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Bascom Lamar Lunsford

One of the more compelling figures in Appalachian folk music and early shaper of its canon.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford, b. March 21, 1882 in Mars Hill, NC, d. September 4, 1973  (aged 91), lawyer, folklorist, and performer of traditional (folk and country) music from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname "Minstrel of the Appalachians."

Bascom Lamar Lunsford was born at Mars Hill, Madison County, North Carolina in 1882, into the world of traditional Appalachian folk music. At an early age, his father, a teacher, gave him a fiddle, and his mother sang religious songs and traditional ballads. Lunsford also learned banjo and began to perform at weddings and square dances. After qualifying as a teacher at Rutherford College, Lunsford taught at schools in Madison County. In 1913, Lunsford qualified in law at Trinity College, later to become Duke University. He began to travel and collect material at the start of the 20th century, often meeting singers on isolated farms. Lunsford has been quoted as saying he spent "nights in more homes from Harpers Ferry to Iron Mountain than God".

Lunsford gave lectures and performances while dressed in a starched white shirt and black bow tie. This formal dress was part of his campaign against the stereotyping of "hillbillies". In 1922 Frank C. Brown, a song collector, recorded 32 items on wax cylinders from Bascom. In 1928, Lunsford recorded "Jesse James" and "I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground" for the Brunswick record label. Harry Smith included "Mole" on his Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952. Smith's anthology also includes Lunsford's performance of the gospel song "Dry Bones", recorded in 1928. Lunsford played in a style from Western North Carolina, which had a rhythmic up-stroke brushing the strings. It sounds similar to clawhammer banjo playing, which emphasises the downstroke. He also played a "mandoline", an instrument with mandolin body and a five-string banjo neck. He occasionally played fiddle for dance tunes such as "Rye Straw". He censored himself, avoiding obscene songs or omitting verses. His repertoire included Child Ballads, negro spirituals and parlor songs. A CD collection of Lunsford's recordings, from the Brunswick recordings of the 1920s to the recordings for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress in 1949, Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina, was released by Smithsonian Folkways Records in 1996.

In 1927 the Asheville Chamber of Commerce organized a 'Rhododendron Festival' to encourage tourism. The Chamber asked Lunsford to invite local musicians and dancers. 1928 was the first year of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, often claimed as the first event to be described as a "Folk Festival". After a few years the rhododendron element disappeared but the festival continues to this day. He was the organiser and performed there every year until he suffered a stroke in 1965. Lunsford cofounded the Bascom Lamar Lunsford "Minstrel of Appalachia" Festival that is in its 47th year, taking place at Lunsford's birthplace at Mars Hill University in Mars Hill, North Carolina, just 20 minutes north of Asheville.

Bascom was involved in the politics of the Democratic Party. He managed the campaign for Congressman Zebulon Weaver for North Carolina. From 1931 to 1934 he was a reading clerk of the North Carolina House of Representatives. Charles Seeger employed him in the mid-30s to promote singers in "Skyline Farms", as part of the "New Deal". Lunsford was invited to the White House by President Roosevelt in 1939, when he performed his music for King George VI. Lunsford died on 4 September 1973.

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By Craig Harris
The traditional folk songs and buck dancing of the United States' Southern mountain region may have faded into the past without the efforts of collector, musician, and impresario Bascom Lamar Lunsford. During the nearly three-quarters of a century that he collected songs and dances in the Appalachian Mountains, Lunsford laid the groundwork for the preservation and revival of traditional folk music and dance. Although Lunsford composed such now-standard songs as "Old Mountain Dew" and "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground," he's best remembered for the hundreds of songs that he collected and recorded for Columbia University and the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk Song.

The son of a school teacher, Lunsford began collecting songs shortly after graduating from college at the turn of the 20th century. Traveling on horseback, Lunsford worked a variety of jobs including selling fruit trees, working as an attorney, and serving a short stint with the FBI. Claiming to have "spent nights in more homes from Harpers Ferry, North Carolina to Iron Mountain, Alabama than God," Lunsford spent most of his time collecting folk songs. Dressed in a white starched shirt and black bow tie, Lunsford railed against the stereotyping of the "hillbillies" and used music and dance as a way to draw attention to the strengths and value of the Southern mountain culture.

"The Minstrel of the Appalachians," Lunsford helped to spread the Southern style of buck dancing, an energetic technique of rhythmically accompanying a tune with one's feet that fused Scottish, Irish, African-American, and Cherokee dancing. Beginning with dance competitions in North Carolina, often at his home where he installed a special dancefloor, Lunsford helped to turn buck dancing into a national fad. A turning point came in 1928 when Lunsford was hired to organize a folk music and dance show at the Rhododendron Festival in Asheville, North Carolina. The show attracted more than 5,000 people and was turned into an annual event, becoming one of the first folk festivals in the United States.

Although he was criticized for excluding songs of politics, labor strife, black culture, and bawdy material, Lunsford's efforts were essential to the preservation of the culture of "the true Southern mountaineers" and served as an inspiration for everyone from Mike and Pete Seeger to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. While most of his attention was focused on collecting the songs and dances of others, Lunsford toured the world performing and lecturing.