Who knows what we will find.

--
Jonathan Spaulding

A feature-length documentary now in Pre-Production in Los Angeles

Charles Fletcher Lummis

In 1884, a 25 year-old Harvard dropout decided that he would walk from his home in Ohio to Los Angeles, where a job at the Los Angeles Times was waiting. He began his 3,507 mile walk along the railroad tracks, but eventually veered off of his intended path, encountering blizzards, bandits, mad dogs and mountain lions. Over the course of 143 days, Charles Lummis' adventure took him to remote places where he was exposed to vastly different cultures than anything he’d ever experienced in his life. 

Young Lummis was forever changed from his Tramp, and in his lifetime he wrote over 30 books, took thousands of photographs, founded the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles and became a powerful advocate for the Native-American and Hispanic peoples he would never have met, had he stayed home in the mid-west. He often called upon his friend and former Harvard classmate Teddy Roosevelt to further his causes, and he lived a vividly colorful and historically vibrant life.

Producers Jayne McKay and Jonathan Spaulding are currently penning the script for this exciting tale of Charlie's adventures, as well as planning an ambitious new Tramp Across the Continent in Spring 2015.We are working on the details and will keep you posted.

We hope that you will consider joining us-this is going to be quite an experience!