BASCOM LAMAR LUNSFORD (1882-1973)
[Lunsford, as many of the collectors/researchers/promoters, was also a fine performer. Like Niles and Alan Lomax, his contribution as a performer is, in my opinion, less important than the music he preserved through his recording, collecting and promoting. Obray Ramsey is just one traditional singer Lunsford helped- giving him a banjo and encouraging him to perform.
His knowledge of the songs from the region was vast and it has been documented through his two books (one by Loyal Jones) and his recordings. The Mountain and Folk Festival he established in 1928 still lives on.
The contents of the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Collection, housed at Berea College, are listed below.]
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Bascom Lamar Lunsford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Born March 21, 1882 (1882-03-21)
Mars Hill, North Carolina
Died September 4, 1973 (1973-09-04) (aged 91)
Other names Minstrel of the Appalachians
Occupation folklorist, lawyer
Spouse Nellie Triplett
Parents James Bassett Lunsford, Luarta Leah Buckner
Bascom Lamar Lunsford (March 21, 1882 - September 4, 1973) was a 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."
Early life
Bascom Lamar Lunsford was born at Mars Hill, Madison County, North Carolina in 1882. His father James Bassett Lunsford was a self-taught teacher and his mother Luarta Leah Buckner often sang old ballads and religious songs. His father bought a fiddle to be shared between Bascom and his brother Blackwell. Later his brother bought a banjo. He played this on all social occasions - square dances, weddings and school entertainments. He enrolled at Rutherford College and began teaching in Madison County. When he became a fruit tree salesman he visited isolated farms and there exchanged songs and tunes with the customers. In 1906 he married Nellie Triplett. In 1909 he re-enrolled at Rutherford College. After studying at Trinity College (which became Duke University) he passed the bar exams and became licensed solicitor in 1913.
North Carolina folklore
He gave lectures on folklore poetry and songs. Almost mocking the formal structure of these lectures he wore white tie and tails, and proceeded to play the banjo. During the First World War he became an agent chasing draft evaders. In 1922 Frank C. Brown, a song collector, recorded 32 items on wax cylinders from Bascom. In 1924 he recorded "Jesse James" and "I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground" for the General Phonograph Company for commercial release. He recorded it again in 1949 for the Archive of American Folksong. It is not clear whether Bob Dylan ever heard it, but Bascom's delivery has some hallmarks of Dylan's early style, with a tight voice on the high notes and Dylan's "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Mephis Blues Again" contains a line "all the railroad men just drink up your blood like wine" that comes from a Lunsford lyric, "'Cause a railroad man they'll kill you when he can, And drink up your blood like wine," as recorded in "I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground" on Harry Smith's collection Anthology of American Folk Music. In 1928 Lundsford recorded for Brunswick. He 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.
The Mountain Dance and Folk Festival
In 1927 the Asheville Chamber of Commerce organized a rhododendron festival to encourage tourism. The Chamber asked Bascom 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.
Politics and fame
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". He performed at the White House in 1939 when the King and Queen of Britain paid a visit.
He died on 4 September 1973.[1]
His fame today rests on his performances, several of which have been preserved on records, and are also available on compact disc. Many of these recordings were made by the Library of Congress to preserve vanishing Appalachian culture.
His most famous recording is "I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground", which is discussed at length in Greil Marcus' The Old Weird America. It is collected on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. A CD devoted exclusively to Lunsford is available, titled Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina.
Lunsford's original recording of "Good Old Mountain Dew" was used as the first advertising theme for the newly created Mountain Dew soda. He sold the rights to the song for a train ticket home.
Lunsford's 1949 Library of Congress "Memory Collection" will be released in the next few years as a 10 cd set.
Discography
Ballads, Banjo Tunes and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina (1996) (Smithsonian Folkways)
Minstrel of the Appalachians
Smokey Mountain Ballads (1953) (Folkways)
Song and Ballads of American History and of the Assassination of American Presidents (1952)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1956) (Riverside)
Music from South Turkey Creek (1976) (Rounder)
Notes
1.^ Jones, Minstrel, pp. 111-112, 138.
