Peter B. Lowry (April 1, 1941 – June 29, 2022)[1] was an American folklorist, writer, record producer, ethnomusicologist, historian, photographer, forensic musicologist, and teacher who dealt with aspects of popular music, mainly African-American.
He wrote extensively on blues and jazz music, founded Trix Records, and moved to live in Australia in later life.
[5] His field research also took him occasionally to the Midwestern US, where he recorded local Michigan pianists for the album Detroit After Hours – Vol.
[13] After his decade of active fieldwork, Lowry worked with renowned ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax over two years at the Folklife Archives of the US Library of Congress on a project that later became "The Deep River of Song" series of CDs,[14] a comprehensive collection of African American musics that was later commercially issued by Rounder Records in their "Alan Lomax Collection".
Later, his tapes were deposited with the Southern Folklife Collection in the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, so that it would be possible for interested members of the public to listen to any of them at either location for research purposes.
Lowry later enrolled at The University of Pennsylvania[23] in the PhD program in the Folklore Department, acquiring a master's degree and completing his doctoral studies.