Posted on 10/23/2023 3:27:50 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
This man is the great Appalachian Mountain North Carolina folk musician/historian/wonderful character Bascom Lamar Lunsford. I have posted here the entire documentary that I made because so many of my subscribers have asked to see more of this film.
Back in 1965, I was making my first television documentary (23 years old) and got the chance to go down from New York City to spend six weeks with Bascom and his wife Freda as they drove around the North Carolina Appalachian Mountains to find unknown but great musicians, dancers, poets, singers & songwriters for his music festival- The Asheville Music and Dance Festival that he founded in 1929. I knew as I rolled 16mm film through my camera that I was recording amazing mountain music history.
.....
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
A national treasure. Thanks for posting.
Morehead State University did a similar project in the 70’s in Eastern Kentucky. Unfortunately,it was audio only, no film. They interviewed my Grandfather. He and his friends did a little pickin’ session for them. I can remember my grandfather watching Porter Waggoner or Flatt & Scruggs on TV and hearing a song or two he liked, then going in his room with his fiddle. Later he would play them for us.
Some of it’s an acquired taste. The first time I ever heard Man of Constant Sorrows, it sounded to my ears like somebody moaning with a stomach ache. When you listen to several versions and take the time, it becomes beautiful.
Always been a fascination for me. I am now a resident of NC and I love it here.
My wife is from that part of the world. She told me once of being at what she called a pig-pickin’, somewhere back in the hills, when Doc Watson and Vassar Clements showed up. Doc heard her singing in the crowd and called her up to sing with the group.
About half way thru it now...what a great video. And the cars...wiith their steel dashboards LOL!
Bkmk
Morehead State University did a similar project in the 70’s in Eastern Kentucky. Unfortunately,it was audio only, no film. They interviewed my Grandfather. He and his friends did a little pickin’ session for them. I can remember my grandfather watching Porter Waggoner or Flatt & Scruggs on TV and hearing a song or two he liked, then going in his room with his fiddle. Later he would play them for us.
___________________________________
It’s hard to understand how anyone could not enjoy this authentic, vibrant, music straight from the heart and soul. I too was blessed as a young man to have a grandfather as a fiddler. He and I would play music (I on guitar) whenever we could get together. He would lean back in his rocking chair, arthritic fingers on the fiddle’s keyboard, and with eyes closed would whip off a twenty-minute streak of fiddle tunes. He could slide smoothly into one tune after the other. He used to play for barn dances as a younger man in my upper Midwest neck of the woods. However, the original authentic stuff came out of Appalachia which is where my granddad got most of his tunes.
2 words.....
Billy Strings.....
we used to go to the Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Harmony/Union Grove NC
50th anniversary was the first time and we went the next five years, good times...
Love bluegrass. Just found Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, a band from Norway. Youtube them.
😉👌
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.