Frank Proffitt

Frank Noah Proffitt was an Appalachian old time banjoist who helped popularize the song "Tom Dooley" and was a key figure in inspiring musicians of the 1960s and 1970s to play the banjo. He was born in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee and was raised in the Reese area of Watauga County, 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. He was known for his carpentry skill; Proffitt's fretless banjos and dulcimers were homemade. In 1937, Frank Proffitt met folksong collector Frank Warner. Warner was searching out a dulcimer builder and thus began a 30-year friendship and song swapping. Warner collected his songs and shared them with Alan Lomax, 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 Proffitt, who had known both Dula and Laura Foster.