Bascom Lunsford: Minstrel Of The Appalachians. Great Music & Dance.

Video Description

Bascom Lamar Lunsford. The great folk music and dance collector. Appalachian mountain man historian. Dedicated his life to mountain music and dance in poetry and storytelling. Created the Asheville Mountain Folk Festival in 1929. A visionary. This is my complete 1989 documentary film on Bascom Lamar Lunsford. It explores what drove him to fight so hard to honor and protect Appalachian mountain culture. I was just 23 years old when I made my first documentary in the area around Asheville. In 1965. Bascom took me around the counties of the mountains of North Carolina including Buncombe County, Wilkes County, and Madison County, rich areas for mountain clog dancing, banjo picking, old-time country Mountain music, great storytelling, and great people. I got the chance to go back and present for a National Television audience what motivated Bascom to do what he did. This film has shows many of what Bascom felt with the greatest mountain music, old-time music, country music, bluegrass music, authentic real-people performance. Each performer in this film was personally selected by Bascom to appear. As I have done with other clips from my films in the Appalachian Mountains, I want to thank and honor the people who participated most all of whom have passed on now. Without their joyous cooperation I could not have recorded these wonderful scenes.