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Its great that LOC recordings are being released into the public domain. The Alan Lomax archives are a great model at http://research.culturalequity.org/home-radio.jsp Would there be any chance of this happening to the ballad opera 'The Man Who Went To War' with Paul Robeson? It has been claimed by academia and only a clippette has been released. Yet this is an important programme in Black History. ==== "The Man Who Went to War" - 1944. A "ballad opera" by Langston Hughes with folk music chosen by Alan Lomax. It starred Canada Lee, Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, William Vesey, Josh White, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee. Despite the LOC or BBC staff breaking the glass masters and without the for-knowledge that future laser devices such as Irene might be able to piece together the recording from the shards there IS a surviving copy on magnetic tape (reel-reel?). This was made by Lomax himself and ended up in the Library of Congress Sound Archives (whatever). But what foresight Lomax had!! Anyway this tape was mis-indexed and was 'lost' for decades. Then last year (or thereabouts) it was rediscovered to great acclaim. However academia claimed it as theirs and only a clippette has been released to the public. A Ph.D. student was researching the programme, which was actually a kind of 'radio ballad / ballad opera' somewhat of the genre of the 'Chisholm Trail,' to write a thesis on the programme's influence on how Brits. gained an understanding of American culture of the 1940s. Frankly both programmes, 'Chisholm' and 'War,' would be as unlikely to do that as an episode of 'Life with the Lyons.' But then I suppose folks can do Ph.D.s on just about anything. Here are links: http://research.culturalequity.org/home-radio.jsp http://music.ku.edu/%E2%80%9Cnon-extant%E2%80%9D-recording-langston-hughes-ballad-opera-found "The Man Who Went to War, 1944. A "ballad opera" by Langston Hughes with folk music chosen by Alan Lomax. It starred Canada Lee, Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters, William Vesey, Josh White, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee." "C... M..., a Ph.D. student in musicology who will be writing her dissertation on radio ballad operas, plans to conduct the first in-depth study [of] the work for her document." As a collector and researcher of the Radio Ballad genre, especially those produced by Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger, I contacted the folk mentioned on the KU webpage. They weren't the slightest bit interested in anything I had to offer!!! US-centric or what? However their loss. ==== Here are the missing links including a clippette ... http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2015/06/12/missing-from-history-langston-hughes-the-man-who-went-to-war-2/ Interestingly Genome has two dates for when 'The Man Who Went To War' WAS aired in the UK. Monday 29 May 1944 21.20 http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/051873ac57734b448b6169d371ed7886 Monday 6 March 1944 21.20 http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/b5f2b5e6dd984fd1aaab6ea8afa8cc9f ==== CJB