In 1941, the folklorist Alan Lomax travelled throughout the Deep South, recording local musicians on behalf of the Library of Congress.

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Folklorist Jefferson Currie, who began working with Simpson about three years ago to record stories about the whirligigs and their creator, said Simpson's daughter told him he died at his home in Lucama, about 40 miles east of Raleigh.

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In the decade before World War II, he and his father, the famed folklorist and collector John Lomax, took several historic trips through the South collecting material while working for the Library of Congress, making the first recordings of Muddy Waters and Fred McDowell, and capturing other legends like Jelly Roll Morton and Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter.

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