In 1959 and 1960, at the height of the Folk Revival, Alan Lomax ventured through the American South to document its still thriving vernacular musical culture. He traveled through Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and North Carolina, making over 70 hours of recordings. The trip came to be known as Lomax's "Southern Journey," and its recordings were first issued for the Atlantic and Prestige labels in the early '60s.

Wave The Ocean, Wave The Sea (Catalog ID: GJ1001 / UPC: 847108063731), released on December 14, 2010, features recordings of Fred McDowell, Forrest City Joe and His Three Aces, Young Brothers' Mississippi Hill Country fife and drum ensemble, work songs and field hollers from Mississippi's Parchman Farm, the Silver Leaf Quartet from Virginia's Eastern Shores, Blue Ridge musical siblings Texas Gladden and Hobart Smith, Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, the 1959 United Sacred Harp Convention, and WEUP Huntsville's Daddy Cool.