John and Alan Lomax's first visit to Kentucky took place at the end of their first recording trip together, in the summer of 1933. In Harlan, they stayed with the lawyer and ballad collector Harvey H. Fuson, whose book Ballads of the Kentucky Highlands had been published in 1931. Fuson introduced the Lomaxes to G.D. Vowell and James "Blind Jim" Howard, their two informants during the visit.