Art Rosenbaum, a painter and folk musician acclaimed for a half-century of field recordings of American vernacular music, including old-time Appalachian fiddle tunes and ritual music imported from Africa by enslaved people, died on Sept. 4 at a hospital in Athens, GA. He was 83.

His passion was to document a broad range of American musical traditions passed down and performed at work camps, church gatherings and rural living rooms. An important inspiration was Pete Seeger, who once told Mr. Rosenbaum, “Don’t learn from me; learn from the folks I learned from.”

As a painter, he was inspired by Cezanne and Max Beckmann, the German Expressionist.