Frank Noah Proffitt (June 1, 1913 – November 24, 1965) was an

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

n old time banjoist who preserved the song " Tom Dooley" in the form we know it today and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the traditional five-string

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

. He was born in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee, United States, and was raised in the Reese area of

Watauga County Watauga County ( )
from the North Carolina Collection's website at the

, North Carolina, where he worked in a variety of jobs and lived on a farm with his wife and six children. He grew tobacco, worked as a carpenter, and in a spark plug factory.Folk Legacy, Frank Proffitt bio
Folk Legacy, Retrieved May 5, 2008 He was known for his skills as a carpenter and

luthier A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers o ...

; Proffitt's fretless

s and

dulcimers The word dulcimer refers to two families of musical string instruments. Hammered dulcimers The word ''dulcimer'' originally referred to a trapezoidal zither similar to a psaltery whose many strings are struck by handheld "hammers". Variants of th ...

were homemade. In 1937, Frank Proffitt met folksong collectors Anne and Frank Warner. Frank Warner was searching for a dulcimer builder and thus began a 30-year friendship and song swapping. Warner collected his songs and shared them with

Alan Lomax Alan Lomax (; January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American ethnomusicologist, best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music of the 20th century. He was also a musician himself, as well as a folklorist, archivist, writer, sch ...

, who included many, including the ballad "Tom Dooley" that Warner had learned from Proffitt, in his book, ''Folksong U.S.A.''. Proffitt had learned the song from his aunt Nancy Prather, who had in turn learnt it from her mother Edy Adeline (Pardue) Proffitt, who had known both Dula (locally pronounced "Dooley") and Laura Foster. The Kingston Trio learned "Tom Dooley" from a recording by Warner, and were eventually required by court judgement to acknowledge their debt to Proffitt and pay him royalties for the use of the song. Proffitt recorded "Tom Dooley" and other ballad songs in 1961, on the album ''Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs'', edited by Warner and issued by

Folkways Records Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways. History The Folkways Records & Service ...

. A second set of Proffitt's recordings, ''Frank Proffitt of Reece NC: Traditional Songs and Ballads of Appalachia'', was released in 1962, and Proffitt performed at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival. He also performed at the

1964 New York World's Fair The 1964–1965 New York World's Fair was a world's fair that held over 140 pavilions and 110 restaurants, representing 80 nations (hosted by 37), 24 US states, and over 45 corporations with the goal and the final result of building exhibits or ...

, and recorded several more tracks released on the compilation album '' High Atmosphere: Ballads and Banjo Tunes from Virginia and North Carolina''. Proffitt died in 1965, aged 52. The ''Frank Proffitt Memorial Album'' was released by

Folk Legacy Records Folk-Legacy Records was an independent record label specializing in traditional and contemporary folk music of the English-speaking world. It was founded in 1961 by Sandy and Caroline Paton and Lee Baker Haggerty. The label recorded Frank Proffi ...

in 1969, followed by a tribute album, ''Nothing Seems Better To Me: The Music of Frank Proffitt and North Carolina'', was issued in 2000.

Discography

*''Frank Proffitt Sings Folk Songs'',

*''Frank Proffitt of Reese NC'', Folk-Legacy Records *''Frank Proffitt Memorial Album'', Folk LegacyFrank Proffitt – Memorial Album :American Folk Music, Music CD, Traditional Folk Music, Folklore, Sea Shanties, Folk Hymns, Folk Song, Folk Ballads Folk Legacy
/ref> *''High Atmosphere: Ballads and Banjo Tunes from Virginia and North Carolina'',

Rounder Records Rounder Records is an independent record label founded in 1970 in Somerville, Massachusetts by Marian Leighton Levy, Ken Irwin, and Bill Nowlin. Focused on American roots music, Rounder's catalogue of more than 3000 titles includes records by Al ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proffitt, Frank 1913 births 1965 deaths People from Johnson County, Tennessee American folk musicians American folk singers American banjoists American folk-song collectors Old-time musicians Music of East Tennessee Music of Johnson County, Tennessee Musicians from Appalachia 20th-century American singers Singer-songwriters from Tennessee People from Beech Mountain, North Carolina