The historic Oakwood Cemetery, in collaboration with Austin Arts, Music, Culture and Entertainment and Save Austin’s Cemeteries, is set to host the inaugural Lomax Legacy American Music Concert. The event will take place at the Oakwood Cemetery Chapel on Saturday, September 27, 2025, at noon. This free concert aims to honor the significant contributions of John Avery Lomax Sr., a pioneering ethnomusicologist, and his family to American and world music.
The concert will feature performances by local acoustic musicians Xavier Shannon, Matthew Brodnax, Jess Ledbetter, and Kiko Villamizar. These artists will perform songs originally recorded by the Lomax family, covering a range of musical traditions from African American blues to Anglo-American folk ballads and Hispanic/Caribbean folk traditions.
John Avery Lomax Sr., who lived in Texas and is buried at Oakwood Cemetery alongside his wife Bess Brown Lomax and other family members, was instrumental in preserving various folk music traditions. His son Alan Lomax’s cenotaph is also located there. Alan was a renowned ethnomusicologist who worked as Director of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. He independently collected folk songs from various regions including the United Kingdom and Caribbean.
Bess Lomax Hawes contributed significantly as a folk musician and educator. She served at the Smithsonian Institution where she led important cultural initiatives such as the Smithsonian’s 1976 Bicentennial Festival of American Folklife. She also became the first director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts.
The concert will conclude with light refreshments at the Chapel followed by a tour to the Lomax Family Lot where guitar picks will be placed on John Sr.’s and Alan’s monuments as a tribute. Seating within Oakwood Chapel is limited but parking along Oakwood Cemetery “Main Street” is free.
Save Austin’s Cemeteries is dedicated to preserving historic cemeteries in Austin through documentation and education efforts.
Information from this article can be found here.