References
Loyal Jones, Minstrel of the Appalachians: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford (Appalachian Consortium Press, 1984; Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002). ISBN 978-0813190273
External links
Listen to "Dry Bones" at the Internet Archive's Open Source Audio collection
Listen to "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground" at the Internet Archive's Open Source Audio collection
Listen to "Little Turtle Dove" at the Internet Archive's Open Source Audio collection
Listen to "Lost John Dean" at the Internet Archive's Open Source Audio collection
Bonnie Prince Billy playing a cover version of Goodbye Old Stepstone
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Bascom Lamar Lunsford (1882-1973)
by Wm. Hugh Jansen
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 87, No. 344 (Apr. - Jun., 1974), p. 155
BASCOM LAMAR LUNSFORD (1882-1973)
BASCOM LAMAR LUNSFORD loved his own folk heritage a nd happily strove to make others enjoy theirs- and his. His was a fine and rich folk inheritance out of the heart of the North Carolina Appalachian folk culture. No one could have been more appreciative of such a wealth, and I doubt if anyone could have been as eloquent as Bascom Lamar Lunsford in persuading others to appreciate-and to participate joyfully in-music, dance,a nd narrative, all the genres o f traditional culture.
Beginning in the 1940s, there occasionally appears on the AFS membership rolls the simple (and proud,I somehowf eel) alliterative line "Lamar L unsford, L eicester, N .C." He visited-and was, I remember, the life of the party-at at least one of Stith Thompson's Summer Institutes. Early in his career he had been a college instructor (his father had been a college president); throughout his life he was a successful lawyer and a prosperous f armer; b ut it was as a performer( a fine banjo-playera nd singer), a collector and recorder of folklore, and a director of folk festivals that he was happiest.
A generous and willing performer (he made a couple of dozen commercial recordings), he is in many private and public tapes archives. He performed over 700 items for the Library of Congress (350 of them in a single week-long endurance contest), and
over 300 for Columbia University. One account credits him with recording about 3000 items in all. To acquiret his tremendous repertory, he used to say that he had "spent the night" in more mountain cabins of Appalachia than any other living human.
In 1928 he founded the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival of Asheville, North Carolina, the forty-fifth of which he attended the month before he died. From its very beginnings in I934 he was a prominent figure in Sarah Gertrude Knott's National Folk
Festival. He also established a number of local festivals and appeared in countless others. His hospitality t o other collectors a nd other performers, his moving appearance with the Ritchies on national TV-it would be easy to go on. But on September 4, 1973, Bascom Lamar Lunsford died, full of years and full of folklore.
University of Kentucky WM. HUGH JANSEN
Lexington, Kentucky
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Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Revivalist singer, banjo player, fiddler, folk music collector, and promoter.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the originator of the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, North Carolina, was also a performer, recording artist, and collector of folk music. Born on March 21, 1882, in Mars Hill, North Carolina, Lunsford began making music at an early age, adopting the five-string banjo as his primary instrument. He also played the fiddle. Lunsford collected old songs and tunes from friends and neighbors as he grew up. After attending Rutherford College in nearby Rutherford County, he taught in a one-room school, then became a fruit tree salesman and later an apiarist. These jobs enabled him to stay overnight with mountain people and learn their music and stories. Subsequently, Lunsford taught at Rutherford College, served as a supervisor at a private school, and worked as a newspaper editor. After studying law at Trinity College (later renamed Duke University), he was admitted to the bar in 1913. During World War I, Lunsford was a Justice Department agent, and he later practiced law in Asheville. He established the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in 1928 and for many years assembled the talent for the festival.
In 1929 Lunsford and Lamar Stringfield published Thirty and One Folk Songs from the Southern Mountains. To complement the lore he had already committed to memory, Lunsford began a paper collection that later contained more than three thousand songs, tunes, square dance calls, and stories. This collection is housed in the archives of Mars Hill College. Lunsford recorded from memory more than three hundred songs, tunes, dance calls, and stories for Columbia University in 1935 and the Library of Congress in 1949. Commercially, he cut twenty-two sides for OKeh, Brunswick, Vocalion, and Columbia, and, later, he recorded four albums—one each for the Library of Congress, Folkways, Riverside, and Rounder. He also composed a number of songs, including the widely known “Mountain Dew” (co-written with Scotty Wiseman).
In 1934 Lunsford assisted Sarah Gertrude Knott in establishing the National Folk Festival, held that year in St. Louis, and he helped to organize other festivals, including the North Carolina State Fair and the Cherokee Indian Fair. In 1939 he sang folk songs at the White House for the king and queen of England. Lunsford’s work as a performer and promoter was influential in the urban folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. He died on September 4, 1973. In 1996 Smithsonian Folkways released a commemorative compact disc, Bascom Lamar Lunsford: Ballads, Banjo Tunes, and Sacred Songs of Western North Carolina.
