Laura Boulton was born in Conneaut, Ohio on January 4, 1899. She studied vocal performance as an undergraduate at Western Reserve University and Denison University. During the 1920s she began her graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Chicago. During these studies, she participated in an expedition to Africa for the American Museum of Natural History. This expedition marked the start of a 50-year career in the field as an ethnomusicologist. For the rest of her life, she traveled throughout the world, recording and filming the musical traditions she encountered along the way. When not abroad, she made a name for herself giving many public lectures on her experiences. She formed the Laura Boulton Foundation in 1977, a non-profit organization involved in supporting research in ethnomusicology.

During her career, she released numerous documentary films, articles, and music albums based on her work in the field, and also designed many museum exhibits and published an autobiography, The Music Hunter. The collection of musical instruments she amassed during her travels is now housed at the Mathers Museum of World Culture in Bloomington, Indiana.

The recordings and documents that were the output of Boulton's career are now held by many institutions; including Indiana University, Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Arizona, and the Library of Congress.