This largest collection of Lomax Kentucky recordings was the result of a two-and-a-half-month trip through ten Eastern Kentucky counties made in the autumn of 1937 by Alan and his wife Elizabeth Lyttleton Harold. Performed by farmers, laborers, coal miners, preachers, housewives, public officials, soldiers, grandparents, adolescents, and itinerant musicians, they present a full spectrum of traditional expressive culture: ballads and lyric songs, play-party ditties and comic pieces, topical and protest material, fiddle and banjo tunes, hymns and sacred songs, children's games and lullabies, and a variety of spoken lore—religious testimonies, occupational reminiscences, tall tales, jokes, and family and personal narratives.