One of the more compelling figures in old-time music, Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a college educated lawyer and obsessive folklorist who helped shape the development of the its canon through song collecting, performances, and lectures. Known as the "Minstrel of the Appalachians," Lunsford played an inverted clawhammer style of banjo and swooped idiosyncratically to strained high notes when he sang. With songs collected from travels throughout western North Carolina and his deep knowledge of the Child Ballads, Lunsford's repertoire--he recorded over 300 songs for the Library of Congress in 1949--acts as an expansive primer on American roots music. Often dressed formally in a coat with long tails, Lunsford brought Appalachian music a dignity and celebrated it throughout his long life at the Mountain Dance and Folk Song Festival, an annual event he founded in Asheville, North Carolina in 1928.