Laura Crayton Boulton

1899-1980

    Laura Crayton Boulton was born in Conneaut, Ohio in 1899.  She was an ethnomusicologist. She was actually one of the first.  Boulton was brought up by parents who raised her to not be prejudice.  This was a major factor in her later years when she traveled around the world studying different cultures. For her to be prejudiced would have deeply changed her life.

    She had a very firm background in music. By the age of three, she had her first solo and by later years she was planning a career in music. However, when the Straus Africa Expedition for the American Museum of Natural History approached her about a possible expedition in Africa she accepted. This was seen as a bad move by some of her close friends and many advised against accepting the position. Despite her friends’ views she took on the mission with enthusiasm. This resulted in long years of research and fieldwork for the museum. Her expeditions all over the world and her recordings of authentic music have been her major contribution as an anthropologist. She searched for thirty-five years for folk and liturgical music in all parts of the world. By the time she was finished, she had in her collection over 30,000 recordings.

    Some of the regions she covered in the expedition were Eskimo territory, Sub-Sahara Africa, Nepal, Thailand, and Borneo. All the music she recorded was authentic and recorded before these cultures were affected by politics and radio. She considered herself very lucky to be able to work with “pure” cultures. She would find later, when returning to these countries that much of the authentic music had been forgotten and in its place was modern music picked up from the radio. Modern musicologists would have an almost impossible task if they were to try to do now what Laura accomplished.   Laura Boulton did university graduate work in musicology and anthropology. She also lectured and taught at major universities in America, Europe, and Asia.

    Laura’s first of twenty-eight expeditions started in Africa. The native tribes were at first scared of her recording machine but after she showed them how her own voice recorded,  they caught on. Once they realized the new device was harmless they eagerly helped her. When speaking of her recording equipment she claimed that it was impossible to catch all vibrations and levels of the song and that highly scientific machines must be used. She was also able to pick up music quickly and sing along.

    In her first of many expeditions to Africa the most memorable part of it was the Rift Valley and the flamingos of Lake Navaisha. During this expedition she learned a lot about medicine and was able to help natives with minor burns and cuts. Most of the time natives heard of her medicines and faked injuries in order to use her modern medicine.

    Her next missions were located in India in 1949. By that time she was able to travel by car, train and airplane. With this modern transportation she was able to move about the country quickly. When she was in India she stayed with the Prime Minister of India and when she visited Nepal, she stayed with the Prime Minister of Nepal. Her ability to stay with such high ranking individuals  was due to the fact that the palace was the only hotel or place to house visitors. One key thing she recalled about Nepal was that they had brass bands quite like our marching bands in America.

    Laura, in 1942, continued her expeditions into North America, studying the Eskimos. She took a ship called the SS Nascopie with Captain T.F. Smellie. She was able to go on the expedition for 135 days because of war times. The ship was owned by the Hudson Bay Company and traveled back and forth to trade with the Eskimos. While Laura was there she even went on a hunt. She said she was not a hunter but understood the need to. Captain Brown was her informer on the trip. Traveling back to the United States, she studied the Native Americans of the Southwest.

    Her next expeditions brought her to Europe where she spent some time studying the gypsies. This was where she picked up her interest in Neo-Byzantine and Orthodox music. From 1960 on, she spent five to six months a year working and studying it. Her particular interest in the religious music was of early Christianity. She also studied 11 other religions. She claimed the most gratifying part of her work was that of the Byzantine and Orthodox music of Dubarton Oaks. In 1962 she returned to Ethiopia (the beginning of her expeditions) but by the following year was focused only on church music

    After she was finished with her expeditions, she returned to Columbia University where she became the director of the Research Project on World Music. She worked within the School of International Affairs. Smithsonian Folkways Records have commercially released many of her recordings. The Laura C. Boulton Collection of recordings worldwide from 1929-78, along with  her field notes, papers and correspondence, are kept at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University. The Music Hunter: The Autobiography of  A Career, her autobiography, was published in 1969.  The Laura Boulton Foundation, a non-profit intistute dedicated to supporting ethomusicological research, was founded by Laura in 1977. Laura Crayton Boulton died in 1980.  Three years later, an annual ethnomusecology lecture service in honor of Boulton's  prolific fifty-year career was established by the Laura Boulton Foundation. Her recordings can be found at Columbia University and among many other University archives.

 

References:

Boulton, Laura. The Music Hunter. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1969.

“Name_Born_Died_Source_Author.” American Anthropology Obituary Index (22 Aug. 2003) Http://homepages.stmartin.edu/fac_staff/dprice/deadbook.htm 24, Feb. 2004 

 

Written by: Megan Burd

Edited By:Lillian Dolentz, 2008