Born in Austin, Texas, Bess grew up learning folk music from a very early age, since her father, a former English professor and twice president of the American Folklore Society, was Honorary Curator of American folk song at the Library of Congress from 1935 to 1948.
She entered the University of Texas at fifteen and the following year assisted her father, John A.; her brother, Alan Lomax; and modernist composer Ruth Crawford Seeger with their book, Our Singing Country (1941).