Norman Blake is one of the most respected flatpicking guitarists and traditional song stylists of the last 60 years — an old-time and bluegrass virtuoso whose deep knowledge of pre-bluegrass Appalachian and Southern songs has made him a one-person repository of the tradition. His session work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, Kris Kristofferson, and others brought his guitar to the 1960s–70s folk-rock audience, while his decades of recordings with wife Nancy Blake have produced some of the most admired duet work in acoustic music.