Smoky Mountain Ballads cover

Smoky Mountain Ballads

Bascom Lamar Lunsford

Album · 1953 · Folkways Records FP 40

Smoky Mountain Ballads was issued by Folkways in 1953, first as the ten-inch LP FP 40 and later as FA 2040. On it Bascom Lamar Lunsford sings eight songs, accompanying himself on banjo: “Swannanoa Tunnel,” “Mr. Garfield,” “Jennie Jenkins,” “Little Margaret,” “On the Banks of the Ohio,” “Springfield Mountain,” “The Death of Queen Jane” and “Mole in the Ground.” The booklet has a foreword by Pete Seeger, and the cover drawing is by Ben Shahn.

Lunsford, born on 21 March 1882, lived at South Turkey Creek in Buncombe County, North Carolina. He had been a farmer, school teacher, newspaper editor, attorney and office-holder. In 1928 he started the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville. In 1939 he was among the folk performers invited to a “Command Performance” at the White House for the visiting British king and queen. He recorded his repertoire for the Library of Congress in 1935 and again in the spring of 1949, nearly 350 songs and tunes in all.

Lunsford wrote the notes on the songs himself. He took “Mr. Garfield,” one of a group of Southern Appalachian songs about assassinations, from Anderson Williams near Fletcher, North Carolina, in 1903. “Jennie Jenkins” is the text sung by Charlie Edwards of Rabbit Ham Branch in Buncombe County. He explains that “Swannanoa Tunnel” takes its name from the Swannanoa Tunnel through the Blue Ridge east of Asheville, dug about 1885, and that the work gangs brought the song to that section.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Swannanoa Tunnel alt version 3:00
  2. 2 Mr. Garfield 3:00
  3. 3 Jinnie Jenkins 2:49
  4. 4 Little Marget 2:56
  5. 5 Banks of the Ohio alt version 4:12
  6. 6 Springfield Mountain 2:34
  7. 7 The Death of Queen Jane 2:38
  8. 8 Mole in the Ground alt version 2:30

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