By the time he moved to Nashville, he already knew most of the Texan singer-songwriters living there who hung around Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt; he also met artists like Rodney Crowell, Steve Young, and Richard Dobson.
Lomax placed an ad in Rolling Stone to encourage readers to sign up for the Townes Van Zandt fan club, through which he was able to amass a large following of people interested in "America's greatest songwriter".
During this time, Lomax and his brother Joe compiled For the Sake of the Song, a book of lyrics, sheet music, photos, and essays on Van Zandt.
[4] When the Heartworn Highways director James Szalapski came to Nashville, Lomax recommended he focus the documentary on lesser known artists on the rise, including Clark, Van Zandt, Charlie Daniels, David Allan Coe, and Steve Young.
These groups include David Schnaufer (1986-1994), The Cactus Brothers (1991-1996), Kimber Clayton (1996-2000), Kasey Chambers (1996-2001), and began working with Texas singer-songwriter Bianca De Leon in 2020.
Issued on his SFL label, Lomax licensed the album to England's Floating World Records in a project helmed by Pete Macklin.
SFL was begun in 1988 and released two CDs by "America's Dulcimer Champion", David Schnaufer and two multi-track singles by Kimber Clayton, "Jose Cuervo" and "Addicted to Love", both in the late '90s.
In 2017, Lomax III re-discovered tapes of his father singing old folk songs that had since faded out of public memory.
"[10][11] He opened Lomax Global Music, an Amazon Marketplace enterprise with the assistance of Ryan Schemmel, in 2011, selling mainly single copies of hard-to-find CDs, DVDs and lps mainly to U.S. customers.
[1] In the early 1970s, Lomax also wrote for the River City Review and Zoo World, monthly music magazines operating out of Memphis and Fort Lauderdale, respectively.
In 1980, Lomax, Thom King, and Richard Harbert started the Nashville Gazette, with Kathy Mattea as the magazine's receptionist.
The 6,500 word feature was illustrated with many rare photographs and is the only source of information presenting the work of all four John Lomax's, spanning the 1880s to 2017.
In 2019, nearly 20 of his personal photographs and archival pictures were used in the Ken Burns Country Music documentary TV show, dvd and book.