"Bascom Lamar Lunsford," Encyclopedia of Appalachia, 2011, Encyclopedia of Appalachia. 16 Sep 2011 http://www.www.encyclopediaofappalachia.com/entry.php?rec=147
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Guide to the Bascom Lamar Lunsford Collection; Berea College
Accession Number: 29
The Bascom Lamar Lunsford Collection
Span Dates, 1874-1985
Bulk Dates, 1971-1978
Online Catalog Record (BANC)
Overview of the Collection
These are correspondence, writings, song texts, journals, diaries, photographs, sound / video recordings, and other material relating to the life of Bascom Lamar Lunsford, North Carolina folk music collector and festival promoter. The material was compiled by Loyal Jones in the process of writing his Lunsford Biography, Minstrel of the Appalachians.
Lunsford was particularly noted for his memory collection of 300 ballads, tunes and tales and the establishment in 1927, of the Ashville, North Carolina based Mountain Dance and Folk Festival which has continued to the present time. During his long career, Lunsford practiced law, published a song collection, and made several documentary recordings, while continuing to perform (vocal, banjo, and fiddle) collect songs, and write a few of his own (including “That Good Old Mountain Dew”). He traveled to Europe, and in 1939, along with other North Carolinians, performed for the Roosevelts and the King and Queen of England at the White House.
Series Description
Seven Manuscript Boxes
Series I Personal / Biographical Box 1
This series consists of correspondence, family documents, writings, photographs, and memoirs relating to Bascom Lunsford, and his family. Materials relating to Lunsford’s life are found mainly in Loyal Jones’ correspondence with Lunsford’s children and acquaintances (1971-1978). Among the acquaintances are Amos Abrams, Scott Wiseman, Jim Wayne Miller, Pete Seeger and Kenneth Goldstein.
Genealogical materials date mainly from 1971-1978, but some are from the 1890s. Included is a family tree, copies of family correspondence and documents, various writings and diaries. The diaries are those of Jennie and Isabell Lunsford, two of Bascom’s sisters, and ancestor, Squire Osborne Deaver. There are also history writings by Bascom’s father, James Bassett Lunsford.
Series II Writings Box 2
This series consists of published writings by Bascom Lunsford about festivals, balladry, and dancing, a book review, poems, interview transcripts, and personal reminiscences.
Series III Photographs Box 2
This series consists of both family and performer related photographs.
Series IV Music Box 3
This series consist mainly of texts and music notations for many of the ballads and songs associated with Lunsford. Included is a list of Lunsford’s memory collection, notations on sources, and transcriptions produced by Columbia University, the Library of Congress and Loyal Jones. There is also a list of Lunsford’s documentary sound recordings.
Series V Printed Materials Box 4
This series consists mainly of magazine articles, pamphlets and newspaper clippings dated from 1939 to 1984 relating to Lunsford’s various activities and interests. Included as well are administrative forms relating to the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival and material relating to square dancing, games, and rhymes.
Series VI Manuscript Boxes 4-7
This series consists of materials relating to the writing and publication of Loyal Jones’ Lunsford biography, Minstrel of the Appalachians. Included are correspondence relating to final research and publishing (n.d., 1972-1985), four draft manuscripts in various stages of revision, and pre-publication reader comments. There is some manuscript material that was not included in the final draft.
Series VII Sound/Video Recordings Boxes 8-10
This series consists of sound and video recordings including Lunsford’s memory collection recordings, interviews of Lunsford, his family, and associates, as well as documentary film and video productions about Lunsford. Contents are searchable via an in house database or print index.
Box List
Series I Personal / Biographical Box 1
Box 1
1.Correspondence, n.d.; June 1971-Aug 1973
2.Correspondence, Sept 1973-Apr 1978
3.Correspondence, acquaintances, n.d. 1973; 1974; 1978
4.Family Tree
5.Genealogical correspondence and related papers
6.Florida Belle (Isabell Lunsford 1889-1935)
7.Jennie Louise Lunsford, 1903-1907
8.James Bassett Lunsford
9.Squire Osborne Deaver, 1874-1896
10.Sir Thomas Lunsford
Series II Writings Box 2
Box 2
1.Miscellaneous writings by / kept by Bascom Lunsford
2.Southern Exposure correspondence and publication (re: Bascom memoir)
3.Memoir
4.It Used to Be: The Memoirs of Bascom Lamar Lunsford, copy 1
5.It Used to Be, copy 2
6.Interview transcript - John Lair recorded by Loyal Jones, 4/30/1974
Series III Photographs Box 2
Box 2, cont.
