Smoky Mountain Ballads preserves the singing and banjo playing of Bascom Lamar Lunsford — a Swannanoa, North Carolina lawyer and musician who organized the first Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville in 1928 and spent decades documenting the ballad and dance traditions of the western North Carolina mountains. Lunsford was a central figure in introducing Appalachian folk music to national audiences during the early and mid-20th century — he performed at the White House, worked with Alan Lomax at the Library of Congress, and contributed to multiple documentary projects in both the scholarly and commercial folk-revival contexts. His recordings preserve a singing style rooted in the unaccompanied and lightly accompanied ballad tradition of the southern highlands, and Smoky Mountain Ballads stands as a document of that living practice: a direct line from the mountain communities Lunsford grew up in and devoted his career to celebrating and preserving.
Tracklist
- 1 Swannanoa Tunnel alt version 3:00
- 2 Mr. Garfield 3:00
- 3 Jinnie Jenkins 2:49
- 4 Little Marget 2:56
- 5 Banks of the Ohio alt version 4:12
- 6 Springfield Mountain 2:34
- 7 The Death of Queen Jane 2:38
- 8 Mole in the Ground alt version 2:30
