Lawrence Gellert

Lawrence Gellert ( born September 14, 1898 in Budapest, Hungary, † 1979) was a folk and music researcher who has documented in the 1930s, the protest traditions of African Americans in the southern United States in sound recordings.

He came to America when he was seven years old, and grew up in New York City. For health reasons, he retired in the early 1920s to Tryon, North Carolina. From 1933 to 1937 he traveled through North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, collecting folk songs of black Americans.

Together with his brother Hugo, he has 1930 to 1947 a series of articles for the magazine Masses (later New Masses ), especially about African-American traditional music written.

Part of his recordings was re-released (on Rounder Records) and in 1984 published (on Heritage Records ) as a long -playing record, and in the 1990s on a Document CD first in the years 1973, 1982.