7.Photographs - Lunsford Portraits
8.Photographs - Lunsford with Others-Nonmusical
9.Photographs - Lunsford Performing
10.Photographs - Dancers
11.Photographs - Performers
◦Buzzy Leming
◦Pleas Mobley
◦Alter “Red” Parman
◦Obray Ramsey
◦Byard Ray
◦Rilla Ray
◦Virgil Sturgill
◦Cas Wallin
12.Photographs - Copies of Print Material
Series IV Music Box 3
Box 3
1.Song transcriptions recorded at Columbia University
2.Song transcriptions recorded at Columbia University
3.Music notation for Loyal Jones’ Book on Lunsford
4.Music notation for Loyal Jones’ Book on Lunsford
5.Miscellaneous song texts
6.Library of Congress song texts recorded by Lunsford and other North Carolina singers
7.Personal memory collection list
8.Liner notes from Lunsford’s Riverside LP Album, Minstrel of the Appalachians (RLP 12-645)
9.Lunsford discographies
10.Cassette tape indexes
11.Photocopies of several pages from 30 and 1 Folk Songs by Lunsford and Lamar Stringfield
Series V Printed Materials Box 4
Box 4
1.Lunsford Article Draft by David Whisnant
2.Lunsford Article Draft by Loyal Jones
3.Lunsford Biography - Typescript by John Angus McLeod, 1973
4.Thesis Re: Lunsford’s Folksong Collection by Anne Winesmore Beard, 1959
5.Newspaper and Magazine Articles
6.Newspaper Clippings 1939-1972
7.Newspaper Clippings 1973-1984
8.Mars Hill Mountain Music and Dance Festival
9.Square Dance Figures and Calls
10.Ozark Folk Festival 1934 (Preliminary for the first National Folk Festival)
11.Miscellaneous Printed Material
Series VI Manuscript Boxes 4-7
Box 4, cont.
12.Correspondence n.d.1972-1977
13.Correspondence 1978-1985
Box 5
1.Manuscript
2.Manuscript, part I
3.Manuscript, part II
4.Manuscript, part I
5.Manuscript, part II
6.Manuscript, part I
7.Manuscript, part II
Box 6
1.Manuscript, Ch. 6 “Of Songs and Dances and Tales and Such”
2.Manuscript, index
3.Manuscript, tales
4.Manuscript, chapter and notes
5.Manuscript, interviews and sources
6.Manuscript, fragments
7.Manuscript, notes about
8.Manuscript, research notes
9.Manuscript, research notes
10.Manuscript, research notes
Box 7
1.Manuscript, research notes
2.Manuscript, research notes
3.Manuscript, research notes
4.Manuscript, research notes
Series VII Sound/Video Recordings Boxes 8-10
Box 8
1.Fourteen reel-to-reel audio tape recordings of Lunsford’s memory collection made by Columbia University in the mid 1930s.
Box 9
1.Six reel-to-reel audio tape recordings of Lunsford’s memory collection made by Columbia University in the mid 1930s.
2.One reel-to-reel audio-tape recorded interview of Lunsford by Duncan Emrich of the Library of Congress in 1949.
3.One reel-to-reel audio-tape recorded interview of Lunsford by Loyal Jones, 7/27/1971.
4.One reel-to-reel audio-tape recorded interview of Lunsford by Joan Moser, 12/29/1959.
5.One 16mm commercial newsreel and VHS video copy of Lunsford and others performing,1930s.
6.One VHS documentary, Our House to the Whitehouse, documenting Lunsfords role in the development of western North Carolina square dancing, 1920’s-1930s.
7.One VHS documentary, Complete Bascom Lamar Lunsford Story - Originally titled, Ballad of a Mountain Man [American Experience TV series 1990s]
8.One VHS ducumentary, Bluegrass Roots - Originally titled, Music Makers of the Blue Ridge
Box 10
1.Thirty six audiocassette recordings including recordings Lunsford made for the Library of Congress in 1949, and interviews of Lunsford’s associates by Loyal Jones